Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, we have had to cancel or make private the remaining events in the Spring 2020 UNSUITABLE series. Please join us in person in Spring 2021 for the continuation of our public speakers series. Until then, we hope you stay safe and well.

Please note that the UNSUITABLE event “Pride and Prejudice Redux” featuring Uzma Jalaluddin and Eileen Chow, originally scheduled for March 16, has been cancelled due to Duke University’s extended spring break.

The April 1 and April 13 events have not yet been cancelled or changed. Please consult the schedule closer to those dates.

We look forward to hopefully  seeing you soon!

Here at UNSUITABLE we’re busy planning an exciting Spring 2019 season of visitors.  Mark your calendars and save the dates for award-winning author of gorgeous contemporary romances Sonali Dev on February 15th, and bestselling author of brilliantly original historical romances Theresa Romain on March 22nd.  Look for more special guest announcements to come soon, and please note our change of venue: events will take place at this year’s UNSUITABLE sponsor, the MicroWorlds Lab, on Duke’s East Campus (easier parking!).

See you in the Spring!

In early 2016, as part of an effort to encourage more university Women’s Studies programs to include courses about popular fiction in their offerings, one of the largest US publishing companies, HarperCollins Publishers, created a blog called Gender & Genre (full disclosure: this is currently my publisher), and invited its academically inclined authors of women’s fiction to contribute to it. My piece came directly from my experience teaching romance fiction and the genre romance industry to undergraduate students at Duke University. As part of our ongoing conversation about women and popular fiction, I’m sharing it here.

https://gendergenre.wordpress.com/2016/05/23/cinderella-revisted-or-why-i-teach-the-history-of-the-romance-novel-to-university-students/

Empowered heroines? Great sex? Wildly popular?

IT MUST BE “TRASH”

If you’re a Duke undergrad or graduate student visiting here for the first time, welcome!

“The Romance Novel” course (HST 248S.01) is for students interested in popular culture, popular fiction, history, literature, questions of race, ethnicity, gender and sexualities (femininity and masculinity), writing, and creative entrepreneurship.

This course explores the history, development, consumption and form of the modern commercial novel through a study of the most popular fiction in the world today: the romance novel. Throughout the semester we investigate the romance novel’s role in popular American culture, its rise to dominate 50% of the U.S. publishing market, and the dramatic changes that have occurred in the past several years in the publishing industry, largely driven by changes in romance fiction. We examine romance in its context in the larger publishing and entertainment industries, how creative projects become commercial products, and the gender politics of both the reception and rejection of romance — a women-driven and controlled industry — in the broader culture. We address issues of female agency as well as models of femininity and masculinity that often seek to define and constrict creative work in the commercial world, and explore questions of race and sexuality in romance fiction and the industry as well. In short, we engage in a critical, active discussion of a massive cultural phenomenon that is often overlooked in university studies.

Additionally, this course teaches the tools to better understand writing as an act of entrepreneurship and how to make a viable, successful career out of creative endeavor. Our studies include the choices a writer must make in shaping her or his career in publishing (publication with a traditional publisher? self-publish? ebook only? print distribution?), marketing (branding, social media, packaging, networking, platform), and the development of an artistic career with conscious intent through the determination of long-term career goals and the establishment of a plan to reach them. Students will work on writing skills as they begin to write their own novels.

This blog belongs to students registered in the class and is a creation of the class as a whole. Additionally, throughout the semester we welcome into the classroom special guests — industry professionals and luminaries, who share and debate with students on topics concerning writing, creative careers, publishing, sexuality, gender, race, history, and literature. Click here for this year’s UNSUITABLE Speakers Series schedule.

The course meets Spring 2016 semester, Mondays and Wednesdays 4:40-5:55pm.  Students earn W, ALP, CZ and CCI credit (with EI potential).

You can learn about the course instructors here, and contact them with questions.

I look forward to seeing you in the classroom in January!

– Katharine Brophy Dubois