CFP: Popular Romance and Men’s / Masculinity Studies

From Eric Selinger:

Brandon University professor Jonathan A. Allan (Canada Research Chair in Queer Theory) is looking for proposals on men / masculinities in popular romance fiction for the 2018 American Men’s Studies Association conference, which will be held March 22-25 in Minneapolis, MN. The deadline in the CFP is October 15, 2017.

Jonathan was one of the guest editors of the Journal of Popular Romance Studies special issue on Queer/ing Popular Romance, and he is currently at work on a book called Men, Masculinities, and Popular Romance (Routledge).

There’s a lot of work to be done on this topic, not least because the romance archive includes masculinities that range from the hyper-hegemonic to the quietly or radically disruptive, and the Call for Papers makes it clear that the conference is open to an equally wide range of topics. Their bullet point list includes:

• Queering masculinities, sexualities, bodies
• Transgender studies and men’s studies
• Men and/or masculinities in BDSM and leather cultures
• Masculinities and sexualities (i.e. heterosexual, gay, bisexual, pansexual, etc.)
• Effeminophobia in/and theories of masculinity
• Fantasies and desires in/through bodies and masculinities
• The material, phenomenological, and real body
• Pharmaceutical and medical interventions on the body
• Masculinities without men, men without masculinities
• Men, bodies, and digital technologies
• Aging, youth, and sexualities across the life-span

If you’re interested in pursuing this, please get in touch with Jonathan, or with me (Eric Selinger, IASPR president) before the October 15 deadline.

The intersection of popular romance studies and men’s / masculinity studies is a very promising development in our field. There is work, wild work, to be done!