Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: The contributors are grateful to ABO and the journal's editors for this conversational space to address vital issues about racism in Austen spaces.These pieces comprise voices outside and inside of academia, voices of those who work in different Austen spaces, including social media, television, heritage, and publishing.We are aware that publishing this work crosses many boundaries and brings worlds together that are not usually put in conversation together: we believe they need to be.We are grateful for the specialized work that the editors have done to bring this cluster forward: we also believe that more anti-racist strategies are needed in publishing to support the work of Black, Latina/x and people of colour.We are not aware of another volume on Austen, published in the US, that is authored entirely by writers of the global majority and are pleased to be part of this effort.In a recent essay for a co-edited volume, Austen After 200: New Reading Spaces, (forthcoming from Palgrave Macmillan), I discuss the reform of Mr. Darcy as described by Marilyn Butler in Jane Austen and the War of Ideas (1975) as part of a broader move within the British novel to solidify Protestant imperial expansion.In this cultural context, Darcy's improvement means he becomes more socially flexible, while also acting as a locus of "good British values."Through Darcy, Austen seeks to rescue the corrupt upper classes and make them fit for imperial purpose.The romance plot, however, functions to eroticize Darcy's social duty and, by helping Lydia and Wickham, he becomes the perfect hero who, rather than reveling in flowery sentiment, acts benignly for the common good.In this Introduction to the cluster focusing on Race, Racism and Austen Spaces, I consider, below, the cultural contexts for the eroticization of the imperial male in Austen spaces.This eroticization masks their function as lynchpins of colonial and imperial power.Austen adaptations make the imperial erotic as the power of acquisition, domination, and extraction is wrapped up in the ideal Regency hero for today whose romantic currency makes them irresistible.The need to continue to be attentive and trenchant about the colonial and imperial contexts of Austen studies and spaces, past and present, has arguably never been more urgent.Since 2020, support has fallen dramatically for Black Lives Matter (BLM) and this itself testifies to an overall withdrawal of support from white people for Black and racialized "others" (Cornish).It is not possible to divorce this social moment from Austen studies however much readers and viewers may wish the texts and content to offer an escape from real-world issues.The essays in this cluster make new and urgent arguments about how we need to continue to read race and racism in Austen, Austen adaptations, Austen social media, and
Author: Kerry Sinanan
Institution: The University of Texas at San Antonio
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4362714989