Love Studies

Profile of the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance by Maggie Coughlin Worth in the Romance Writers of America newsletter, Romance Writers Repor

When Wuxia Met Romance: The Pleasures and Politics of Transculturalism in Sherry Thomas’s My Beautiful Enemy

A case study of Sherry Thomas’s Qing-era My Beautiful Enemy (and its prequel, The Hidden Blade) allows for a fruitful discussion of changing representations of diversity in romance fiction and its appeal to readers. MBE’s heroine is Anglo-Chinese, and the novel’s plot draws on wuxia, a literary and cinematic genre that has a long history in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. It is also associated with immigration and exile, perhaps resonating with Thomas’s own move from China to the U.S. Readers might find its infusion in romance appealing for two reasons: one, it features a warrior heroine (a type popular in paranormal and urban fantasy romance, which questions gender roles), and second, it taps into the worldwide appreciation for wuxia, inspired by hits like Crouching Tiger. MBE enacts the genre’s features closely: the heroine is a righteous knight errant and a racial and gendered Other, intervening in nineteenth-century English and Chinese politics through uncanny martial means. Her struggle to determine her ethnic and political identities alongside filial piety and romantic love makes for a more transcultural romance novel

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

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

Fantasy Autobiography

This assignment is for a Fantasy Autobiography essay in the Liberal Arts: Social Sciences and Humanities FYS. It includes a research element as well as reflection. It is a high-stakes assignment worth 15% of the course grade and involves secondary research with an option to include primary research and auto-ethnography. There are three low-stakes writing tasks, a co-curricular activity write-up, and a presentation that lead up to this final essay. Students collect data at each of these stages and compile a draft that is a narrative of their past experiences as a student in high school, and that weaves in their LaGuardia experiences (in-class and co-curricular) and then visualizes a story of future professional success. Students revise the Autobiography draft over Week 9-10 using instructor feedback (on both content and mechanics) and present a condensed version of their essay to the class using a Powerpoint slideshow. Relevant Course Objectives: The following instructional objectives are the goals of the course (what the instructor expects to achieve): 1. Familiarize students with the types of research and methods utilized in the liberal arts. 2. Provide students with fundamental writing, reading and speaking opportunities necessary to develop essential skills for college success. 3. Familiarize students with key academic support resources related to student life and engage them in using these resources to advance academic success. 4. Connect students with their advising team, which will guide them in setting goals, exploring educational and career options, and developing an individualized educational plan. 5. Design opportunities for students to situate and contextualize their learning by making connections across disciplines, to prior learning, and to non-academic learning experiences, including co-curricular learning

Care seeking behaviour and various delays in tuberculosis patients registered under RNTCP in Pune city

Introduction: Case finding in tuberculosis is known to be influenced by factors such as patient motivation, care seeking, the degree of diagnostic suspicion by health care provider which could result in a delayed diagnosis. Objective: To determine care seeking behaviour and delay in diagnosis and treatment of new sputum positive tuberculosis patients registered under RNTCP. Material and Methods: Descriptive cross sectional study. 283 new sputum positive tuberculosis patients (?15 years of age) registered during a period of six months at two randomly selected tuberculosis unit of Pune city. Questionnaire by WHO was modified and used. Interviews were conducted in DOT centres. Statistical analysis: Frequency, mean and standard deviation, chi square test. Results: Mean age of patients was 35 (±15) years18% of patients were unemployed and 77% resided in urban slums. The commonest co morbidity in 7.4% and 3.5 % patients was HIV/ AIDS followed by diabetics respectively. Majority of the patients, for the first and second time visited a general practitioner. Median patient, health care system and total delay were 18, 22 and 47 days with mean of 24±21, 32±30 and 56±33 days respectively. Health care system delay was less (p<0.05) in patients who first visited the public health care facility than patients who first visited a private health care provider. Conclusions: General practitioners are preferred first choice of health care provider for tuberculosis patients. Mean health care system delay is more than patient delay

Pattern of congenital malformations in newborn: a hospital-based study

Background: Data on congenital malformations from developing countries like India are very few. However, it is important to have comprehensive and reliable data on the description and frequency of congenital malformations to allow surveillance and the implementation of appropriate public health strategies for prevention and management. In this study, we describe the pattern of congenital malformations seen in newborns delivered in tertiary care hospital of western Maharashtra. The objective was to study various newborn characteristics and to determine the frequency and pattern of congenital malformations at birth. Cross-sectional study conducted in Govt Medical College and Hospital Miraj, a tertiary care hospital in district of Maharashtra from June 2014 to November 2014 targeting all newborns delivered in hospital during study period.Methods: Data was collected by administering a semi structured questionnaire and a devised newborn screening clinical examination protocol.Results: Out of all 892 newborns (live births and still births), 24(2.69%) were having congenital malformations at birth and out of that, malformations involving circulatory system was highest i.e. 29.6% compared to other system.Conclusions: As compared to other studies circulatory disorders appear to be more common and by improvement in antenatal, postnatal diagnosis, early referral to tertiary hospital and early intervention most of these newborns can be saved

From Barbarized to Disneyfied: Viewing 1990s New York City Through Eve Dallas, J.D. Robb's Futuristic Homicide Detective

Reading the representation of New York City in J.D. Robb's/Nora Roberts's sci-fi detective romance In Death series via Andrew Karmen's critique of the 1990s' New York crime wave/crash narrative pushed by Giuiliani and Bratton's "broken windows" policing

Academia y romance: la figura de la académica negra y de color en las novelas románticas de 1980 a la actualidad

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.Las novelas románticas en inglés escritas y protagonizadas por mujeres negras, indígenas o de color conforman aún un grupo reducido, pero importante en el mercado. Este artículo propone un análisis de la diversidad racial, y más concretamente del personaje de la académica negra y el lenguaje de la justicia racial, en novelas recientes de este subgénero romántico, que se comparan con una serie de novelas publicadas en 1984 (Adam and Eva y All Good Things de Sandra Kitts, y A Toast to Love de Barbara Stephens). En American Love Story (2019) de Adrianna Herrera, Office Hours (2020) de Katrina Jackson y Take a Hint, Dani Brown (2020) de Talia Hibbert, las autoras recurren a personajes y escenarios académicos para visibilizar cómo las intersecciones de género, sexualidad, raza, clase, o las historias de inmigración se manifiestan en un entorno universitario, supuestamente el bastión del pensamiento libre. A diferencia del personaje de las novelas publicadas en 1984, la manifestación más reciente de esta figura verbaliza el coste que el racismo y el sexismo imponen a personas de color aparentemente exitosas y articula los cambios estructurales y las políticas reparadoras que deben adoptarse para lograr una equidad real