Monday, October 30, 2017

Call for Papers: Heyer Conference in London


The Nonesuch? Georgette Heyer and Her Historical Fiction Contemporaries

UCL, London, June 19th 2018

The call for papers was tweeted, with the details embedded in this image. In case that makes the text hard to read, I've transcribed the call for papers below the image.



Proposals for papers and sessions are invited for a one-day conference to be held at UCL on June 19th, 2018.

Plenary: Professor Kathryn Sutherland, Professor of Bibliography & Textual Criticism, Oxford University

This interdisciplinary conference is aimed primarily at exploring Heyer's historical novels, but will also set her work in context with other contemporary female historical fiction writers, such as Norah Lofts, Margaret Irwin, Margaret Campbell Barnes, and Anya Seton, and with contemporary Regency romance.

Papers are invited on any aspect of Heyer's historical works, including:

* Sources and influences
* Critical and popular reception
* Class, gender and sexuality
* Publishing and marketing histories

We hope that the day will be a combination of formal and informal sessions, and be a chance to meet other Heyer readers and discuss the impact of her work.

Please send a suggested title, synopsis (300 words) and biography (150 words) via a Word attachment for 20 minute papers or for longer panel sessions, by January 26th 2018, to Dr Samantha J. Rayner (s.rayner@ucl.ac.uk) and Dr Kim Wilkins (k.wilkins@uq.edu.au), the conference organisers.

Friday, October 27, 2017

New to the Romance Wiki Bibliography: Racism, Gender, Magazines, and Latina Chick Lit

Ali, Kecia. 2017. 
Troubleshooting Post-9/11 America: Religion, Racism, and Stereotypes in Suzanne Brockmann’s Into the Night and Gone Too Far.” Journal of Popular Romance Studies 6.
Arimbi, Diah Ariani, 2017. 
"Women in Indonesian Popular Fiction: Romance, Beauty, and Identity Politics in Metropop Novels." Traditions Redirecting Contemporary Indonesian Cultural Productions. Ed. Jan van der Putten, Monika Arnez, Edwin P. Wieringa and Arndt Graf. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2017. 247-271. Excerpt

Higashi, Sumiko, 2017. 
'Adapting Middlebrow Taste to Sell Stars, Romance, and Consumption', Feminist Media Histories 3.4 (2017): 126-161. [Abstract which mentions that Photoplay magazine, which began in 1911, "published serialized romance fiction that featured daring, unconventional modern heroines."]
 
Kohlman, Marla H. and Samantha N. Simpson, 2017. 
"For the Sake of Hearth and Home: Gender Schematicity in the Romance Novel." Discourses on Gender and Sexual Inequality: The Legacy of Sandra L. Bem. Ed. Marla H. Kohlman and Dana B. Krieg. Bingley, UK: Emerald, 2017. 115-128. Abstract

We also have a chick lit bibliography, to which I've recently added:
Hedrick, Tace. 
Chica Lit: Popular Latina Fiction and Americanization in the Twenty-First Century. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 2015. Details and excerpt

Thursday, October 12, 2017

Call for Papers: “Researching the Romance” April 13-14, 2018



The Browne Popular Culture Library at Bowling Green State University, in association with the Department of Popular Culture, will be hosting “Researching the Romance”, a conference for scholars, authors, and readers of popular romance fiction. Our Guest of Honor will be award-winning author Beverly Jenkins. The conference will take place April 13-14, 2018 at the Jerome Library on the  BGSU campus as well as at the Wood County District Public Library in Bowling Green, Ohio.

From the website of Bowling Green State University:


Introduction:
In 1997, the Browne Popular Culture Library at Bowling Green State University held one of the first academically oriented conferences on the genre of popular romance fiction. Titled “Re-Reading the Romance,” the event included authors and academics from around the country sharing their experiences and love for the genre.  A follow up conference titled “Romance in the new Millennium” was held in 2000, featuring even more thoughtful looks at romance.

In the years since the last conference at BGSU, the romance industry has grown to more than $1 billion per year in sales, and the study of popular romance has grown by leaps and bounds along with it. And we think it’s high time we reconvene in Northwest Ohio to talk about it. So on April 13th & 14th, 2018, the Browne Popular Culture Library at Bowling Green State University will host a conference entitled “Researching the Romance.” 

The conference will be held in two locations over the course of the weekend. Most of the sessions will be held in the Jerome Library on the campus of Bowling Green State University, while Saturday afternoon’s events will be held at the Wood County District Public Library in downtown Bowling Green.


More about the Conference
Our Guest of Honor for the conference will be 2017 RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient Beverly Jenkins. Ms. Jenkins has published more than 30 novels, and is well-known for the level of detailed research she puts into each of her books, making her the perfect guest for this conference.

Our Friday lunchtime keynote speaker will be Dr. Kate Brown, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Huntington University in Huntington, Indiana. Dr. Brown is a 2017 recipient of the Romance Writers of America Academic Research Grant for her work, which explores how English common law and constitutionalism give fundamental structure and substance to the historical romance genre.


Dr. Eric Selinger, Professor of English at DePaul University and Executive Editor of the Journal for Popular Romance Studies, will be in conversation with Beverly Jenkins on Friday afternoon. Dr. Selinger has a long history of research in romance fiction, and has frequently taught courses using Ms. Jenkins’ work.


Call for papers:
We are seeking presentations by graduate students and academics interested in the study of popular romance studies, as well as authors writing in the genre. Proposals for individual presentations or entire panels will be considered. The scope of this conference is deliberately broad, with the intention of highlighting the interdisciplinary nature and many different avenues of research possible within popular romance studies. Possible paper topics might include but are not limited to:
  • Textual analysis of individual books
  • In-depth analysis of particular authors’ work
  • Digital humanities approaches to popular romance research
  • The development of certain subgenres within popular romance
  • The rise of romance self-publishing in the age of e-books
  • Authors’ approaches to research on time periods, subgenres, etc
  • The growth in popularity of LGBTQ romance
  • Roadblocks to researching romance, for academics and authors alike
  • Romance novel covers across the decades
  • How authors build an audience in an era of subgenre specialization
  • Reception and fan communities for romance novels, subgenres, or authors
Presentation abstracts (max 250 words) should be submitted by Dec. 1, 2017 via the submission page of this site.
Notification of paper acceptance will be made by Dec 15, 2017.

Please contact Steve Ammidown (sammido@bgsu.edu) or Dr. Kristen Rudisill (rudisik@bgsu.edu) with questions.