“The Purity of His Maleness: Masculinity in Popular Romance Novels” seeks to open a discussion between critical studies of men and masculinities and popular romance studies. The phrase “purity of his maleness” is taken from Janice Radway’s groundbreaking study of the popular romance novel, and from this vantage, the article considers how critical studies of men and masculinities might think about, respond to, and engage popular romance novels and scholarship.
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In this article, I want to think explicitly about the politics and representation of masculinity in the popular romance novel, which has hitherto been a largely unstudied area of inquiry in men’s studies. In this article, I will limit my discussion to name-brand romance novels (i.e., Harlequin, Silhouette) published in the 1980s and 1990s. Popular romance novels are a rich archive to study not least because of the vastness and diversity of that archive but also because these novels are fundamentally about “female-authored masculinities” (Frantz & Rennhak, 2010, p. 4). (27)
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