Clichés, Critics, and Cultural Bias: A Defense of Romance Literature
Start Date
April 2025
Location
2nd floor - Library
Abstract
For this research project, we explored why the romance genre evokes negative responses from academia and certain readers despite it being one of literature’s most popular genres. Described with adjectives like “cliche,” “shallow,” and “easy,” the genre has earned a bad reputation, discouraging people from pursuing or openly enjoying its work, showing that the perceptions of romance literature reflect a gendered bias. For this paper we asked: why is the romance genre found so inferior in academia and popular opinion despite the fact that it is widely read literature? In order to answer this question, we conducted a survey of the Xavier student body, gathering their general opinions and perceptions of several literary genres. The goal of this research is to understand what has contributed to the negative perceptions of romance literature and by extension, female authors who write romance literature.
Clichés, Critics, and Cultural Bias: A Defense of Romance Literature
2nd floor - Library
For this research project, we explored why the romance genre evokes negative responses from academia and certain readers despite it being one of literature’s most popular genres. Described with adjectives like “cliche,” “shallow,” and “easy,” the genre has earned a bad reputation, discouraging people from pursuing or openly enjoying its work, showing that the perceptions of romance literature reflect a gendered bias. For this paper we asked: why is the romance genre found so inferior in academia and popular opinion despite the fact that it is widely read literature? In order to answer this question, we conducted a survey of the Xavier student body, gathering their general opinions and perceptions of several literary genres. The goal of this research is to understand what has contributed to the negative perceptions of romance literature and by extension, female authors who write romance literature.
