tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-302035572024-03-18T00:59:28.299+00:00Teach Me TonightMusings on Romance Fiction from an Academic PerspectiveE. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.comBlogger1186125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-8267859522841648462024-03-13T16:24:00.000+00:002024-03-13T16:24:10.280+00:00A new book (on Ethel M. Dell) and other new publications<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ6oKMgvdb7BR1Xn5psja1Q-UxkF4_FEofIXnQozwN55ZKXsN5Lbf3JsJ1gJgJw-pmRXPzjtotQ2iRMJadqONLtkZETM1dx63oJi3g0rCy2XhMOz8jWReOVV2pIGqzBoEDHp0soIvUL3sCAKpIK4tqTJWXd2BbqmoG9Eb7BEqDJ1ZgDZCLfw51BQ/s646/Screenshot%202024-02-27%20at%2014-25-41%20Riding%20The%20Tosh%20Horse%20-%20David%20Tanner.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="646" data-original-width="461" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ6oKMgvdb7BR1Xn5psja1Q-UxkF4_FEofIXnQozwN55ZKXsN5Lbf3JsJ1gJgJw-pmRXPzjtotQ2iRMJadqONLtkZETM1dx63oJi3g0rCy2XhMOz8jWReOVV2pIGqzBoEDHp0soIvUL3sCAKpIK4tqTJWXd2BbqmoG9Eb7BEqDJ1ZgDZCLfw51BQ/s320/Screenshot%202024-02-27%20at%2014-25-41%20Riding%20The%20Tosh%20Horse%20-%20David%20Tanner.png" width="228" /></a></div><span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden" style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Riding The Tosh Horse: Ethel M. Dell, A Written Life</i> by David Tanner, <a href="https://www.browndogbooks.uk/products/riding-the-tosh-horse-david-tanner" target="_blank">published by Brown Dog Books</a>:</span><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote><p>The largely forgotten romantic novelist Ethel M. Dell
(1881-1939) published alongside Rudyard Kipling and other literary
giants but was vilified by George Orwell and P.G. Wodehouse among many.
Ethel was a recluse, and actively avoided marketing herself as a
personality in any way, but her formula was successful. She reached a
very large audience publishing 98 titles and earning, at the height of
her career, about £4M annually in today’s values. Her plots included a
popular and heady mix of heterosexual, implicit same-sex relationships,
sexual deviances, gratuitous violence, death and exoticised notions of
Empire and masculinity. The veneer of Ethel’s plots was used to
communicate her philosophies, her views on life and on her family.</p><p>Although
being publishing alongside literary giants she did not receive
establishment acceptance because of her style and no doubt envy of her
substantial earnings. With an escapist and non-literary appeal to a
lower middle class reader universe Ethel used a very successful
multi-media marketing strategy with magazine serialisation, hard copy
books, film, theatre and radio to reach this audience in the UK, the
United States, Europe and the British colonies.</p><p>A forerunner to
Mills and Boon’s success Ethel was very influential in setting the scene
for mass market romantic fiction. Barbara Cartland stated that Ethel
was her greatest influence.</p></blockquote></div><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"></span></span><p></p><div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items">
<div class="field__item"><div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items">
<div class="field__item"><div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items">
<div class="field__item">Befeler, Paige (2022),
<a href="https://repository.wellesley.edu/object/ir1687" target="_blank"> </a><i><span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden"><a href="https://repository.wellesley.edu/object/ir1687" target="_blank">LGBTQ(NA), Queer New Adult Fiction: The Emergence of a New Genre and Its Impact on the LGBTQIA+ Community</a>.</span> </i>Thesis for
Honors in Comparative Literary Studies,
Wellesley College.
</div></div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"><div class="field__item"> </div><div class="field__item">Kluger, Johanna (2024).
"<span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">'On Thursdays We Shoot': Guns and Gender Binaries in Regency Romance Novels</span>".
<a href="https://www.transcript-verlag.de/media/pdf/30/89/b5/oa9783839469552.pdf" target="_blank"><i>Ladies in Arms: Women, Guns, and Feminisms in Contemporary Popular Culture</i></a>. Ed. Teresa Hiergeist and Stefanie Schäfer, transcript verlag. 163-179. [The whole volume is available for free at the link given.]</div><div class="field__item"> </div><div class="field__item"><div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items">
<div class="field__item">Kluger, Johanna (2024).
"<span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden"><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-024-00731-2" target="_blank">Post-Trump masculinity in popular romance novels</a>."</span>
<em>Neohelicon</em>. Online First. Open access.<br /></div></div></div><div class="field__item"> </div><div class="field__item">Parnell, Claire (2023). "<a href="https://doi.org/10.5210/spir.v2023i0.13477" target="_blank">Algospeak and algo-design in platformed book publishing: Revolutionary creative tactics in digital paratext to circumvent content moderation</a>." Paper presented at AoIR2023: The 24th Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers. Philadelphia, PA, USA: <i>AoIR</i>. <br /></div></div></div><div class="field__item"> </div><div class="field__item">Pérez-Fernández, Irene (2024).
"<span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden"><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2024.2312359" target="_blank">Black
British love matters: Asserting the transformative power of love in
Bolu Babalola’s <i>Love in Colour: Mythical Tales Around the World Retold</i></a></span>".
<i>Journal of Postcolonial Writing. </i>Online First. Open access.</div><div class="field__item"><br /></div><div class="field__item"><div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items">
<div class="field__item">Ripoll Fonollar, Mariana (2023).
<i><span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden"> Wording deeds: the figure of the suffragette in contemporary british fiction</span></i>,
Universitat de les Illes Balears. [This is a thesis which is not freely available. The abstract can be found <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/11201/164693" target="_blank">here</a>.]<br /></div></div></div></div>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-18021637390480861672024-02-13T16:07:00.002+00:002024-02-13T16:07:25.006+00:00Past Conference Videos, Current Exhibition Feedback and New Publications<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgejiFXhRe2hRkP94j-Hs5ekpoEcfXXWIfWgtb102VhCjDr_zgeUKwVhl81md2RbVcZCzbSA4Ibx6ASSkp-Vm9IDx1ppoZk02i-Ac080vP8OxVkh-_2PnS3LkiWK_oghwWcX2iddZQYvD2mMLcc2Gi2Ee39UmjGiOaDumeoiAlzSsM_kY6by1cNVA/s1366/Copy%20of%20Conference%20Flyer%20-%20green_pdf.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1366" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgejiFXhRe2hRkP94j-Hs5ekpoEcfXXWIfWgtb102VhCjDr_zgeUKwVhl81md2RbVcZCzbSA4Ibx6ASSkp-Vm9IDx1ppoZk02i-Ac080vP8OxVkh-_2PnS3LkiWK_oghwWcX2iddZQYvD2mMLcc2Gi2Ee39UmjGiOaDumeoiAlzSsM_kY6by1cNVA/s320/Copy%20of%20Conference%20Flyer%20-%20green_pdf.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />Videos are now freely available of some of the events from last year's <span style="font-weight: normal;">Popular Romance Fiction: The Literature of Hope conference, held at Yale University.<br /></span><p></p><p> <a href="https://romancefictionconference.yale.edu/gallery/popular-romance-fiction-literature-hope-conference-photos-and-video">https://romancefictionconference.yale.edu/gallery/popular-romance-fiction-literature-hope-conference-photos-and-video</a></p><p>---<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgEcNK4fT_wAQz0pLZGmFLW0fz9roRZoGbH_ShfhzZNJOkiEp390ulr8925ywbRWDZzB7wosfnNrVVRoMQGzl_lqwwPqKihUeOKyCL4mFeGSHvtw0kChc4bw35OTY6-a1NFquiukfgZ2N9f6ceSbiNIaduogqFL7rO_IEF3KVkO6oH5W2Su5etKg/s2101/Covering+Romance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2100" data-original-width="2101" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgEcNK4fT_wAQz0pLZGmFLW0fz9roRZoGbH_ShfhzZNJOkiEp390ulr8925ywbRWDZzB7wosfnNrVVRoMQGzl_lqwwPqKihUeOKyCL4mFeGSHvtw0kChc4bw35OTY6-a1NFquiukfgZ2N9f6ceSbiNIaduogqFL7rO_IEF3KVkO6oH5W2Su5etKg/s320/Covering+Romance.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Andrea Martucci's Shelf Love podcast episode about this exhibition of John Ennis's art for romance covers is available here: <a href="https://shelflovepodcast.com/episodes/season-2/episode-153/covering-romance-john-enniss-art-thoughts-on-fandom">https://shelflovepodcast.com/episodes/season-2/episode-153/covering-romance-john-enniss-art-thoughts-on-fandom</a><p></p><p>Smart Bitch Sarah's feedback (including lots of photos) on the exhibition can be found here: <a href="https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2024/02/covering-romance-romance-novel-cover-art-by-john-ennis/">https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2024/02/covering-romance-romance-novel-cover-art-by-john-ennis/</a><br /></p><p>---</p><p>And here are the new publications:<br /></p><p>Burge, Amy, Jodi McAlister and Charlotte Ireland (2024). '<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/cww/vpae002" target="_blank">“Prince Charming with an Erection”: The Sensational Pleasures of the Bonkbuster</a>.' <i>Contemporary Women's Writing</i> <a data-google-interstitial="false" href="https://doi.org/10.1093/cww/vpae002">https://doi.org/10.1093/cww/vpae002</a> [This shows how bonkbusters are not romance.]</p><div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items">
<div class="field__item">Johnson, Jacqueline E. (2024)
<span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">"Lusting out loud: racialized aurality, podcast intimacy, and the uses of thirst".</span>
<i>Communication, Culture and Critique. </i>Online First.<i> </i>[Excerpt and details <a href="https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/lusting-out-loud-racialized-aurality-podcast-intimacy-and-uses-thirst" target="_blank">here</a>. As I mentioned over on BlueSky, the focus on "the expansive middle" reminded me of Athena Bellas and Jodi McAlister 's (non-paywalled) <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2023.2220721" target="_blank">recent article on audio erotica</a>. So I wondered if such a focus might have something to do with an audio experience? And/or a difference between
what readers/listeners seek from erotica vs. romance fiction? <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/jodimca.bsky.social/post/3kl3u7ccopn25" target="_blank">Jodi suggested</a> it could be to do with the length of time available and that the episodes could be thought of as 'a little slice of life from what An Goris calls the "post-HEA"'.]</div><div class="field__item"> <br /></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items">
<div class="field__item"><a href="https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/scholars/markova-m-v" hreflang="en">Markova, M. V.</a> (2024).
"<span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Georgette Heyer, history, and historical fiction."</span>
<i>Voprosy literatury</i>
1:198-203. [This is written in Russian, and in any case I could not access the pdf from <a href="https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2024-1-198-203" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2024-1-198-203</a>.]<br /></div></div><p></p><div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items">
<div class="field__item">Morden, Christina (2023).
