This year’s college seminar listings included one most titillating offering; “Reading the Historical Romance Novel” taught by Andrea Darif and Lauren Willig.  The syllabus describes the need for this type of course because “despite the dismissive sniffs, “romance” is achieving not only commercial success but serious academic attention as well.”  It was, however, very surprising to see my suitemate come home from the Yale bookstore with books with titles such as Regency Buck, The Accidental Duchess, and to top it all off: Beyond Heaving Bosoms; The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels. It wasn’t so surprising to see her with all those books, especially after the time she dragged me along to an erotica writing workshop (side note: erotica and romance novels are two different genres, but romance novels often contain erotic imagery), but the fact that the books came from the Yale bookstore and were to be read for course credit made me confused, jealous, and hot.

A journalist at the New Haven Register feels similarly, according to a recent article detailing the class and its professors (“Romance is a rather broad term for a whole genre of books ranging from historical romance fiction, mysteries, family sagas to chick lit. This is purported to be the first such class at an Ivy League school.”).  The class hasn’t been picked up by Gawker yet, but I’m sure that once it does Yale will start getting accusations of being too liberal, not teaching what kids need to be taught anymore, too sex-obsessed, and inspiring a generation of sex-crazed-sex-novelists.  Not that we aren’t.