Race and Romance: Coloring the Past

This study brings race and the literary tradition of romance into dialogue.

Race and Romance: Coloring the Past explores the literary and cultural genealogy of colorism, white passing, and white presenting in the romance genre. The scope of the study ranges from Heliodorus' Aithiopika to the short novels of Aphra Behn, to the modern romance novel Forbidden by Beverly Jenkins. This analysis engages with the troublesome racecraft of "passing" and the instability of racial identity and its formation from the premodern to the present. The study also looks at the significance of white settler colonialism to early modern romance narratives. A bridge between studies of early modern romance and scholarship on twenty-first-century romance novels, this book is well-suited for those interested in the romance genre.

Author: Margo Hendricks
Publisher: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance S
Published: 04/05/2022
Pages: 160
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.39lbs
Size: 8.70h x 5.80w x 0.40d
ISBN13: 9780866986595
ISBN10: 0866986596
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | American | African American & Black
- Literary Criticism | Women Authors
- Literary Criticism | Modern | 16th Century

About the Author
Margo Hendricks is professor emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is coeditor, with Patricia Parker, of Women, Race and Writing in the Early Modern Period, and she publishes romance novels under the pen name Elysabeth Grace