Representations of Otherness in Paranormal Romance: Race and Wealth in Nalini Singh and J. R. Ward

Publication year
2020
Pages
127-144
Comment

From the introduction:

María T. Ramos-García draws attention to the dual and often contradictory dimensions of racial and ethnic diversity in paranormal romance: the "real" one based on the race of the characters, and the metaphorical one based on the supernatural species represented and their dynamics. In this context, she analyzes J. R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series and concludes that Ward’s texts offer a disturbing social and racial subtext of separation and prejudice, while Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series appears to offer a utopian near-future alternative-reality world in which physical differences in skin color, facial features and origin have lost all meaning, however this happens at the expense of cultural diversity. Furthermore, drawing on Amira Jarmakani’s observations on the sheikh novel after 9/11, Ramos-García demonstrates how in Singh’s work humanistic liberalism is conflated with neoliberal economic values. (7)