Romancing the University: BIPOC Scholars in Romance Novels in the 1980s and Now

I've entered this with the English version of the title, since the article itself is written in English. However, the main page for this issue of the journal gave it a translated title of "Academia y romance: la figura de la académica negra y de color en las novelas románticas de 1980 a la actualidad." There is also a Spanish version of the abstract in the pdf.

Here's the English version of the abstract:

English-language mass-market romance novels written by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) writers and starring BIPOC protagonists are a small but important group.This article is a comparative analysis of how recent representations of diversity in this sub-set of the genre, specifically the character of the Black academic and the language of racial justice, compare with the first group of BIPOC novels that were published in 1984 (Sandra Kitt’s Adam and Eva and All Good Things as well as Barbara Stephens’s A Toast to Love).In Adrianna Herrera’s American Love Story (2019), Katrina Jackson’s Office Hours (2020), and Talia Hibbert’s Take a Hint, Dani Brown (2020), the authors deploy the academic protagonists and setting to stage the intersections of gender, queerness, race, class, and immigrant histories, particularly as they manifest in academia, the supposed haven of free thought. In contrast to the 1984 BIPOC academic romantic protagonist, the more recent incarnation voices the cost that racism and sexism imposes even on seemingly successful people of color and articulates the structural changes and reparative policies that must be adopted for true equity.

---

my aim is to explore the representation of Black life in academia across two groups of romances separated by four decades; specifically, this article is a comparative analysis of the character of the Black academic—a graduate degree holder or doctoral student who is a teacher or expert practitioner in a scholarly discipline—in the first group of BIPOC novels published in the early 1980s and of more recent representations of the same in the genre. The comparison shows how the figure of the Black academic has served different functions in the past versus the present moment and highlights a dramatic shift in the way BIPOC romance authors address race and racism through the infusion of racial justice discourse in the recent works. (40)

---

Though all the novels immerse us in a multicultural world that is frequently sidelined in the genre, the 1984 ones focus on the love plot and show us the professional successes and competence of the academic character without referencing any racial barriers or biases that they or other marginalized groups face. In contrast, the recent works address discrimination by utilizing the academic character in a pedagogical capacity. In other words, the authors deploy the academic protagonists in the university setting to school the reader on the intersecting oppressions of gender, queerness, race, class, and immigrant histories, particularly as they manifest in academia, the supposed haven of free thought. (40)

---

The shift in the recent works toward incorporating overtly political statements calling out racism and other discriminations situates them in the post-Black Lives Matter era, which has a global resonance, as well as in queer challenges to homophobia and support for immigrants and refugees voiced by a new generation of activists (some of whom are descendants of these groups in the U.S. and the U.K.). The prior works can then be seen as emerging out of a phase of reformist Black politics in the U.S.in the 1970s, which placed emphasis on positive self-representation by African Americans rather than the confrontational strategy of the1960s (or the activist moment we are seeing now). (41)