About the Book

In this book, Amy Steinbugler challenges the widespread assumption that interracial intimacy represents the ultimate erasure of racial differences. She finds that while interracial partners may be more racially progressive, they are not necessarily enlightened subjects who have managed to get beyond race. Beyond Loving adeptly examines how interracial couples experience race in their everyday lives and how they engage one another to address fundamental questions about the significance of race in contemporary life.

Book Synopsis

Beyond Loving provides a critical examination of interracial intimacy in the beginning decades of the twenty-first century-an era rife with racial contradictions, where interracial relationships are increasingly seen as symbols of racial progress even as old stereotypes about illicit eroticism persist. Drawing on extensive qualitative research, Amy Steinbugler examines the racial dynamics of everyday life for lesbian, gay, and heterosexual Black/White couples. She disputes the notion that interracial partners are enlightened subjects who have somehow managed to "get beyond" race. Instead, for many partners, interracial intimacy represents not the end, but the beginning of a sustained process of negotiating racial differences. Her research reveals the ordinary challenges that partners frequently face and the myriad ways that race shapes their interactions with each other as well as with neighbors, family members, co-workers and strangers. Steinbugler analyzes the everyday actions and strategies through which individuals maintain close relationships in a society with deeply-rooted racial inequalities-what she calls "racework." Beyond Loving reveals interracial intimacy as an ongoing process rather than a singular accomplishment. This analytic shift helps us reach a new understanding of how race "works"-not just in intimate spheres, but across all facets of contemporary social life.

Review Quotes

"Using qualitative data of Black/White couples, Steinbugler has written a powerful book on how race works in everyday family life. She shows that one member of the couple is usually 'out of place' as the couples live in a neighborhood, go to church, or attend other events. These broader patterns create 'racial fatigue.' Beautifully written, the details of the couples' lives are at times poignant and funny; they are always revealing of the continuing significance of race in America."
-- Annette Lareau, University of Pennsylvania

"This is a beautifully written and theoretically innovative study of interracial intimacy that sociologists have been waiting for. It is destined to become a classic ethnography of race. Steinbugler provides new concepts that innovate and renovate studies of intimacy. This study should be required reading for courses devoted to race or racism, intimacy, American studies, sociology and cultural studies."
-- France Winddance Twine, University of California, Santa Barbara

"Beyond Loving is a finely developed and sophisticated analysis of the intersections of race, gender and sexuality as they relate to the ways Black/White straight and gay couples negotiate their multiple identities as they forge their lives together in contemporary America. This is truly original work and will become a foundational text in the study of interracial relationships."
-- Mignon R. Moore, author of Invisible Families: Gay Identities, Relationships and Motherhood among Black Women

About the Author

Amy C. Steinbugler is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Dickinson College.