<i><span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden"><a href="https://summit.sfu.ca/_flysystem/fedora/2024-02/etd22813.pdf" target="_blank">Innovations in Romance Novel Distribution at Harlequin, Sourcebooks, and Raincoast Books</a>.</span>
</i>
Master of Publishing,
Simon Fraser University. </div><div class="field__item"> </div><div class="field__item"><div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items">
<div class="field__item"><a href="https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/scholars/pates-giuliana" hreflang="en">Pates, Giuliana</a> (2023).
"<span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden"><a href="https://doi.org/10.24201/reg.v9i1.1056" target="_blank">Reading Practices and Gender Politicization: How do Young Argentinean Women Read Romantic Novels</a>."</span>
<i>Revista Interdisciplinaria de Estudios de Género de El Colegio de México</i>
9.1:1–26. [This is in Spanish.]<br /></div></div></div></div><p>Spencer, L. (2024). '<a href="https://doi.org/10.24834/educare.2024.1.1093" target="_blank">“Walk like a chameleon”: Reflecting on my teaching journey at a South African university</a>'. <i>Educare</i>, (1), 192–215. <a href="https://doi.org/10.24834/educare.2024.1.1093">https://doi.org/10.24834/educare.2024.1.1093</a> [<a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/english/people/academicstaff/lyndagichandaspencer/">Dr Lynda Gichanda Spencer</a>, Associate Professor and Chair of the
Department of Literary Studies in English at Rhodes University, discussed her teaching of African romance fiction as part of <a href="https://iaspr2020showcase.org/2020/06/30/the-role-of-romance-scholarship-why-does-it-matter/">a panel</a>
at the IASPR 2020 conference. There are a couple of paragraphs about
her 2019 third-year elective course titled Global Chick-Lit or
Trans-Global Literature? Re-reading Contemporary Women’s Fiction in this online paper, discussing how she asked students to compare Harlequin Mills & Boon romances with romances by African publishers.]<br /></p>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-13807537965329500772024-02-05T14:53:00.003+00:002024-02-05T15:57:57.919+00:00The Romance Wikithon: Valentine's Day Edition<p><span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDRfGpnzR7MKPwheZKZECinKeoW97wpDrgJSZd-az53YLgwhr3binCE3k0VUkQwAIZlp8j6yCyNMbHItlL4pFK66YP4ZLW_FzVVIwarg7fcmcWThYMAmYOsIw15T1B-GeiTa3DFE3mtrjAZ-h3_HuYuekpOunCNFz-ppJekQxGsfp1oq3BRFVzBg/s2000/IASPR_Romance_Wikithon_2024.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1414" height="493" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDRfGpnzR7MKPwheZKZECinKeoW97wpDrgJSZd-az53YLgwhr3binCE3k0VUkQwAIZlp8j6yCyNMbHItlL4pFK66YP4ZLW_FzVVIwarg7fcmcWThYMAmYOsIw15T1B-GeiTa3DFE3mtrjAZ-h3_HuYuekpOunCNFz-ppJekQxGsfp1oq3BRFVzBg/w348-h493/IASPR_Romance_Wikithon_2024.png" width="348" /></a></div><br />IASPR is holding a Valentine's Day (well, Wednesday 14 February for some time zones) Romance Wikithon, with training from Amy Burge! It's not just for romance scholars: readers have lots of expertise to share too! Here's the description that was shared with those of us on the IASPR Discord group:<a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc6Jkm-Z8grp5M0jUOw-W7tZRk5sJS_89gBcK4l27GMtnG7yA/viewform?pli=1" target="_blank"><br /></a><p></p><p><span></span></p><blockquote><p><span>Join us</span><span>, this Valentines Day</span><span>, to share our expertise as romance scholars [and readers] and increase the representation of romance on Wikipedia</span><span>! Open to all</span><span>.</span><span> </span></p><p><span>This 90</span><span>-minute session will be practical and informal</span><span>. It is aimed at those who have never edited Wikipedia before</span><span>. Training and guidance will be given</span><span>.</span><span>
Recommended for those who might be interested in using Wikipedia as part of teaching</span><span>, for those who are interested in learning more about how to edit Wikipedia</span><span>, and for anyone who would like to make positive change in the world</span><span>!</span><span>
The session will be facilitated by Dr Amy Burge</span><span>, who has run editathons at the University of Cardiff</span><span>, and has used Wikipedia for assessment with students</span><span>.</span></p></blockquote><p><span></span></p><p><span><a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc6Jkm-Z8grp5M0jUOw-W7tZRk5sJS_89gBcK4l27GMtnG7yA/viewform?pli=1" target="_blank">Here's the signup page</a>.<br /></span></p><p><span>The timezone information in the graphic says:</span></p><p><span>Wednesday 14th February London <span> </span>20:00-21:30<br /> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Chicago 14:00-15.30<br />Thursday 15th February <span> </span>Melbourne 07:00-08:30 </span><span> </span></p><p>[Edited to add: <a href="https://www.iaspr.org/frontpage/the-romance-wikithon/" target="_blank">Here are the details on the IASPR website</a>, which I've only just seen.]<br /></p>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-51879357010842275132024-01-22T11:44:00.002+00:002024-01-22T11:44:39.552+00:00Bad Romance Data, Monsters and New Publications<blockquote><p>The data does NOT exist to support the statement that romance is a
billion dollar industry. Quite frankly, the data does not exist to make
any sweeping statements about the size of the popular romance genre
market.</p></blockquote><p>So says Andrea Martucci of the Shelf Love podcast, who's been taking a hard look at the "<span>popular romance genre market data between 1972 and today" and presented her "</span><span>research on 'Bad Romance Data' at the 2023 International Association for the Study of Popular Romance conference." You can read her analysis and conclusions <a href="https://shelflovepodcast.substack.com/p/is-romance-a-billion-dollar-industry" target="_blank">here</a> (and it's archived <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240122113431/https://shelflovepodcast.substack.com/p/is-romance-a-billion-dollar-industry" target="_blank">here</a>).</span></p><p><span>---</span></p><p><span>Also via Andrea (but this time not by her), comes a call for participants:</span></p><p></p><blockquote><p>
Whether you're solely into humans or a monster romance enthusiast,
I'd love for you to take part in my survey. I'm a graduate student doing
my thesis on whether or not monster attraction could be explained
through evolutionary anthropology.
</p><p>
The survey will be available from January 9, 2024, to March 12,
20204, and it will take about 20 to 30 minutes to complete (although
some people have finished it in as little as 12 minutes). It's
completely anonymous and only requires that you be at least 18 years old
to participate.
</p></blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><span>Andrea spotted it <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/romancelandia/comments/195799f/monster_attraction_study_participants_needed/?share_id=x0n5Xlvi_KpwEXrhRRv34&utm_content=2&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1" target="_blank">on Reddit</a> but there's also a more formal announcement giving details of the research on the </span>Research Study Consent Form to be found <a href="https://fullerton.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4MVKESpe9MtCFQW" target="_blank">at the website of California State University, Fullerton</a>.</p><p>The research is being "carried out by Phoebe Santillan, under the guidance of Dr. Elizabeth Pillsworth" and</p><blockquote><p>The purpose of this research study is to gather information on people
who are attracted to fictional monsters. You are being asked to
participate in this study because any and all data is valuable at this
stage within the research process. Attraction to fictional monsters is
not required to participate in this study.</p></blockquote><p> </p><div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items">
<div class="field__item">---</div><div class="field__item">And here's a short list of new publications:</div><div class="field__item"><br /></div><div class="field__item">Allen, Amanda K. (2024)
<span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">"<a href="https://www.jprstudies.org/2024/01/ruling-the-court-reflections-on-midcentury-junior-novel-romances/" target="_blank">Ruling the Court: Reflections on Midcentury Junior Novel Romances</a>."</span>
<em>Journal of Popular Romance Studies</em>
13.</div></div><p></p><div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items">
<div class="field__item">Robinson, Rachel (2023).
<i><span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Reading and writing dogs in popular romance fiction</span></i>,<i>
</i>
PhD,
University of Tasmania. [Only the <a href="https://figshare.utas.edu.au/articles/thesis/Reading_and_writing_dogs_in_popular_romance_fiction/23247446" target="_blank">abstract</a> is currently available.]</div><div class="field__item"><div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items">
<div class="field__item"> </div><div class="field__item">Warnaar, Karin (2023).
"<span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden"><a href="https://thescopes.org/assets/Uploads/18-FASHION_25_2023_Warnaar.pdf" target="_blank">Dresses and Drapery: The Material Essie Summers</a>."</span>
<i>Scope: Contemporary Research Topics</i> art & design 25:91-96. [Full pdf available for download at the link provided and, as a bonus, here's a link to <a href="https://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/words-love-0" target="_blank">a 2018 <i>Otago Daily Times </i>article about Essie Summers' life and work</a> which Warnaar cites.]</div><div class="field__item"><br /></div><div class="field__item"><div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items">
<div class="field__item">Ya’u, Mohammed Sani, Sabariah Md Rashid, Afida Mohamad Ali and Hardev Kaur Jujar Singh (2023).
"<span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden"><a href="https://doi.org/10.47836/pjssh.31.4.06" target="_blank">Semantic Extensions of Hausa Visual and Auditory Perception Verbs gani and ji in Romance Fiction</a>."</span>
<em>Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities</em>
31.4:1441-1464.</div></div></div></div></div></div>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-58623772823281650762024-01-04T14:54:00.001+00:002024-01-04T14:54:06.330+00:00New Publications and an Exhibition: Gender and Agression, Publishing and More<p>Lots of open access articles!<br /></p><p>Golubov, Nattie
(2023).
"<span><a href="https://journals.uco.es/Esferas/article/view/15636/14917" target="_blank">Female Warriors, Social Injustice and the Transformational Force of Anger in Jaye Wells' Sabina Kane Series</a>."</span>
<i>Esferas Literarias</i> 6: 21-37.</p><p>Larson, Christine, and Ashley Carter (2023). "<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231218991" target="_blank">Love is love: Reverse isomorphism and the rise of LGBTQ+ romance publishing</a>." <i>New Media & Society.</i> <br /></p><p>Markasović, Valentina
(2023).
"<a href="https://openbooks.ffzg.unizg.hr/index.php/FFpress/catalog/download/162/269/11761?inline=1" target="_blank"><span>Challenging Gender Stereotypes in Holly Black’s <i>The Folk of the Air</i> Trilogy</span></a>."
<em>Breaking Stereotypes in American Popular Culture: Proceedings of
the 10th Annual Conference of the Croatian Association for American
Studies</em>: 41-56. <br /></p><p>Miclea, Adelina
(2023).
"<span><a href="https://intapi.sciendo.com/pdf/10.2478/rjes-2023-0008" target="_blank">Colleen Hoover’s Formulas for Best-Sellers as Seen in <i>Reminders of Him</i> and <i>It Ends with Us</i></a>."</span>
<i>Romanian Journal of English Studies</i>
20.1:72-79.<br /></p><p>Mulvey, Alexandra Hazel
(2023).
