Making Meaning in Popular Romance Fiction: An Epistemology

Despite pioneering studies, the term "romance novel" itself has not been subjected to scrutiny. This study examines mass-market romance fiction in the U.K., Canada, and the U.S. through four categories: capitalism, war, heterosexuality, and white Protestantism to cast a fresh light on the genre. Adopting Michel Foucault's idea of the 'episteme,' Jayashree Kamble argues that romance novels are a quintessentially twentieth and twenty-first century genre and rooted in the real world conditions (episteme) that correspond to the four elements above. As such, romance fiction provides a prismatic look at the struggles around globalization, 'democratic' armed aggression, heteropatriarchy, and historically Protestant values, particularly as understood by the genre's readers and authors.