Discursos e Identidades en la Ficción Romántica: Visiones Anglófonas de Madeira y Canarias / Discourses and Identities in Romance Fiction: Anglophone Visions from Madeira and the Canaries

A review by Francesca Pierini was published in the Journal of Popular Romance Studies.

Este libro tiene un formato bilingüe. The essays in this book appear in both Spanish and English-language versions. Here's the English version of the abstract:

Disdained by critics for its status as popular and feminine literature, romance fiction not only remains unbeatable in the publishing market in terms of sales, but has also been the subject of interesting academic studies in recent decades. "Discourses and Identities in Romance Fiction" joins this trend by addressing the interdisciplinary analysis of a corpus of novels published in English between 1955 and 2004. Set on the Atlantic islands of Madeira and the Canaries, these texts develop a variety of discourses that reveal a very Anglophone vision of the places visited by their protagonists. In addition to the expected gender discourse, these romances tend to include a paradise narrative that highlights the exoticism of the islands, sometimes awakening environmental awareness. Linguistic and even racial attitudes also come to the forefront, as the writers explore and describe the features of the Other. Neither the characters nor the narrators are oblivious to the clash of identities and the linguistic contact (English-Spanish and English-Portuguese) exposed in this type of novels, revealing the conflicts generated by national, gender and/or ethnic identities behind the apparent simplicity of their love plots.  

I've only included one topic tag, as this refers to a section of the book which is not included as an essay. The essays, of course, are marked with the relevant topic tags. Regarding the teaching of romance, Pierini's review states that:

The volume ends with an appendix devoted to teaching activities based on the themes treated in the essays. The field of Popular Romance Studies is particularly attentive towards didactic issues, chiefly because scholars, seeking to further establish the discipline within academic institutions that still largely neglect its value and significance, have adopted a self-reflexive perspective towards their own work. It is therefore not only commendable, but also auspicious to come across a substantial scholarly work concretely reaching out to students by making its contents approachable and available to them.