"Critical and popular reading practices use strategies that often conflict. James Marshall, in an examination of studies of these different strategies, reports that academic critical reading and analysis are characterized by “the close reading of selected texts in relative isolation from cultural contexts”. By contrast, the popular reading practices of book groups and book clubs stress immersion in the world of the book and are “far more likely … to relate personal experiences, talk about important ethical issues, and share their emotional experience of reading”. Critical approaches tend to be text-centered; popular approaches draw more on readers’ social and individual contexts. In an examination of Janeites, or Austen fans, Claudia Johnson also contrasts popular and academic critical reading strategies. Academic practices specify "that it is inappropriate to talk about characters as if they were real people or in any way to speculate upon their lives before, after, or outside the text itself [as popular readers do]; that biographical information about an author is irrelevant at best and heretical (i.e., a ‘fallacy’) at worst; … that Austen’s novels are essentially about marriage, and that the courtship plot—rather than, say, the category character—is the major event in her fiction." It is important to note that the popular reading practices described by both Marshall and Johnson are highly intellectual. A critical reader might ask how the book’s narrative point of-view reveals a character, while a popular reader might consider how that character, as revealed in the book, would behave in a situation the book does not describe: “before, after, or outside the text itself.” Both begin with a text-based analysis (both evaluate the character as created by the book), even though one approach stays with the text and the other moves away from it."

1. Romance endorses women’s relational roles at the expense of their individual development - "Radway sees the romance’s emphasis on relational identity (the heroine regains her identity only through union with the hero) as patriarchally restrictive: “[t]he romance does deny the worth of complete autonomy. In doing so, however, it is not obliterating the female self completely. Rather, it is constructing a particular kind of female self, the self-in relation demanded by patriarchal parenting arrangements”...It is thus not surprising that feminist readers take alarm when they find that the literary genre that most encourages relational identity is also a genre directed mainly toward women."
2. Romance plots and characters validate abusive relationship patterns - "Even in contemporary romances, the relationship between hero and heroine can be highly dysfunctional, even abusive...Radway describes women’s interest in abusive romances as an attempt to come to terms with their oppression... Even the mildest of punishments still send the message that the best relationships evolve out of antagonism between the partners and humiliation of the heroine... Whatever its narrative rationalization, however, a genre in which love is repeatedly founded in hate sets a problematic model for human relationships."
3. Romance novels are commercial, formulaic productions of little literary value that perpetuate harmful media stereotypes - "Radway argues that romances are not only sold like advertised commodities, but have the same effect on their readers....By Radway's argument, romance buyers are fed virtual happiness, rather than acting to create real happiness...To the critic, if not to the romance reader, romances lack individuality...The other and more feminist problem with the romance novel’s commodification is that it repeats harmful gender stereotyping also found in the larger culture...Existing in a typological box themselves, romances encourage their readers to stay in them, and to seek other people who match pre-existing, standardized, and unrealistic expectations."

1. Romances offer women a way to acknowledge their oppression and imagine a better future - "Romances, then, allow their readers not only to experience vicarious nurturing through identification with the heroine, but also to acknowledge and explore the lack of nurturance in their own lives. If they do not encourage reform, they at least allow women to acknowledge the need for reform."
2. Romances challenge a male-modeled individualism - "Quite apart from the fact that nobody actually lives a single, self-contained existence, there are ideological perils in imagining such a life as the ideal state. The individual in the Western intellectual tradition has been defined by a male model...Romance and individualism indeed go hand-in-hand: romance is after all the celebration of individual choice (rather than family arrangement) in a relationship between two people, each of whom is uniquely irreplaceable to the other. If we are to critique romance as a social construction (and we ought to), then we should give individualism equal scrutiny."
3. Romance provides women with an alternative to a sexist high-culture literary canon - "Perhaps it is to be expected that a pedagogy founded on the assumption that romance is “disadvantageous to women” finds it more difficult to analyze a story in which a woman gains a hard-won understanding with a man she comes to admire and happily marry, than a story in which a woman idealizes a lover who steals her money, flirts with infidelity, and beats her. As long as students can’t analyze the romances that make them sigh, they will have only a fragmentary understanding of romance altogether...If we really want students to analyze the narratives of romance—utopian as well as dystopian—especially when we teach in a culture that is so caught up in these narratives, we must enable them to work critically from their pleasure as well as their discomfort."

1. Use and integrate multiple venues of discussion.
2. Juxtapose high- and low-culture romances - "As Pamela Regis reminds us, “[t]he courtship story [was] a major force shaping the novel in English”. Great novels are often great romances, and the moment we include high-culture texts in the romance genre, we dramatically increase the number of students willing to admit they enjoy romances. Including high-culture novels has the further advantage of opening the question of why some texts are valued in an academic context more than others. Students may consider factors from syntax to assumptions about originality to fan-culture reading practices to the dynamics of canon formation. Making romance novels the focus of these considerations helps us unpack how a text or genre’s association with women affects our perception of its literary quality, since romance is associated with women readers and writers."
3. Analyze pleasure - "If students feel comfortable admitting that they enjoy reading romances, they can turn a critical lens on their enjoyment... Because Radway studied housewives, for example, many of her explanations for romance reading revolve around homemakers’ needs and concerns. But if full-time college students read for reasons similar to those of Radway’s housewives (escapism, for instance), then what other explanations can they offer? What does pleasurable reading accomplish for them, and how do these ends differ from the ends accomplished through critical reading?"
4. Give air-time to both sides of the debate - "But when a genre is as widely-read and as provoking in its gender politics as romance is, we need to recognize that there are multiple ways to look at it. Students may have highly emotional responses to romance, whether because they cherish it deeply or because they feel it has harmed them."
5. Teachers who like romances (or who admire people who do) should admit it.

"For all that we see—accurately—as wrong in the romance, we should also suppose—humbly—that some of its appeal might be in its rightness. If we believe in the capacity of our students to distinguish between goods and evils, then we should open ourselves to appreciating the books that they appreciate—and assist them in turning an eye on their appreciation that is both critical and open-minded. As we do this, it cannot hurt to remember how often love is a positive force in human endeavor, whether it be romantic love for other people, or readerly love for the stories they tell."

1. A quote from Mary Shelley's Mathilda: '[...] arrived and quite incapable of taking off my wet clothes that clung about me. In the morning, on her return, [highlighted] my servant [end highlight] found me almost lifeless, while possessed by a high fever I was lying on the floor of my room.
2. A quote from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: [...] hands for joy and ran down to Clerval. [highlighted] We ascended into my room, and the servant presently brought breakfast; [end highlight] but I was unable to contain myself. It was not joy only that possessed me; I felt my flesh tingle with excess of sensitiveness, and my pulse beat rapidly.]

We are the governed, but we govern too. Assume our love of country, for it is only the simplest of self-love. Worry little about our strength, for we have our history to show for it. And because we are strong, there are others who have hope. But watch us more closely from now on, for those of us who stand here mean to watch those we put in the seats of power. And listen to us, you who lead, for we are listening harder for the truth that you have not always offered us. Your voice must be ours, and ours speaks of cities that are not safe, and of wars we do not want, of poor in a land of plenty, and of a world that will not take the shape our arms would give it. We are not fierce, and the truth will not frighten us. Trust us, for we have given you our trust. We are the governed, remember, but we govern too.