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Higher ed expert says it is ‘reasonable’ to ask what value this class creates
University of Florida students can learn about “werewolf romance” and a racially diverse mix of vampires in a literature class offered this semester.
Cognizant of sexual identity politics, the class promises students they will learn not just from “white women writers” but also “women writers of color as well as of differing classes and sexualities.”
The course, titled “Race/Gender/Paranormal/Romance” examines how these writers confronted “the remains of white middle-class conventions of the romance,” according to the fall 2026 course description.
Professor Tace Hedrick researches United States Latinx/Chicanx and Latin American Studies, specifically “focusing a feminist and Latinx Studies lens on…chica lit,” according to her university bio.
She also has taught classes on “Latina Chicana Feminisms” and “Feminist Fiction.”
The required reading in the paranormal romance course includes “The Magpie Lord,” by KJ Charles, which is part of a series described by Publishers Weekly as a “gay Victorian fantasy series” featuring “sexual tension” between men.
Students also read “Android Love in Feminist Fantasy,” and material on “Mexican Vampires,” “Transhuman Blackness,” and “African American Vampire Fiction.”
The course also looks at Kelley Armstrong’s “Bitten” about a female werewolf.
The College Fix asked Hedrick about the reading material and what students will learn in her class. She did not respond to two emails and two phone calls in the past three weeks.
However, a policy analyst with Heritage Foundation’s education research center criticized the course content.
“There may be few roles in which a study of this particular subject would be advantageous for the student in a future career,” Madison Doan said in an email to The Fix.
“Every course taken represents an opportunity cost,” the Heritage Foundation expert told The Fix. Doan co-authored a book called “Slacking,” which reviews core curriculum classes at Ivy League colleges.
The English Language and Literature majors at the University of Florida have specializations that include, but are not limited to, African American/African Diaspora Studies, feminisms, genders, and postcolonial studies.
These degrees often do not pay back, according to Dean.
“The English Language and Literature majors at the University of Florida (UF) are predicted to have a negative ROI of approximately $132,000 post-graduation (assuming on-time graduation),” she said.
“Because UF is a public institution supported by significant taxpayer dollars,” Doan said, “it is also reasonable for policymakers and taxpayers to ask whether academic programs are producing positive educational and economic outcomes for students.”
She said the classes are more focused on a “niche topic,” Doan said, instead of a “rigorous understanding of literature.”
Academia has previously taken an interest in the sexual and racial identity politics behind vampires.
In 2023, two gender studies scholars argued vampires were a “queer icon,” as The Fix previously reported.