<i>
<span><a href="https://figshare.mq.edu.au/articles/thesis/Gender_and_sex_stereotypes_in_sports_romance_fiction/24669054/1/files/43747737.pdf" target="_blank">Gender and Sex Stereotypes in Sports Romance Fiction</a></span>.
</i>
Masters thesis,
Macquarie University. [The link is to a pdf.]<br /></p><p>Pierini, Francesca
(2023).
"<span><a href="https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/bsfm-lea/article/view/14273/13656" target="_blank">Towards a Regime of Authenticity: Reading <i>A Room with a View</i> through the Lens of Contemporary Romance Scholarship</a>."</span>
<i>LEA - Lingue E Letterature D'Oriente E D'Occidente</i>
12: 217-228.</p><p>And quite a bit less accessible, but no doubt still of interest to readers of this blog:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgieO8_5zzmyEGETpnVu-5LmrsV5TL_e3bVT7J6SP6tQ41WHmXz7LW09autVIktz7pAlElwTuN8Eal4_w9tf4SfNREXVbnlfeaVoTP8qzyumwZ3q1ydrELeUKxNHL9DAskCBDq_h1MNecZGYxPHryWYnnuf7dZuIGPxM8j5xKvqnbTv68vT0xQxTw/s2101/Covering+Romance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2100" data-original-width="2101" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgieO8_5zzmyEGETpnVu-5LmrsV5TL_e3bVT7J6SP6tQ41WHmXz7LW09autVIktz7pAlElwTuN8Eal4_w9tf4SfNREXVbnlfeaVoTP8qzyumwZ3q1ydrELeUKxNHL9DAskCBDq_h1MNecZGYxPHryWYnnuf7dZuIGPxM8j5xKvqnbTv68vT0xQxTw/s320/Covering+Romance.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>"Covering Romance", <span style="font-weight: normal; white-space: pre-wrap;">an exhibition and sale of romance novel cover art by John Ennis, will be taking place in Yardley, Pennsylvania, at the </span><span style="font-weight: normal; white-space: pre-wrap;">AOY Art Center Gallery from </span><span style="font-weight: normal; white-space: pre-wrap;">February 10th (Opening Reception), with viewing open to the public on 11, 16, 17, 18 February (12-5pm). More details about the party for the opening can be found here: <a href="https://www.aoyarts.org/event-5484048">https://www.aoyarts.org/event-5484048</a></span><p> <br /></p>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-48790453509990399112023-12-21T15:54:00.002+00:002024-01-04T14:56:28.104+00:00New Publications: Race, Rape, and Romance in Maltese Libraries<p>Maybe I've simplified things a little in the title of the post due to the allure of alliteration. But there's definitely a lot in these recent publications about race/ethnicity and racism.</p><p>As always, if there's a hyperlink in the title, that means it's freely accessible online.<br /></p><p>----</p><p>Abdullah-Poulos, Layla
(2023)
"<span>Sisters, Skanks, and Jezebels: American Muslim Fiction and the Other Woman</span>."
<i>The Bloomsbury Handbook of Muslims and Popular Culture</i>. Ed. <span class="addmd">Hussein Rashid and Kristian Petersen. London: Bloomsbury.</span>
205-214. [Excerpt <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MlLeEAAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&lpg=PP1&pg=PA205#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">here</a>.]<br /></p><p>
</p><p>
Derbyshire, Valerie Grace (2023). “ <a href="https://www.jprstudies.org/2023/11/do-you-think-i-havent-paid-for-what-i-did-rape-in-the-mills-boon-romantic-novels-of-penny-jordan/" target="_blank">‘Do you think I haven’t
paid for what I did?’: Rape in the Mills & Boon Romantic Novels
of Penny Jordan.”</a> <i>Journal of Popular Romance Studies</i> 12. </p><p>Garcia, Christina
(2023).
<i>
<span><a href="https://repository.tcu.edu/bitstream/handle/116099117/61364/GarciaChristina_thesis.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y" target="_blank">The Race of Publishing: The Troubling Whiteness in Publishing and the Forces Pushing Back</a>.</span>
</i>
Master of Arts in English,
Texas Christian University. <br /></p><p>Henderson, Aneeka Ayanna
(2024).
"<span>Popular Romance and Literary Undergrounds</span>."
<i>The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary African American Literature</i>. Ed. Yogita Goyal. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 164-179. [<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MfHiEAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA164&pg=PA165#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Excerpt</a>] <br /></p><p><style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; background: transparent }a:visited { color: #800000; text-decoration: underline }a:link { color: #000080; text-decoration: underline }</style></p><p>Hutter, Verena (2023). "Fire, Savannah, and Passion: The New Africa Novel and the Construction of White Femininity." <i>Gender and German Colonialism: Intimacies, Accountabilities, Intersections</i>. Ed. Chunjie Zhang and Elisabeth Krimmer. New York: Routledge. [See <a href="Hutter, Verena (2023). "Fire, Savannah, and Passion: The New Africa Novel and the Construction of White Femininity." Gender and German Colonialism: Intimacies, Accountabilities, Intersections. Ed. Chunjie Zhang and Elisabeth Krimmer. New York: Routledge. See https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/fire-savannah-and-passion-new-africa-novel-and-construction-white-femininity for more details." target="_blank">https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/fire-savannah-and-passion-new-africa-novel-and-construction-white-femininity for more details</a>.]</p><p>
Kamblé, Jayashree (2023). “<a href="https://journals.uco.es/Esferas/article/view/16287/15063" target="_blank">Romancing the University: BIPOC Scholars in Romance Novels in the 1980s and Now</a>.” <i>Esferas Literarias</i> 6: 39-55.
</p><p>Phumithammarat, Nanphatchaon
(2023).
<i>
<span><a href="http://ithesis-ir.su.ac.th/dspace/handle/123456789/4739" target="_blank">The Cultural politics of Chinese -Thai Identities in Ethnic Romance Novels by Female Authors</a>.</span>
</i>
PhD thesis,
Silpakorn University.</p><p>Posti, Piia K. (2024). “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42235-5_7" target="_blank">‘I Get to Exist as a Black Person in the World’: <i>Bridgerton</i> as Speculative Romance and Alternate History on Screen.</a>” <i>History and Speculative Fiction</i>. Ed. John L. Hennessey. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. [The whole book is available for free since it's open access.]</p><p>Limond, Verity.
(2023)
<span>"<a href="http://www.omertaa.org/archive/omertaa0086.pdf" target="_blank">‘The door is open to everyone’: The public libraries of Gozo</a>."</span>
<i>Omertaa, Journal for applied anthropology</i>. 745-754.</p><p><style type="text/css">dd { margin-left: 1cm; background: transparent }p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; background: transparent }a:visited { color: #800000; text-decoration: underline }a:link { color: #000080; text-decoration: underline }</style></p><p></p>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-36542573015994046992023-11-06T12:41:00.005+00:002023-11-06T12:45:21.763+00:00Call for Papers: Australia 2024From 16-18 August 2024 the Romance Writers of Australia will be holding their conference at Stamford Grand, Glenelg and, in collaboration with Flinders University, they're looking for romance scholars to join them on 16 <span>August</span>:<p><span style="color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 15px;"></span></span></p><blockquote>The
Degrees of Love Romance Research Hub at Flinders University, with the
support of Assemblage Centre for Creative Arts, is thrilled to host an
academic symposium on popular romance studies as part of RWAus’ 2024
conference. Featuring the latest research from romance academics, and
open to anyone with an enquiring mind who wishes to attend, this
symposium will showcase the latest romance scholarship. The symposium
will consider the role of tropes in all sub-genres of romance, focusing
on the power of the romance genre and its intersections with feminism,
gender, sexuality, generic forms and formulas, ideologies and more. When
experts in the field of popular romance studies bring their research
into the same room, new ideas ignite. This will be a day of fun,
excitement, learning and sharing - throwing an intellectual spotlight on
the role of tropes in the most read genre in the world. <br /><br />
We invite proposals for 20-minute papers, or 90-minute
panels or roundtables, on romance tropes and the intersections of tropes
with subgenres, gender, sexuality, race, ideologies, love and desire,
the body, power and more.</blockquote><br />The deadline for proposals is 8 March 2024 and <a href="https://willorganise.eventsair.com/2024-romance-writers-of-australia/" target="_blank">more details can be found here</a>.<br />Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-38441162971750960822023-11-02T14:04:00.000+00:002023-11-02T14:04:42.738+00:00Controversial "updated" editions of romance (and also details of some new publications)<p>K. J. Charles (on BlueSky, which I don't think I can link to) posted <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/books/georgette-heyer-romance-novel-antisemitism.html" target="_blank">a link to a New York Times article</a> about<br /></p><blockquote><p>new editions of Heyer with the antisemitism removed. I'm not honestly
sure how I feel about that. She *was* antisemitic and racist, and if it
is going to be done, there should absolutely be an afterword saying it
was done.</p></blockquote><p>I feel the same. The author of the <i>New York Times </i>article, the appropriately named Alexandra Alter, states that:</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0"></p><blockquote><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">When Heyer’s American publisher,
Sourcebooks, decided to release new editions of her romances this year,
they had to strike a precarious balance. Leaving the original scene
could repel some readers. But changing it risked provoking a backlash
from fans and scholars who see posthumous revisions as a form of
literary reputation laundering, or censorship.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">After
a lengthy back and forth with the Heyer estate, Sourcebooks made small
but significant changes to “The Grand Sophy.” In the new version, the
moneylender’s name has been changed to Grimpstone. References to his
Jewish identity and appearance have been deleted, along with other
negative generalizations about Jews.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Acknowledgment
of the changes appears on the copyright page, which says “this edition
has been edited from the original with permission of the Georgette Heyer
Estate.”</p></blockquote><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0"></p><p></p><p>Originally, Sourcebooks had brought in Mary Bly/Eloisa James to write introductions to all the new editions but "After the estate declined to include Bly’s explanation of the changes in an afterword, she quit the project."</p><p>The acknowledgment which will be included is, presumably, in small print and rather easy to miss, which is what makes this solution problematic to me from an academic perspective (which as our subtitle states, is what Teach Me Tonight's all about). While the publication of a text which includes such changes may in itself be of interest to future scholars of Heyer for what it implies about Heyer's ongoing status in the genre and the attitude of the Heyer estate, and may also be of wider interest because of what it might tell us about the economic calculations made by this publisher, and their assessments of the preferences/attitudes of twenty-first century readers, none of these questions will arise in the minds of scholars who use this edition of the text while unaware that it has been changed. And, obviously, a scholar's close reading of the text, and their assessment of Heyer and her oeuvre, will undoubtedly be flawed if they base their analysis on this text without being aware of its altered status.</p><p>In a comment attached to the <i>New York Times </i>article a reader called "emmel" observed that:</p><blockquote><p>There was a major incident this past summer when romance readers
discovered that Lisa Kleypas updated about 50% of her beloved Secrets of
a Summer Night to meet "today's" standards versus those of 2004, when
the book was published. Readers were horrified that major elements had
been changed (which many perceived to be detrimental to understanding
the hero's actions) with no notification in the 2021 edition. (This was
discovered in a group read when the readers couldn't understand one
another's reactions until they deduced the editions had fundamental
differences.) So notifications and explanations are vital; you can't
just say it's been "updated."</p></blockquote><p>I found some discussion about that at <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/RomanceBooks/comments/rme2tc/secrets_of_a_summer_night_completely_changed/">https://www.reddit.com/r/RomanceBooks/comments/rme2tc/secrets_of_a_summer_night_completely_changed/</a> and another, Reddit discussion mentioning another Kleypas novel which has been significantly altered: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/RomanceBooks/comments/ob98yp/revised_lisa_kleypas/">https://www.reddit.com/r/RomanceBooks/comments/ob98yp/revised_lisa_kleypas/</a> . I'm not sure if there was even a note made on the copyright pages of the texts themselves that changes had been made. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can let me know? Do you know of any other romances which have been reprinted in an updated, significantly altered, version that don't make it clear what's been done?<br /></p><p>By the way, if any regular readers of Teach Me Tonight would like an invite code to BlueSky, I have a couple available. Let me know via the contact form on my website: <a href="https://www.vivanco.me.uk/contact/contact">https://www.vivanco.me.uk/contact/contact</a> !</p><p>----</p><p>On to new, scholarly, publications:</p><p> <br /></p><p>Garciano, Shylyn G., Cuevas, Gloria Con-ui,
Geraldizo-Pabriga, Maria Gemma
Macabodbod, Saira Jay J.
