Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Conference: 16-19 April
Where available I've included links to the abstracts of the papers, a brief quote from each, and links to further details about each of the presenters.
Romance I: Sex, Death and Reading Minds
- Reading the American Romance Novel: Sukey Vickery's Emily Hamilton ["my reading will [...] examine two of the deepest repositories of meaning in the romance—barrier and ritual death—in the context of the legal and societal forces that shaped courtship in the early Republic"] - by Pamela Regis, McDaniel College
- "This is Not a Love Song": Coupling and Uncoupling in Wuthering Heights ["Wuthering Heights destabilizes the marriage plot through a persistent deconstruction of the romantic couple as the locus of love"] - by Angela Toscano, University of Iowa
- Portrait of the Heroine as High-Maintenance: The Triumphant Cheerleader in LindaHoward's To Die For ["To Die For [...] exposes a false binary (“gentle lady who survives danger versus assertive woman who dies”) with which novel heroines are often confronted."] - by Jayashree Kamble, University of Minnesota
- Writing Romance in an Era of HIV/AIDS [Brenda "Jackson’s narratives transform the lexicon of HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns by eroticizing safe-sex and by interconnecting pleasure, sensuality, and responsibility."] - by Julie Moody-Freeman, DePaul University
- The Lord is My Highlander ["The way to happiness, Set Apart argues, is to 'turn the pen of [one’s] life over to God' so that he, as a kind of supernatural Jane Austin, might write his heroines into their perfect love match"] - by Katharine Torrey, Virginia Tech
- The Trope of Idolatry: Love versus God in Popular Romance Fiction ["the crux of the mainstream romance hinges on the ability of the hero and heroine to place their developing love in an often explicitly God-like position – that is to say, to serve the interests of that love above all other needs and desires, and in direct opposition to divine will"] - by Kathrina Haji Mohd Daud, Universiti Brunei Darussalam
- Life was Fiction in Disguise: Thinking Through Victoria Dahl's "Tumble Creek" Trilogy ["Among the many changes in American popular romance publishing since the 1980s has been the emergence of grouped or linked romance novels: sets of books that feature overlapping characters in a shared setting, but without an overarching story arc"] - by Eric Selinger, DePaul University
- Juxtaposition, Framing, and Complexity in Elizabeth Hoyt's Fairy-Tale Intertexts ["This paper will consider the metatextual fairy-tale elements of Hoyt’s novels -- including juxtaposition and framing -- to argue that her retellings subvert rather than reproduce the messages of the source fairy tales"] - by Linda Lee, University of Pennsylvania
Romance IV: Modern Love/Love and Modernism
- Living Dada: Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings, A Love Story ["He was a disillusioned, formerly pious Christian, a pacifist, writer, poet, and passport-forger. She was an on-again, off-again prostitute, performance artist, singer and accused murderer"] - by Kris Belden-Adams, University of Mississippi
- The Novels of Edna Ferber, An Important Link in Popular American Women's Fiction ["romance scholars [...] in their vigorous attempts to develop a legitimate field of study have too narrowly defined the genre and thus isolated the study of romance from its possible historical connections"] - by Deborah Chappel Traylor, Arkansas State University
- "Horrors of half-knowledge": The Gothic, Barbara Cartland, and modernism ["Cartland and modernists used classic Gothic conventions transformed to suit the historical conditions of modernity in order to represent the uncanny nature of love, possessive and brutal lovers, and the horrors of sex"] - by Taryn Norman, University of Tennessee
- Retail, Reluctance & the Romance of Big-Box Bookselling ["images and tropes of romance were used to frame and stabilize massive shifts in the practices and institutions of bookselling in America"] - by Derek Attig, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- It's Not Just in His Kiss: Paratextual Understandings of Popular Romance Formats ["In this paper I tackle the question of romance formats head on by comparatively analyzing the paratextual conventions and institutional framing of category and single title romance novels respectively"] - by An Goris, University of Leuven
- Love in the e-book library: Where are all the romance bestsellers? (co-author Jessica Moyer) - by Renee Bennett-Kapusniak, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
- Erotic Romance 2.0: The (Re)Emergence of the Erotic in Commercial Romance - ["Less concerned with finding a place on the shelf of a brick-and-mortar bookstore, digital romances can more actively advertise their kinks and their sexual content."] by Katherine Morrissey, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
- Carriers of Relationships: Love Sustained By -- Not Just Within -- Romance Novels ["romance novels are not simply about love; they sustain it through varied intimate and civic relationships."] - by Stephanie Moody, University of Michigan
- The Armitage Effect: The C19 Message Board and the development of RomanceNovelists ["over a dozen writers have made the move from fan fiction author to published romance novelist. Most of these published novels had their start as fan fiction based either on North and South or one of Armitage’s other roles"] - by Leah Larson, Our Lady of the Lake University
