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Why are we so invested in the fantasy of nineteenth-century romance? From a craze for Jane Austen to Shonda Rhimes’ Bridgerton, we keep coming back to balls, dashing heroes, and the marriage plot. Who, and what, do these fantasies empower? Who gets left out of the romance? This course examines both the realities of nineteenth-century marriage, love, and sexuality, and their modern re-imaginings. We cover gendered readership during the nineteenth-century print boom, the idea of canonical literature, and the role of race, class, and sexuality in both society and romantic narratives, as well as the difference between “high” and “low” culture, filmic adaptation, and fan-culture.