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#RomanceClass: Genre World, Intimate Public, Found Family

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Abstract

#RomanceClass is a community which encompasses the authors, readers, actors, and artists who consume, produce, and enact mostly self-published English-language romance fiction in the Philippines. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken in 2019, this article explores the key characteristics of #RomanceClass, including the ways in which positions itself in relation to the dominant North American conception of the romance novel and publishing industry, so as to build new understanding of how romance fiction is created and negotiated outside of this hegemonic context. It finds that #RomanceClass operates as an “intimate public” [Berlant in The female complaint: the unfinished business of sentimentality in American culture, Duke University Press, Durham, London, 2008], which intrinsically affects the community’s texts and practices.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, VIC, 3125, Australia

    Jodi McAlister

  2. School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Claire Parnell

  3. Department of Filipino, School of Humanities, Loyola Schools, Ateneo de Manila University, Manila, Philippines

    Andrea Anne Trinidad

Authors
  1. Jodi McAlister
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  2. Claire Parnell
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  3. Andrea Anne Trinidad
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Correspondence to Jodi McAlister.

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McAlister, J., Parnell, C. & Trinidad, A.A. #RomanceClass: Genre World, Intimate Public, Found Family. Pub Res Q 36, 403–417 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-020-09733-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-020-09733-1

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