Yu, Jaciah Mae B.
Pinote, Ma. Jezan A.
(2023).
"<span><a href="https://doi.org/10.32996/ijts.2023.3.3.5" target="_blank">Romance-Themed Novels: Influenced on Relationship Satisfaction</a>."</span>
<i>International Journal of Literature Studies</i>
3.3:35-48. <a href="https://doi.org/10.32996/ijts.2023.3.3.5">https://doi.org/10.32996/ijts.2023.3.3.5</a> <br /></p><p>Garton, Stephen
(2023).
<span>"<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12742" target="_blank">Return Fantasies: Martial Masculinity, Misogyny and Homosocial Bonding in the Aftermath of Second World War</a></span><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12742" target="_blank">.</a>"
<i>Gender & History</i>
ONLINE FIRST. Open access (and it complements <a href="https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/fit-only-scrap-heap-rebuilding-returned-soldier-manhood-australia-after-1945" target="_blank">an earlier article</a> which is behind a paywall).</p><p>Olkusz, Ksenia
(2021).
"<span>Stripping The Vampire. Erotic Imaginations and Sexual Fantasies In Paranormal Romances (A Study Of Selected Examples)</span>."<i> Manifestations of Male Image in the World's Cultures</i>. Ed. Renata Iwicka, Kraków:
Jagiellonian University Press. 137-156. [Details can be found <a href="https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/stripping-vampire-erotic-imaginations-and-sexual-fantasies-paranormal-romances-study" target="_blank">here</a>. Although it was published in 2021, the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/manifestations-of-male-image-in-the-worlds-cultures/stripping-the-vampire-erotic-imaginations-and-sexual-fantasies-in-paranormal-romances-a-study-of-selected-examples/5B6867584D1E978A25CFF0D2C973F19C" target="_blank">electronic version from Cambridge University Press</a> only became available in October 2023. An open access version written in Polish was published in 2015 and details about that can be found <a href="https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/rozbieranie-wampira-erotyczne-imaginacje-i-seksualne-fantazje-w-romansach" target="_blank">here</a>.]<br /></p><p>van Hattum, Fatima Y. (2023).
"Orientalist Public Pedagogy: Visual Representation of Muslims in Pop Culture and Desert Romance Novels."
<i></i> Thesis from the University of New Mexico. It's embargoed until 2025. <a href="https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/educ_llss_etds/148">https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/educ_llss_etds/148</a> </p>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-79501188776012940092023-10-20T14:09:00.002+01:002023-10-20T14:09:30.986+01:00Volunteering, Cover Art, Fan Fiction and Canada<p>The <i>Journal of Popular Romance Studies </i>is looking for a volunteer to become the next editor of the "Notes and Queries" section of the journal. More details here: <a href="https://www.jprstudies.org/journal-of-popular-romance-studies-notes-and-queries-editor/">https://www.jprstudies.org/journal-of-popular-romance-studies-notes-and-queries-editor/</a><br /></p><p>Alice Liang takes a look at trends in cover design over the past few decades: <a href="https://pudding.cool/2023/10/romance-covers/">https://pudding.cool/2023/10/romance-covers/</a></p><p>Audrey Lavallée is starting to publish a series of blog posts about the history of Canadian romance publishing. There's an introduction to the series <a href="https://www.lavalleepublishing.ca/post/a-very-short-introduction" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://www.lavalleepublishing.ca/post/canada-s-first-fiction-novel" target="_blank">the first post</a> is about <span class="B2EFF public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr"><span>Julia Catherine Beckwith's </span></span><span class="B2EFF public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr"><span><i>St. Ursula’s Convent, or the Nun of Canada</i> (1824). The Internet Archive <a href="https://archive.org/details/stursulasconvent00hart/page/n15/mode/2up" target="_blank">has a copy available</a> which dates from 1824 although the following statement <a href="https://doi.org/10.5699/yearenglstud.46.2016.0201" target="_blank">from </a></span></span><a href="https://doi.org/10.5699/yearenglstud.46.2016.0201" target="_blank">Jennifer Blair</a> in her “Reading for Information in <i>St. Ursula’s Convent, or The Nun of Canada</i>” in <i>The Yearbook of English Studies</i>, vol. 46, 2016, pp. 201–18 may put you off reading it (or encourage you to see if it really is as bad as Blair claims):<br /></p><p><span class="B2EFF public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr"></span></p><blockquote><span>Julia Catherine Beckwith Hart’s <i>St. Ursula’s Convent, or the Nun of Canada. Containing Scenes from Real Life</i> (1824) secured its place in the canon of English Canadian novels retroactively, not because, as with most texts, its aesthetic or social importance could be appreciated only long after publication, but for the unique reason that it is the progenitor of that canon. While Frances Brooke’s <i>The History of Emily Montague</i> (1769) is often cited as an earlier Canadian novel, and while John Richardson has been called the ‘first real Canadian novelist’ for his later <i>Wacousta</i> (1832), <i>St. Ursula’s Convent</i> is the first English novel to be written by an author born in the region that would become Canada. Despite its claim to fame, the book has since gained notoriety for its discomfiting lack of quality. Suffice it to say that while <i>St. Ursula’s</i> might be forever celebrated as the ‘first Canadian novel’, Hart’s admittedly ‘“little work”’ now tends to be counted among Canada’s very worst novels of all time. (201)<br /></span></blockquote><p></p><p><span class="B2EFF public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr"><span>And, still on a Canadian theme, here's a new thesis which is freely available:</span></span></p><p>Vermeer, Lina
(2023).
<em>
<span><a href="https://digitalcollections.trentu.ca/objects/etd-1092" target="_blank">The Affective Power of Intimacy: A Case Study of a Men’s Hockey Real Person Fan Fiction’s Literary and Social Contexts</a>.</span>
</em>
Master of Arts,
Trent University.
</p>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-37107052146570610182023-09-28T14:09:00.003+01:002023-09-28T14:09:25.067+01:00Posts, Podcasts and Publications: Endings, Identity, Preservation and Negotiation<p>Charlotte of <i>Close Reading Romance</i> has written a series of posts thinking through how<br /></p><blockquote><p>any HEA is, fundamentally, an act of inferring the future from
information about the past. In queer romance, though, doing so means
imagining optimism from not-always-hospitable spaces. It has also
sometimes meant thinking around certain concluding structures integral
to the genre – cohabitation, marriage, procreation – that haven’t always
been accessible to queer protagonists. So as I often do, I started
wondering about the particular prose demands of writing re-imagined
pasts and imagined futures. What kind of work is done by the last
sentences of queer love stories, the words that place a completed
narrative into the past while opening up towards imagined futures? <br /></p></blockquote><p>Here's the <a href="https://closereadingromance.com/2023/08/11/in-conclusion-a-four-part-series-on-epilogues-and-endings-in-queer-love-stories/" target="_blank">Introduction</a> to the series and links to <a href="https://closereadingromance.com/2023/08/14/in-conclusion-part-1-something-spectacular-by-alexis-hall/" target="_blank">Part 1</a>, <a href="https://closereadingromance.com/2023/08/17/in-conclusion-part-2-even-though-i-knew-the-end-by-c-l-polk/" target="_blank">Part 2</a>, <a href="https://closereadingromance.com/2023/08/22/in-conclusion-part-3-we-could-be-so-good-by-cat-sebastian/" target="_blank">Part 3</a> and <a href="https://closereadingromance.com/2023/09/06/in-conclusion-part-4-ander-santi-were-here-by-jonny-garza-villa/" target="_blank">Part 4</a>.</p><p>Jayashree <span class="byline">Kamblé</span>'s been promoting <span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Creating Identity: The Popular Romance Heroine’s Journey to Selfhood and Self-Presentation</i> so there's now a video in which she discusses the book at </span>the Asian American/Asian Research Institute<span style="font-weight: normal;">: </span><a href="https://aaari.info/23-09-22kamble/">https://aaari.info/23-09-22kamble/</a> and there's an episode of the podcast ShelfLove in which she discusses the book: <a href="https://shelflovepodcast.com/episodes/season-2/episode-145/heroines-creating-identity-in-romance">https://shelflovepodcast.com/episodes/season-2/episode-145/heroines-creating-identity-in-romance</a></p><p>Over at <i>JPRS</i>, Jonathan A. Allan has been <a href="https://www.jprstudies.org/2023/09/the-future-of-historical-research-in-popular-romance-studies/" target="_blank">worrying about how to preserve romance texts for future scholars</a> and I do think it's a big issue, especially for works which are ebook only. Eric Selinger says that if you have any answers to the questions/issues raised in Jonathan's note, please contact the journal to add a note of your own on this topic!<br /></p><p>And here's a list of some new publications:<br /></p><p>Ali, Kecia
(2023). "<span><a href="https://www.bu.edu/core/files/2023/08/journal23.pdf" target="_blank">The End of the World as We Know It: Climate Catastrophe in Nalini Singh's Paranormal Romance Fiction</a>."</span>
<i>The Journal of the Core Curriculum: An Annual Literary and
Academic Anthology in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston
University</i> 32:81-86. [The link is to a pdf of the whole volume, which means you'll have to scroll down/do a search to find the article. It's free, though!]</p><p>Bharathi, L. Divya
and K. Muthuraman, K.
(2023).
<span>"<a href="https://www.namibian-studies.com/index.php/JNS/article/view/4285" target="_blank">Nicholas Charles Sparks’s <i>The Notebook</i>: A Novel Of Love Or Romance?</a>"</span>
<i>Journal of Namibian Studies</i>
35, special issue 1: 3749-3755. </p><p>Horgheim, Celina
(2023).
