‘Romance of Race’ reveals rich cultural historyPosted in Articles, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, United States, Women on 2013-02-19 02:25Z by Steven |
‘Romance of Race’ reveals rich cultural history
BGSU News
Bowling Green, Ohio
Thursday, 2013-02-14
A new book by Dr. Jolie Sheffer is further confirmation that one should never doubt the power of the pen. “The Romance of Race: Incest, Miscegenation, and Multiculturalism in the United States, 1890-1930,” published in January by Rutgers University Press, explains the role of minority women writers and reformers in the creation of modern American multiculturalism.
Like their male counterparts Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo in Europe, these authors provided their largely middle-class, female readers an intimate and sympathetic look at people with whose lives they were otherwise unfamiliar. Through stories of romances between white men and minority women told in human terms, authors such as María Cristina Mena, Mourning Dove, Onoto Watanna and Pauline Hopkins created a vision of the United States as a mixed-race, even incestuous nation, says Sheffer, English and American culture studies…
Read the entire article here.