- When the First Read is a Re-Read: How Excerpts and Daily Lines Are Changing theRomance Reading Experience ["Debates over reading excerpts and daily lines appear repeatedly in Gabaldon’s online forum, and my paper explores what those debates reveal about how social media platforms are changing the ways readers read romance"] - by Jessica Matthews, George Mason University
Romance VIII: Reading the Romance Turns Thirty (2): a Roundtable Discussion with Janice Radway
Romance IX: Histories, Geographies
- "You've got to have a kilt, you've got to have a sword" - the portrayal of Scotland inpopular romance fiction ["explores the difference between historical accuracy and authenticity and the ways in which writing within a genre like popular romance fiction can both confirm and confound national stereotypes"] - by Euan Hague, DePaul University
- Definition and Representation of Love in The Other Boleyn Girl: A Study of Philippa Gregory's Novel and Justin Chadwick's Movie ["Is it a childish love story, a courtly love game, or is there a real passionate love between Henry VIII and Mary Boleyn?"] - by Tulin Ece Tosun, Purdue University
- Discourse of Enlightment: Revolution and Love in Romance in Republican China and Colonial Taiwan ["In Taiwan under the Japanese colonial rule, romance writers also advocate free love, gender equality, and service to the Japanese imperial nation"] - by Fang-Mei Lin, National Taiwan Normal University
- The Homosexual in the Modern Regency Romance ["examines the figure of the homosexual supporting character within mainstream heterosexual historical romances [...] published within the past five years "] - by Sara Rhodes, Penn State Erie, the Behrend College
- Sacrificing Virgins (and Near Virgins): Post-9/11 Captivity Fantasies in Contemporary Sheikh Romances ["the reconciliation of the United States and the Middle East depends as much on cultural imagination--embodied in part in romance novels--as it does on actual policy initiatives"] - by Stacy Holden, Purdue University
- Hurrem in the Harem: The Sheik Fantasy on Turkish Television ["how would the trope of the transformative Western woman look through the perspective of Muslims in the Middle East?"] - by Heather Schell, George Washington University
- "He was like nothing else she'd ever known": Hapa Identity, Miscegenation, andCosmopolitanism in Anne Stuart's Ice Blue ["I investigate three specific sites where the anxiety over crossing cultural, racial and national boundaries is present in the novel"] - by Mallory Jagodzinski, Bowling Green State University
- Sleeping with the Enemy? ["In Meljean Brook’s Iron Seas world, complex international politics have a direct and compelling impact on personal relationships "] - by Sarah Ficke, Marymount University
- Society Restored... Or Maybe Not: The Challenge of Restoring Society in Serial Paranormal Romance and Urban Phantasy ["the finality of the resolution becomes problematic when the novel is part of a series, based in the same narrative world and with the same characters, even if there is a focus on a different couple"] - by Maria Ramos-Garcia, South Dakota State University
- Paranormal Romance: Mainstreaming the Supernatural ["Paranormal literature and film used to occupy a conceptual niche that was linked to horror and the Gothic—but that was when non-human creatures were represented as 'monsters,' not charming love interests. The mainstreaming of the genre has been largely due to its merging with the romance"] - by Claudia Bucciferro, Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA
- Transgressive Femininity: Talking to Readers of Paranormal Romance ["The heroines of paranormal romance fictions often exhibit strength, aggressiveness, and a propensity for violence; readers enjoy this transgressive femininity, or feminine masculinity"] - by Kelly Choyke, Ohio University
- Examining Addiction in Popular Romance: Downside Ghost's Chess Putnam - by Esther Guenat, Temple College
- The Evolution of Lesbian Romance as an Emerging Genre: 1965 to Present ["traces the timeline of the development of the lesbian romance novel as an emerging genre with notes on sub-genre identification citing specific titles, including examples of cover copy, publisher catalog nomenclature, and marketing language"] - by Len Barot, Bold Strokes Books
- When Tab B Meets Slot C: The Sexual Script in Gay Romance Fiction ["I will look at twenty popular gay contemporary romance novels [...] look at [...] factors in the relationship [...] i.e. age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, attractiveness, physical ability status) and see how far the novels deviate from the traditional sexual script in terms of behaviour"] - by Anna Fahraeus, Halmstad University
- Queering the Romance Genre: Sub-Genres, Tropes, and Memes within Male Male Romances ["My study will determine what sub-genres exist, such as Paranormal, SF/F, and BDSM; what tropes are apparent, such as Gay-for-You, Outing for Love, and Mid-Life Awakening; and, what memes dominate the field, such as disability, virginity, and HIV. I plan to build a database of approximately 600 male/male romances"] - by Dawn Gott, University at Buffalo-SUNY
- Anonymity, Allies, and Appropriation: M/M Romance, E-Publishing, and On-Line Identity ["the activities of m/m writers have sparked a heated debate about whether they are exploiting gay male sexuality, are glbtq allies, are simply not to be considered gay writers, are engaged in an unethical act, or are attempting to 'pass' as gay males"] - by Sarah McGinley, Wright State University and Old Dominion University
A roundtable on the influence on Janice Radway’s Reading The Romance on the romance genre, its novels, novelists and scholars. Also the Romance Area’s annual Open Forum in which we discuss the on-going development of the field of Popular Romance Studies.