<i>
<span><a href="https://www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/104744" target="_blank">From Rape to Romance: Sexual Consent Negotiation in Romantic Retellings of the Myth of Persephone</a>.</span>
</i>
MA Degree Secondary Teacher Programme,
University of Oslo.<br /></p><p>Petrović, Janja
(2023). <i><span><a href="https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:131:866741" target="_blank">Breaking the stereotype – romance novel today</a>.</span>
</i> Masters thesis,
University of Zagreb. </p>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-9753096011020620742023-09-18T19:17:00.002+01:002023-09-18T19:17:56.479+01:00CFP: Young Adult + Series + Romance<p><a href="https://www.jprstudies.org/submissions/special-issue-call-for-papers/" target="_blank">From the<i> Journal of Popular Romance Studies</i></a></p><p><b>Proposal deadline December 1</b></p>
<p>2023 marks the fortieth anniversary of the initial publication of <i>Sweet Valley High</i>.
While Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield may rank amongst the best-known
teen romance heroines, the texts themselves exist within a much larger
pantheon of series books intended for or read by teens, and featuring
romance narratives. <u>The <i>Journal of Popular Romance Studies</i> (<i>JPRS</i>) seeks articles for a special issue devoted to young adult series romance</u>.
These articles may focus on YA series romance from any historical
period or language context, and may derive from any relevant discipline,
including interdisciplinary approaches.</p>
<p>Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:</p>
<ul><li>the relationship between young adult literature, series novels, and popular romance</li><li>ideology within YA series romance</li><li>literary precursors to YA series romance</li><li>midcentury series romances aimed at teens</li><li>80s and 90s teen romance series, such as <i>Wildfire</i>, <i>Young Love</i>, <i>First Love</i>, or <i>Sweet Dreams</i> series</li><li>legacies of <i>Sweet Valley High</i> or other YA series romance in current YA romance</li><li>positive or problematic representations of identity (including race, gender, sexuality, and disability) within YA series romance</li><li>YA series romance in global perspective</li><li>sex (or potentially the lack of sex) in YA romance series</li><li>ghostwriters and/or corporate constructions of teen romance series</li><li>teen responses to YA romance series</li><li>YA romance series within fanworks and fandom</li><li>teacher or librarian reaction to and/or use of YA romance series</li><li>pedagogical approaches to using YA romance series within the classroom (at any level)</li></ul>For <a href="https://www.jprstudies.org/submissions/special-issue-call-for-papers/" target="_blank">more details see JPRS</a>.<br />Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-90627148034357034812023-08-31T10:42:00.005+01:002023-09-10T22:45:53.345+01:00CFP: PCA's 2024 National Conference - March 27-30, 2024<p> The Romance Subject Area has a call for papers for this conference:</p><p> </p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Call For Papers - </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Ugly Love</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">When critical attention to romance rebooted in the 21<sup>st</sup> century, the new wave of scholars made a conscious decision to move
away from the often-pejorative approaches of earlier critics and focus
instead on romance’s strengths: an emphasis on women’s pleasure, for
example, and models of good communication. </span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">However,
romance is an emotion-centered genre, and the sentiments it explores
include such ugly feelings as jealousy, envy, and a thirst for
vengeance. Ugly themes and ugly tropes also abound (see, for instance,
the bully romance, or the recuperation of Nazis as romantic heroes), as
well as plentiful examples of ugly behaviors in media cultures
surrounding romance (such as the recent sexual harassment scandal that
erupted around a section of hockey romance fans on TikTok).</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">The
theme of the PCA Romance area in 2024 is the ugly in romance and
romantic media. We encourage you to define this theme broadly, and to
think not just about specific texts but also about their creators,
consumers and critics, to understand the broader discussions in which
these texts are implicated.</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">We
also encourage you to move away from decisionist and diagnostic
approaches that seek to position texts on a spectrum of progressivism to
conservatism. Our aim in raising this topic for exploration is not to
pass judgment, but to enable deep thinking in the scholarly community –
to ask questions that go beyond asking whether texts and tropes are
“good” or “bad” and think in more nuanced, layered ways about their
affordances and the work they perform.</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Possible topics on this theme could include:</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">negative emotions, affect theory, and romance</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">tropes: enemies to loves, the other woman, etc.</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">Taming of the Shrew and its remakes</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">erotica and fantasies of submission: the legacy of Fifty Shades </span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">the villain hero, the criminal hero, the morally grey hero</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">criminal dyads: Bonnie and Clyde, etc.</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">ugly scandals in book and media culture</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">cheating, lying, and misbehaving love interests</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">break-up revenge songs</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">jealousy in poly romance</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">bully romance, mafia romance, stalker romance, dark romance</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">fantasies of sexual coercion</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">degradation</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">the eroticised abject and/or the eroticised disgusting</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">hate reading and/or hate watching</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">extreme confession/memoir (ex. Bentley's The Surrender, The Story of O, etc.)</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">transactional sex</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">dirty talk</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 22px;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">ugly emotion and the therapeutic romance</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">If none of these suggestions appeal, or you simply want to pursue your own intellectual passion, you are very welcome to do so.</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">-----</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">More details can be found <a href="https://pcaaca.org/members/group.aspx?id=250648&hhSearchTerms=%22romance+and+area%22" target="_blank">here</a>. The full CFP has also been <a href="https://www.iaspr.org/frontpage/cfp-romance-area-conference-of-the-popular-culture-association/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cfp-romance-area-conference-of-the-popular-culture-association" target="_blank">cross-posted to IASPR</a>. I think you may have to be/become a member of the PCA in order to submit a proposal.<br /></span></p><b style="letter-spacing: 0pt;"><u><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-weight: normal;"></span></u></b><p></p>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-12475045154405713062023-08-27T15:03:00.004+01:002023-08-27T15:03:40.889+01:00CFP: 2024 Conference on Love Studies<p><b>Conference on Love Studies, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Canary Islands), January 2-7, 2024</b></p>
<p>They're looking for papers about love:<br /></p><p></p><blockquote><p>We consider love in its broad meaning, including different modes and
types of love, and various contexts from those that inhibit to those
that facilitate the experience and expression of love. Among the
variations implied above are:</p>
<ul><li>Love at the nature of humans and humanity, philosophy of love, good and bad sides of love</li><li>Familial love, maternal love, paternal love, the love of children for their parents</li><li>Love as interpersonal attachment, and pair-bonding love</li><li>Romantic love, passionate love, obsessional love, lovesickness</li><li>Love, physical attraction, sex, and diversity of sexual love</li><li>Companionate, compassionate love, love for friends, and friendship</li><li>Diversity of polygamy and monogamy in love, polyamory, and open relationships</li><li>Rational, practical, pragmatic forms of love</li><li>Love focused on divine and supernatural entities, religious conceptions of love</li><li>Love as positive social connection, communal and ideological love</li><li>Para-social forms of love and sex</li><li>Love directed to oneself, self-love, and narcissism</li><li>Love for pets and inanimate beings (flowers, money, activities, etc.)</li><li>The biology and physiology of love</li><li>The various other types of love and relationships, including those at an intersection between them</li></ul>
Any kind of love is of interest for this conference.</blockquote><p></p><p>The International Advisory Board has extended the deadline for
submission of proposals for presentations at the International
Conference on Love Studies, which will be held in Las Palmas de Gran
Canaria (Canary Islands) on January
2-7, 2024 (both in-person and virtual formats).</p>
<p>The extended deadline is September 10th, Sunday. See the details at <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://love-studies-institute.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3D10b2187f0bd271322ae0df265%26id%3D10d0d22749%26e%3D6dfa7cad61__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!RHlnaAIpc3nuK3t84I8k7w_dq63HU2CcgEELHW5M8TVP9tg5Z763YJOP-Bc3xB9vv7kw2-R2WtWzhRVWix6fUoWgmQZk7IoGAcou3Q$&source=gmail&ust=1693223402868000&usg=AOvVaw0E4BH0gMoY5_iz9K9dyI4n" href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://love-studies-institute.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10b2187f0bd271322ae0df265&id=10d0d22749&e=6dfa7cad61__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!RHlnaAIpc3nuK3t84I8k7w_dq63HU2CcgEELHW5M8TVP9tg5Z763YJOP-Bc3xB9vv7kw2-R2WtWzhRVWix6fUoWgmQZk7IoGAcou3Q$" id="m_-2282638502246898405OWA8ede4338-c960-6fdf-e71e-f81752ea074e" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://love-studies-<wbr></wbr>institute.org/international-<wbr></wbr>conference-on-love-studies/</a> <br /></p>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-18265281985620338892023-08-20T13:25:00.002+01:002023-08-20T13:25:32.943+01:00New Publications: Masculinity, Race, Sexuality and More<p>There are a couple of anecdotes from </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">Joshua Thorburn (2023). "Exiting the Manosphere. A Gendered Analysis of Radicalization, Diversion and Deradicalization Narratives from r/IncelExit and r/ExRedPill." <i>Studies in Conflict & Terrorism</i>.<br /></p><p>which I wanted to share. The whole article's open access, from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2023.2244192">https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2023.2244192</a></p><blockquote><p>Amusingly, one user on r/ExRedPill stated that his deradicalization journey was prompted by reading “soppy romance novels” targeted for women, while in concurrence, another replied that romantic poems and historical period dramas helped him question his red pill beliefs. Because this media focused on romance beyond sexual gratification alone, and the fact that it was either popular with women or targeted towards them, such materials again therefore challenged manosphere claims that women are exclusively driven by an innate desire for the physical attributes of so-called alpha-males. (17-18)<br /></p></blockquote><p>On the topic of men/masculinities, I missed <span>Jonathan Allan</span><span>'s </span><i><span>Men</span><span>, Masculinities</span><span>, and Infertilities</span></i><span> when it first came out in 2022, but the good news is that</span><span> it</span><span>'s also downloadable for free, from </span><a class="anchor-1X4H4q anchorUnderlineOnHover-wiZFZ_" href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003010432" rel="noreferrer noopener" role="button" tabindex="0" target="_blank" title="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003010432"><span>https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003010432</span></a><span> or </span><a class="anchor-1X4H4q anchorUnderlineOnHover-wiZFZ_" href="https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/57071" rel="noreferrer noopener" role="button" tabindex="0" target="_blank" title="https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/57071"><span>https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/57071</span></a><span> and includes a chapter each on LaVyrle Spencer</span><span>'s </span><i><span>The Fulfillment</span></i><span> and </span><i><span>The Trouble with Joe</span></i><span> by Emilie Richards</span><span>.</span></p><p>Giovanni, Chiara
(2023).
<span>"<a href="https://post45.org/2023/07/hetero-ever-after-romance-novels-race-and-the-limits-of-social-dreaming/" target="_blank">Hetero Ever After? Romance Novels, Race, and the Limits of Social Dreaming</a>." </span>
<i>Post45</i>.<span> ["</span>Chiara Giovanni shows that popular romance novels by and about women of
color often indulge a positive orientation toward heterosexual desire.
Giovanni calls this orientation "heteroidealism" and sees it as an
adaptive strategy to forge solidarity between men and women along racial
lines."]<br /></p><div class="markup-eYLPri messageContent-2t3eCI" id="message-content-1128267050494726174"><span>Heying</span><span>, Sarah M</span><span>. </span><span>(2023</span><span>). </span><span>"Sealed With a Kiss on Your Artery</span><span>"</span><span>: An Archive of Southern Lesbian Desire. PhD</span><span> thesis, University of Mississippi. [This isn</span><span>'t specifically about romance but it does have a chapter on Ann Allen Shockley</span><span>. More details <a href="https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/sealed-kiss-your-artery-archive-southern-lesbian-desire" target="_blank">here</a></span>.]</div><div class="markup-eYLPri messageContent-2t3eCI" id="message-content-1128267050494726174"> </div><div class="markup-eYLPri messageContent-2t3eCI" id="message-content-1128267050494726174">Kamblé, Jayashree
(2023).
"<span>The origins of U.S. mass-market category romance novels: Black editors and writers in the early 1980s."</span>
<em>The Journal of American Culture</em>. [This hasn't yet been added to a volume, so the pagination available now isn't as it will eventually appear, but it's available (albeit behind a paywall) from <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jacc.13488" target="_blank">here</a>. I've collected some key quotes <a href="https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/origins-us-mass-market-category-romance-novels-black-editors-and-writers-early-1980s" target="_blank">here</a>.]<br /></div><p>Leenstra, Lisa
(2023).
<i>
<span><a href="https://studenttheses.uu.nl/handle/20.500.12932/44087" target="_blank">Covers of Lovers: A Multimodal Comparison of the Front Covers of Romance Novels in 2011 and 2021</a>.</span>
</i>
Masters thesis,
Universiteit Utrecht. </p><p>Nichols, Sue
(2023).
"<span><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s44020-023-00041-7" target="_blank">Love matters: the case for an inclusive, contemporary approach to romance themes and texts in subject English</a></span>." <i>The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy. </i>[This is about teaching YA romance/romantic fiction to future teachers of English.] <br /></p><p>Stobaugh, Rebecca
(2023).
<i>
<span>Halfway-Sexual: Exploring Demisexuality in American Literature.</span>
</i>
PhD,
Louisiana State University. [This is embargoed until 2030 but apparently discusses <i>Fifty Shades of Grey </i>and Jack Byrne’s <i>Ace. </i>The abstract can be found <a href="https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/6243/" target="_blank">here</a>.]<i></i></p>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-35552826355844762212023-07-27T14:29:00.001+01:002023-07-27T14:29:58.565+01:00Call for Papers: NEPCA fully virtual conference in October<p>The 2023 Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) will host its
annual conference this fall as a virtual conference from Thursday,
October 12-Saturday, October 14. See <a href="https://nepca.blog/2023-annual-conference/">https://nepca.blog/2023-annual-conference/</a><br /></p><p>The conference includes a romance/popular romance fiction area, which has put out a call for papers:</p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Romance/Popular Romance Fiction</span></b><br /><b>Current Chair</b>: Wendy Wagner, Johnson & Wales, <a href="mailto:Wendy.Wagner@jwu.edu">Wendy.Wagner@jwu.edu</a></p>
<p>This area invites proposals relating to romance fiction and its
influence and adaptations in popular culture. Romance Writers of
America, the professional organization of romance authors, identifies
two specific features of romance fiction: a central love story, and an
emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending. Romance novels generate
$1B of sales each year, and the reach of the romance narrative permeates
a variety of popular culture texts, from movies and television to music
and comics. This area welcomes submissions from variety of disciplinary
perspectives. Topics may include:</p>
<ul><li>History of the romance novel</li><li>Analysis of romance readers</li><li>The romance novel across cultures</li><li>Romance tropes</li><li>Politics and activism in the romance community</li><li>Film and television adaptations</li><li>Romance fandom and “shipping”</li><li>The economics of the romance novel industry</li><li>Portrayals of romance authors in popular culture</li><li>Controversies in the publication of romance novels</li><li>Romance book clubs</li><li>New media and romance novels</li><li>Library and archival collections of romance fiction</li></ul><p></p>That's <a href="https://nepca.blog/conference/conference-areas/" target="_blank">here</a> (scroll down the page). Submissions are open until 11:59pm on Monday, August 14 (EST) and there are more details about how to submit a proposal etc <a href="https://nepca.blog/2023-annual-conference/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-48255073570423543652023-07-24T20:37:00.002+01:002023-07-24T20:37:34.555+01:00Talk by Jayashree Kamblé about her new book: 22 September<p>
<b>Creating Identity: The Popular Romance Heroine’s Journey to Selfhood and Self-Presentation</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicONKoqytuGmAw8t4EKlBkVauOTyH1ZWe5VqT9pungqEoQVkMaV6MusyoGMd-77AdWd2zn4TzXEeQAY-nyTtUDuO1qA34pBrZ9Jqz6lolK409Di_AJ23B6ZdGG3fBLUdzw2kC4qHRsaaQ1IjId4YdSxGylZrqN4DXJAkgDv5HJXLWVqwpxoCkK-A/s558/Creating%20Identity.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="This is the cover of "Creating Identity." It's black and white and shows a female figure at the sea shore." border="0" data-original-height="558" data-original-width="372" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicONKoqytuGmAw8t4EKlBkVauOTyH1ZWe5VqT9pungqEoQVkMaV6MusyoGMd-77AdWd2zn4TzXEeQAY-nyTtUDuO1qA34pBrZ9Jqz6lolK409Di_AJ23B6ZdGG3fBLUdzw2kC4qHRsaaQ1IjId4YdSxGylZrqN4DXJAkgDv5HJXLWVqwpxoCkK-A/w213-h320/Creating%20Identity.png" width="213" /></a></div><br />Both in person and via Zoom, on Friday, September 22, 2023 | 6pm to 7:30pm<br /><p></p><p></p><blockquote><p>In <i>Creating Identity</i>, Prof. Jayashree Kamblé examines the
romance genre, with its sensile flexibility in retaining what audiences
find desirable and discarding what is not, by asking an important
question: “Who is the romance heroine, and what does she want?” To find
the answer, Kamblé explores how heroines in ten novels reject societal
labels and instead remake themselves on their own terms with their own
agency. Using a truly intersectional approach, Kamblé combines gender
and sexuality, Marxism, critical race theory, and literary criticism to
survey various aspects of heroines’ identities, such as sexuality,
gender, work, citizenship, and race.</p>
<p>Ideal for readers interested in gender studies and literary criticism, <i>Creating Identity</i>
highlights a genre in which heroines do not accept that independence
and strong, loving relationships are mutually exclusive but instead
demand both, echoing the call from the very readers who have made this
genre so popular.</p></blockquote><p></p><p>You have to register in advance in order to attend. The links to do so are <a href="https://aaari.info/23-09-22kamble/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br /></p>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-1443825996768048292023-07-19T18:09:00.006+01:002023-07-19T18:18:54.191+01:00Not Just for Academics! Free Romance Conference at Yale in September<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBAtssMpumyCmTk6c6m2aqxIV6PPrD8VLd_V0PLvez2_tyv0zUmD81CRV5PJBluLOmSvv9TLJfaJbdFH3GL_SfOz_PgvuSfvmbpWEmdh2wboCHKIxwvSvJKvcmg-sW1J-zgqcxKG7OzXtzXcMWCB39A_rEV5qLJAXj0CVdQQZ6vfxbqnNQqf851g/s1366/Copy%20of%20Conference%20Flyer%20-%20green_pdf.png"><img alt="A green graphic with a line drawing of a hand holding a book. The text says "Popular Romance Fiction: The Literature of Hope, September 8-9, 2023, A free, interactive conference at Yale University"" border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1366" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBAtssMpumyCmTk6c6m2aqxIV6PPrD8VLd_V0PLvez2_tyv0zUmD81CRV5PJBluLOmSvv9TLJfaJbdFH3GL_SfOz_PgvuSfvmbpWEmdh2wboCHKIxwvSvJKvcmg-sW1J-zgqcxKG7OzXtzXcMWCB39A_rEV5qLJAXj0CVdQQZ6vfxbqnNQqf851g/w320-h180/Copy%20of%20Conference%20Flyer%20-%20green_pdf.png" width="320" /></a></div> <p></p><p>Popular Romance Fiction: the “Literature of Hope” is a conference event
occurring on Friday, September 8 - Saturday, September 9, 2023 at Yale
University. This interactive gathering brings bestselling romance
writers together with scholars, students, readers, and the public for
two days of conversation and events at Yale and in the New Haven
community about the nation’s most popular literary genre. Through
discussion panels, a romance writing workshop, documentary screening,
historical exhibition, Elm City LIT Fest collaboration, a special
keynote event, and more, we examine romance fiction in expansive ways
that move at and beyond its surface appearances, exploring its
political, material, racial, feminist, and religious histories and
manifestations. Confirmed speakers include Roxane Gay, Adriana Herrera,
Eloisa James, Beverly Jenkins, Julie Moody-Freeman, Sarah MacLean,
Radclyffe, and others.</p><p>The conference includes:</p><p><b>How to Write a Romance Novel Workshop </b>with Adriana Herrera and Sarah MacLean </p><p><b><a href="https://www.blueberryhillproductions.com/love-between-the-covers"><i>Love Between the Covers</i></a><a href="https://www.blueberryhillproductions.com/love-between-the-covers"> (2015) </a>documentary screening </b>followed by "talk-back with documentarian Laurie Kahn and writers from film Eloisa
James, Beverly Jenkins, and Radclyffe on writer experience, making the
film, romance as a literary vehicle of hope, and how Romancelandia has
changed since the film, with attention to class, race, sexuality,
gender, and more."</p><p><b>Book signing</b></p><p><b>“Popular Romance Fiction: the ‘Literature of Hope’ ” - </b>Keynote conversation between Roxane Gay and Beverly Jenkins on
romance and the power and politics of hope.</p><p>The full programme and more details can be found <a href="https://romancefictionconference.yale.edu/" target="_blank">here</a>. <span>One of the organisers says that "The program and website will be updated with more details in the coming weeks</span><span>, so please check back in August for more exciting info."</span><span></span></p>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-14324628207399161132023-07-14T23:38:00.001+01:002023-07-14T23:39:17.024+01:00Survey: Romance Reading and the Pandemic<p><a href="http://cuny.is/moreilly" target="_blank">Anne O'Reilly, </a><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cuny.is/moreilly" target="_blank">Assistant Professor, Electronic Resources Librarian at LaGuardia Community College</a>, who describes herself as "</span><span>a budding romance researcher [...]</span><span> interested in romance readership</span>" <span style="font-weight: normal;">needs help from romance readers willing to fill in a survey.<br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><blockquote>With <span>"Romancing the Pandemic</span><span>: Do Our Reading Habits Change During Times of Stress</span><span>?</span><span>" I hope to assess the reading habits of romance readers prior to the pandemic </span><span>(before March 2020</span><span>)</span><span>, during the pandemic</span><span>, and as we return to normalcy </span><span>(the present</span><span>)</span><span>. If you could spend some time taking it</span><span>, I</span><span>'d really appreciate it</span><span>.</span></blockquote><span></span><p></p><p><span>The survey can be found <a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RomancingThePandemic" target="_blank">here</a>.</span> She says it's <span>been "approved by my institution’s </span><span>(CUNY</span><span>) IRB board" and she initially posted the request to a private IASPR Discord group I'm on, but I can't link to that directly.</span></p><p><span>A quick search shows there's been quite a bit of interest in romance reading during the pandemic. Book Riot, for example, <a href="https://bookriot.com/pandemic-romance-reading/" target="_blank">carried out a survey in 2021</a> and in 2022 <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/reading-novels-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-9780192857682?cc=gb&lang=en&" target="_blank">Oxford University Press published</a> <i>Reading Novels During the Covid-19 Pandemic</i> by Ben Davies, Christina Lupton, and Johanne Gormsen Schmidt. Anne's survey, though, is trying to find out how reading may have changed over time up to the present. It aims:<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> to assess the reading habits of
romance readers prior to the pandemic (before March 2020), during the
pandemic, and as we return to normalcy (the present). It is the hope of
this researcher to answer the following questions:</span>
</p><div><span style="font-size: 10pt;">1.) Did non-romance readers, or readers who read very little of the genre, read more romance during the pandemic?<br />2.)