Romance XIV: Mid-Century Romance: Teens, Gothic and Adventure
- With Love from Priests and Pilots: WWII Fan Letters and the Gendering of TeenRomance Novels ["letters, [...] written mostly by servicemen entering war or young men studying to become priests, represent two very different forms of institutionalized masculinity. As such, they call into question the assumption that the first readers of romance novels aimed at teenagers were female"] - by Amanda Allen, Eastern Michigan University
- More than "Entertainments": The Romantic Suspense of Mary Stewart ["Stewart combines the neo-gothic traditions of Daphne du Maurier and Eleanor Burford with the traditional mysteries of Georgette Heyer and Mary Westmacott to establish the foundations of the romantic suspense subgenre."] - by Maryan Wherry, Western Illinois University Quad Cities
- 'Snob Value': Intertextuality and Literary Worth in Mary Stewart ["Stewart is a subversive writer, whose work seeks to undermine the superiority of the canon, and redefine notions of literary value"] - by Faye Keegan, Newcastle University, UK
- Modesty Blaise and Madeleine Brent: The Two Sides of Peter O'Donnell ["This essay has a dual purpose [...]: to get critics in the field of popular romance studies talking about Peter O’Donnell a.k.a. Madeleine Brent, and to link the romances of Madeleine Brent, through Modesty Blaise, to the Victorian popular adventure story, their true progenitor"] - by Christine Bolus-Reichert, University of Toronto
- Pop Culture Representations of Affect in Monogamous and Polyamorous Relationships - ["Does a person’s belief about whether his/her personal pair-bonding strategy is innate or learned influence his/her affective reaction to a partner’s intimate interactions with others?"] by Antoinette Izzo, UNLV, Cultural Anthropology
- A Study in Couples: the "Need" to Extend Friendship to Romance in Sherlock Holmes ["why does it seem to be so important to us whether or not Sherlock and John Watson might have, did, or will hook up?"] - by Lauren Rosales, University of Iowa
- How I Didn't Become Your Mother: Representations of Child-free Women in Contemporary American Sitcoms ["HIMYM, a long-running sitcom using the traditional romance narrative arc, demonstrates “an obsession with women reproducing and mothering,” and re-inscribes voluntary childlessness as the choice of women who deviate from gender norms"] - by Jessica Van Slooten, University of Wisconsin-Manitowoc
Other papers of interest include:
Sex, Love, Romance and... Academic Writing?: Relationships in Popular Culture as a Springboard for an Extended Academic Research Project ["This presentation will describe a classroom-tested sequence of writing assignments that leads undergraduates (sophomores-seniors) to compose 15-25 page academic papers on sex, love, and romance in the mass media"] - by Gwen Hart, Buena Vista University
Passionate Virtue: conceptions of professionalism in the medical romance ["these texts, which strive for 'realism' on their own terms, negotiate contemporary threats to nostalgic professionalism, such as commercialism, consumerism, and third party usurpation of physician autonomy"] - by Jessica Miller, University of Maine
Relearning Modern Day Vampire Mythology through Popular Paranormal Romance Novels ["discussing some of the current adult vampire paranormal romance series that modify our traditional notions about vampires"] - by Jessica Haggerty, Western Governors University
Reading Our Lives: the Cultural Work of Contemporary Women's Book Clubs ["Using the survey Janice Radway developed for the study which culminated in her groundbreaking work Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature, I designed a lengthy reader survey that I distributed to [...] eleven women's book clubs"] - by Liana Odrcic, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
The Princess Bride: A Myth for Modern Times ["True love is transformational. True love kills us and resurrects us. The lovers in this film individually and together must go through their own symbolic deaths and resurrections"] - by Jan Peppler, Pacifica Graduate Institute
Fifty Shades of Hope: Finding Healing Erotic Power in a Cultural Phenomenon ["The cultural phenomenon created by the Fifty Shades books as well as the books’ narrative will be explored as evidence of a cultural move towards embracing erotic power as well an illustration of how relationships can be transformed by erotic mutuality"] - by Julie Clawson, independent scholar
Wow, that's a lot of papers. Thanks for putting this together. I'll need to find a way to clone myself to get to all of them. I'm very excited. What a great romance area Eric and An have put together.
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