Did these readers continue to read as much romance as we return to
normalcy? Or are they reverting to reading habits prior to the pandemic?<br />3.) Did reading romance make readers feel better during the pandemic?<br />4.)
Reading romance is usually deemed a “guilty pleasure.” Did that change
during the pandemic? Now that we return to normalcy, has that guilt
returned?</span></div>
<div><br /><span style="font-size: 10pt;">This researcher hopes the
results of the survey may show that what we read and how much we read
changes during times of great stress. It may also change the way we read
when we are unable to access certain content (i.e., printed materials).
Romance is often a genre that is not treated with as much credibility
as other genres. If this survey reveals the broad range of readers
seeking out the romance genre during times of uncertainty, would this
perhaps elevate the genre?</span></div><p>
</p><p><span><span>As I mentioned, the full survey <a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RomancingThePandemic" target="_blank">can be found here</a> if you'd like to respond. <br /></span></span></p><p></p><p></p>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-20238743404391065222023-06-27T10:59:00.008+01:002023-06-27T12:27:11.763+01:00IASPR Conference and New Publications: Climate Change, Migration, Readers, History, Libraries<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWFfNOBJmrhHjkruQr3qLf03LmFAhIe7LVooDhkWRBrtywj9KcICt3KDvrwSTwOUg_aoZsAbirLhyZvH49EdKMSmGkioG0lgKlXXjBmz2OCRJ3P_zxLEZPOr8IbHubIm_4DJmB4Wk_feZljwv0EuvOHQVuvWYRisG0qZ0aPZiJIn8jKM1qAO3SJQ/s507/iaspr.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="88" data-original-width="507" height="56" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWFfNOBJmrhHjkruQr3qLf03LmFAhIe7LVooDhkWRBrtywj9KcICt3KDvrwSTwOUg_aoZsAbirLhyZvH49EdKMSmGkioG0lgKlXXjBmz2OCRJ3P_zxLEZPOr8IbHubIm_4DJmB4Wk_feZljwv0EuvOHQVuvWYRisG0qZ0aPZiJIn8jKM1qAO3SJQ/s320/iaspr.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />The IASPR conference starts tomorrow and the schedule (with abstracts of the papers to be presented) is available for download here: <a href="https://www.iaspr.org/conferences/schedule-romance-revitalised/">https://www.iaspr.org/conferences/schedule-romance-revitalised/</a> . The topics for the various panels include: Booktok, Black Romance, Historical Romance, Love Studies, Paranormal Romance, Queer Romance and much more!<p></p><p><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"></span></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFhboRiGxBMzj3dQcw7LPCvFZSBh-Gl2XgVxp0US0N__l4lNNpKEkLCvhKXqb34tde0NU_cTOIBb_OCqswoIOshG8mymUmMBROKd3-si93-d6H6BHo3cFfa2OyRNjzEPowr7CGL8REamXoUfqHS9jynWeL5aK4HHLTV5eLf17ZTdGvvEo9RxCOtA/s558/Creating%20Identity.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="558" data-original-width="372" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFhboRiGxBMzj3dQcw7LPCvFZSBh-Gl2XgVxp0US0N__l4lNNpKEkLCvhKXqb34tde0NU_cTOIBb_OCqswoIOshG8mymUmMBROKd3-si93-d6H6BHo3cFfa2OyRNjzEPowr7CGL8REamXoUfqHS9jynWeL5aK4HHLTV5eLf17ZTdGvvEo9RxCOtA/w129-h194/Creating%20Identity.png" width="129" /></a></span></span></span></div><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5O-EARS3fVijhUpwnKVqoXHdMMVuH7AqbT12XqlrvJiMfTSjoNHKYRX4COi09JFEUnEr6eHM4lCOX8dLqkrTy1T9DJLTc85aR0anggFFdwBGzvsG0EG9nIiWx_gl1b-eJkzfFWPEyVYqQLsFqbg7WWI1FFFJXz_AmZFLV6jGRehf1E0tnlRKRWA/s253/9781009096430.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="253" data-original-width="180" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5O-EARS3fVijhUpwnKVqoXHdMMVuH7AqbT12XqlrvJiMfTSjoNHKYRX4COi09JFEUnEr6eHM4lCOX8dLqkrTy1T9DJLTc85aR0anggFFdwBGzvsG0EG9nIiWx_gl1b-eJkzfFWPEyVYqQLsFqbg7WWI1FFFJXz_AmZFLV6jGRehf1E0tnlRKRWA/w117-h164/9781009096430.jpg" width="117" /></a></span></span></span><br /><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">The conference will also see the launch of </span></span></span><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">Jayashree </span><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">Kamblé's new book, </span></span></span></span><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><i>Creating Identity The Popular Romance Heroine's Journey to Selfhood and Self-Presentation</i></span> (which you can read more about <a href="https://iupress.org/9780253065704/creating-identity/" target="_blank">here</a>).<br /></span></span></span><p></p><p>In addition, <b>this week only</b>, the ebook version of <span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Publishing Romance Fiction in the Philippines</i> by Jodi McAlister, Claire Parnell and Andrea Anne Trinidad, which was published earlier this year by Cambridge University Press, is available for free download <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/publishing-romance-fiction-in-the-philippines/237B25A9F767E6C35D5FA7A6E4DB3E8B" target="_blank">here</a>.<br /></span></p><p>Here's a list of some other recent publications:<br /></p><p>Ali, Kecia (2023). "The End of the World as We Know It: Climate Catastrophe in Nalini Singh's Paranormal Romance Fiction." <i>The Journal of the Core Curriculum: An Annual Literary and Academic Anthology in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University</i> 32:81-86. [At the time of adding this to the list, the 2023 volume <a href="https://www.bu.edu/core/community/journal/" target="_blank">of this journal</a> wasn't yet available online.]</p><p>Burge, Amy
(2023).
"<span>Romantic Love across Borders: Marriage Migration in Popular Romance Fiction</span>."
<i>Contemporary Love Studies in the Arts and Humanities: What's Love Got To Do With It?</i>
Ed. Madalena Grobbelaar, Elizabeth Reid Boyd and Debra Dudek. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. 39-49. [<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26055-1_4" target="_blank">Abstract</a>]</p><p>Parks, Amy Noelle
(2023).
"<span><a href="https://www.jprstudies.org/2023/06/the-feminist-possibilities-of-heteroglossic-spaces-in-contemporary-young-adult-romance-novels" target="_blank">The Feminist Possibilities of Heteroglossic Spaces in Contemporary Young Adult Romance Novels</a>."</span>
<em>Journal of Popular Romance Studies</em>
12.</p><p>Phipps, Catherine (2023). "‘The Machine for Showing Desire’: Desert Romance Fiction and Knowing Sexual Desire." <i>Historical Research, Creative Writing, and the Past: Methods of Knowing</i>. Ed. Kevin A. Morrison and Pälvi Rantala. New York: Routledge. [<a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003252801-4" target="_blank">Abstract</a> and <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UofAEAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA1976&pg=PT20#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Excerpt</a>]</p><h2 class="block-title"></h2>
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Richey, Weston
(2023).
"<span><a href="https://www.jprstudies.org/2023/06/loves-me-loves-me-not-unbuilding-of-selfhood-in-the-romance-of-the-present/" target="_blank">(Loves) Me, (Loves) Me Not: Unbuilding of Selfhood in the Romance of the Present.</a>"</span>
<em>Journal of Popular Romance Studies</em>
12.</div></article></div></div><p></p><p>Veros, Vassiliki (2023). "<a href="https://www.jprstudies.org/2023/05/nobody-puts-romance-fiction-in-the-corner-public-librarians-in-new-south-wales-and-their-dalliance-with-romance-fiction/" target="_blank">Nobody Puts Romance Fiction in the Corner: Public Librarians in New South Wales and Their Dalliance with Romance Fiction</a>." <i>Journal of Popular Romance Studies</i> 12.</p>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-9083184638877575742023-05-23T13:53:00.001+01:002023-05-23T13:53:43.901+01:00Free Book: Readers in Context, Sheffield UK 1929-1955<p class="hanging-indent" style="line-height: 100%; margin-left: 1.51cm; text-indent: -1.51cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVDyMn3az4Fl3Yh5vm4qLRxYCj9l-WegEUrna3GvjdIByUhUctsIu1NzcnagO9R6mmJdF9WD804t9ozfCEIzJClYYSZ3WKj8FhDKQ1C-c8wAK9g0uPoM6cXYG-EWJiIW72icEaxiiuutO-CEa5LPILlz8PRNhDzRyNS0067Sdl1-cE7cOpU9Q/s2829/9781802078589.cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The cover of Steel City by Mary Grover features a photograph of a young girl in a library, selecting some books to read" border="0" data-original-height="2829" data-original-width="1904" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVDyMn3az4Fl3Yh5vm4qLRxYCj9l-WegEUrna3GvjdIByUhUctsIu1NzcnagO9R6mmJdF9WD804t9ozfCEIzJClYYSZ3WKj8FhDKQ1C-c8wAK9g0uPoM6cXYG-EWJiIW72icEaxiiuutO-CEa5LPILlz8PRNhDzRyNS0067Sdl1-cE7cOpU9Q/w215-h320/9781802078589.cover.jpg" width="215" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><br />Grover,
Mary (2023). </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Steel
City Readers: Reading for Pleasure in Sheffield, 1925-1955.</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.</span></span><p></p><p>With the exception of Mairead Owen's (1990) <a href="https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/womens-reading-popular-romantic-fiction-case-study-mass-media-key-ideology-women" target="_blank">thesis</a>, I haven't come across a lot of work which relates to UK romance readers. Mary Grover's new book doesn't focus on romance, but it <a href="https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781802078589" target="_blank">is open access and available free for download</a> and it provides important insight into a group of readers whose stories would otherwise have been lost to the academic record. She interviewed "<span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: calc(var(--scale-factor)*11.50px); left: 12.82%; top: 24.19%; transform: scaleX(0.830183);">65 men and women who shared their</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: calc(var(--scale-factor)*11.50px); left: 12.82%; top: 26.15%; transform: scaleX(0.776493);"> reading histories with the community history group ‘Reading Sheffield’</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: calc(var(--scale-factor)*11.50px); left: 12.82%; top: 28.1%; transform: scaleX(0.75038);"> between 2011 and 2019" and<br /></span></p><p><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: calc(var(--scale-factor)*11.50px); left: 12.82%; top: 28.1%; transform: scaleX(0.75038);"></span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: calc(var(--scale-factor)*11.50px); left: 14.1%; top: 38.7%; transform: scaleX(0.804774);"></span></p><blockquote><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: calc(var(--scale-factor)*11.50px); left: 14.1%; top: 38.7%; transform: scaleX(0.804774);">All were born before 1946.</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: calc(var(--scale-factor)*11.50px); left: 14.1%; top: 40.66%; transform: scaleX(0.761643);"> Their reading memories were collected by the community history group,</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: calc(var(--scale-factor)*11.50px); left: 14.1%; top: 42.62%; transform: scaleX(0.737832);"> ‘Reading Sheffield’, between 2011 and 2019. These readers were born in a</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: calc(var(--scale-factor)*11.50px); left: 14.1%; top: 44.58%; transform: scaleX(0.756267);"> time of economic depression followed by wartime and post-war austerity.</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: calc(var(--scale-factor)*11.50px); left: 14.1%; top: 46.54%; transform: scaleX(0.83979);"> They grew up in an industrial city which for most of the twentieth</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: calc(var(--scale-factor)*11.50px); left: 14.1%; top: 48.49%; transform: scaleX(0.798716);"> century set little store by bookish or clerkly skills. Yet they developed</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: calc(var(--scale-factor)*11.50px); left: 14.1%; top: 50.45%; transform: scaleX(0.805936);"> a habit of reading that changed their lives, personally, culturally and</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: calc(var(--scale-factor)*11.50px); left: 14.1%; top: 52.41%; transform: scaleX(0.79404);"> economically. How and why did this happen?</span></blockquote><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: calc(var(--scale-factor)*11.50px); left: 14.1%; top: 52.41%; transform: scaleX(0.79404);"></span><p></p><p>There isn't a lot specifically about romance novels, because the focus is on readers and where/how/why they obtained their reading material but I've collected the quotes specifically about the genre <a href="https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/steel-city-readers-reading-pleasure-sheffield-1925-1955" target="_blank">here</a>. If you're interested in the history of Sheffield/libraries/reading, this is definitely worth a look.<br /></p>
<p><style type="text/css">p.hanging-indent { margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -0.5cm; margin-bottom: 0cm }p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; background: transparent }a:visited { color: #800000; text-decoration: underline }a:link { color: #000080; text-decoration: underline }</style></p>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-38641084002902421812023-05-21T13:24:00.001+01:002023-05-21T13:26:11.100+01:00Free Book (for a Limited Time Only): Publishing Romance Fiction in the Philippines<p><span data-v-014922ce=""><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3eQdeOKxfSQJfjQ_fmEhRA8_JocadBWBY5fs1VQQzuQ_ePyUtbbAed1jyPm5BTzHqeMcwF_mtwv7S_C_OGanXl6wPMcXf4sPGheXEVH8QDtjs4fXoJGf71Crszovj4Lyi1BCYJqRSHJUp3UoeuQJ5TVK6oJkM674LVeDwXatgFgdGuF2Uvew/s253/9781009096430.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="This is just an image of the cover of the book. It's very plain: dark green with a giant ampersand on it, title and names of authors." border="0" data-original-height="253" data-original-width="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3eQdeOKxfSQJfjQ_fmEhRA8_JocadBWBY5fs1VQQzuQ_ePyUtbbAed1jyPm5BTzHqeMcwF_mtwv7S_C_OGanXl6wPMcXf4sPGheXEVH8QDtjs4fXoJGf71Crszovj4Lyi1BCYJqRSHJUp3UoeuQJ5TVK6oJkM674LVeDwXatgFgdGuF2Uvew/s16000/9781009096430.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Jodi McAlister</span><span data-v-792406ce="">, </span><span data-v-014922ce="">Claire Parnell</span> <span data-v-792406ce="">and </span><span data-v-014922ce="">Andrea Anne Trinidad's <i>Publishing Romance Fiction in the Philippines</i> has just been published by Cambridge University Press and "</span><span class="element-free-access__text" data-v-454b86be="">is free online from 19th May 2023 - 2nd June 2023</span><span data-v-014922ce="">." You can download it from </span><span data-v-014922ce=""></span><a class="app-link app-link__text app-link--accent" data-v-014922ce="" data-v-03f80966="" href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009092289" target="_blank"><span class="text" data-v-014922ce="">https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009092289</span></a> by clicking on the "save pdf" button which appears directly below the summary.</p><p>Here's some more information about the book:</p><blockquote><p>The romance publishing landscape in the Philippines is vast and complex,
characterised by entangled industrial players, diverse kinds of texts,
and siloed audiences. This Element maps the large, multilayered, and
highly productive sector of the Filipino publishing industry. It
explores the distinct genre histories of romance fiction in this
territory and the social, political and technological contexts that have
shaped its development. It also examines the close connections between
romance publishing and other media sectors alongside unique reception
practices. It takes as a central case study the Filipino romance
self-publishing collective #RomanceClass, analysing how they navigate
this complex local landscape as well as the broader international
marketplace. The majority of scholarship on romance fiction exclusively
focuses on the Anglo-American industry. By focusing here on the
Philippines, the authors hope to disrupt this phenomenon, and to
contribute to a more decentred, rhizomatic approach to understanding
this genre world.</p></blockquote>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-72207068762180828462023-04-28T14:30:00.003+01:002023-04-29T12:28:42.190+01:00Nora Roberts and Book Banning<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/28/ron-desantis-book-ban-nora-roberts-florida/" target="_blank">From the <i>Washington Post</i></a>:</p><blockquote><p>in Martin County, Fla. The school district there recently decided to
yank from its high school library circulation eight novels by Nora
Roberts that are not “pornography” at all — largely prompted by
objections from a single woman who also happens to be a Moms for Liberty
activist. [...]<br /></p><p>This signals a new trend: Book banners are increasingly going after a
wide variety of titles, including romance novels, under the guise of
targeting “pornography.” That term is a very flexible one — deliberately
so, it appears — and it is sweeping ever more broadly to include books
that can’t be described as such in any reasonable sense. [...]</p><div class="article-body" data-qa="article-body"><p class="wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy" data-el="text" data-testid="drop-cap-letter" dir="null">All this shows that red-state book crackdowns are designed to whip up frenzies of book-banning zealotry. Vaguely <a href="https://popular.info/p/how-to-ban-3600-books-from-school" target="_blank">defined directives enable</a>
lone actors to purge whole stacks of books based on frivolous
rationales, encouraging parents to hunt for offending books and
officials to err on the side of removal. A <a href="https://pen.org/report/banned-in-the-usa-state-laws-supercharge-book-suppression-in-schools/" target="_blank">new PEN America report</a>
found nearly 1,500 instances of schools banning books during the first
half of the 2022-2023 year, increasingly based on them supposedly
containing “pornography.”</p></div><div class="article-body" data-qa="article-body"></div><div class="article-body" data-qa="article-body"><p class="wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy" data-el="text" data-testid="drop-cap-letter" dir="null">“Activists
and politicians are inflating the notion of what constitutes
‘pornography’ beyond all recognition,” Jonathan Friedman, <a href="https://pen.org/user/jonathan-friedman/" target="_blank">director of free expression</a>
at PEN, told us. They are going after “romance books, books about
puberty or sex education and books that just have LGBTQ characters.”</p></div></blockquote><div class="article-body" data-qa="article-body"><p class="wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy" data-el="text" data-testid="drop-cap-letter" dir="null"></p></div><p></p><p><a href="https://www.everylibraryinstitute.org/nora_roberts" target="_blank">In related news, on 23 April the</a> </p><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-weight: 400;">The EveryLibrary Institute, a
national nonprofit focused on public policy and libraries, is proud to
announce that bestselling author Nora Roberts and the Nora Roberts
Foundation have made a generous donation to support the launch of </span><a href="http://www.fightforthefirst.org/" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Fight for the First</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, its new advocacy and organizing site with a mission of protecting the First Amendment in libraries across the country. </span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The situation is somewhat different in the UK, but nonetheless,<br /></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span>Research carried out by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (<a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.cilip.org.uk/">Cilip</a>),
the UK’s library and information association, found that a third of
librarians had been asked by members of the public to censor or remove
books, indicating that such incidents “had increased significantly in
recent years”, according to Cilip’s chief executive, Nick Poole. The
most targeted books involve empire, race and LGBTQ+ themes. (<i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/20/third-of-uk-librarians-asked-to-censor-or-remove-books-research-reveals" target="_blank">The Guardian</a></i>)<br /></p></blockquote><p> [Edited later on 28 April to add something AztecLady noted elsewhere on this topic: in the second half of 2022</p><p></p><blockquote><p>The romance writer Nora Roberts [...] donated $50,000 to a Michigan
library that was defunded in August after it refused to remove a number
of LGBTQ+ books from its shelves.</p>
<p>Roberts, an award-winning author of more than 225 romance novels, made the contribution late last month via an <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/fund-patmos-library-for-2023">online fundraising campaign</a> for the Patmos Library in Jamestown Township, Michigan. (<a href="https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/3636411-romance-novelist-nora-roberts-donates-50k-to-michigan-library-defunded-over-lgbtq-books/" target="_blank"><i>The Hill</i></a>)</p></blockquote><p>]<br /></p><p></p>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-69631044859813307672023-04-24T13:20:00.000+01:002023-04-24T13:20:16.305+01:00Blogger's Guidelines Affecting Teach Me Tonight<p>We've had two posts placed behind a content warning now. The first was of a post written many years ago, discussing a book which I can accept had a title/contents which were definitely what might have been classified as for adults. However, my last post was just a round-up of recent publications and it had nothing in it at all unsafe for work or that would have been unsuitable for small children to see, unless small children aren't even allowed to know of the existence of certain words/concepts.</p><p>As far as I can tell, it would at best be difficult to challenge Blogger's decisions on such matters and at worst I'd have to make a huge effort and the decision would still stand. I don't know how many posts will be hidden in future but I'm pretty much only posting details of new publications to notify readers of those, so I'm assuming that everyone who's interested will click through.</p><p>I'd be interested to know what regular readers of TMT think. Comments, by the way, are pre-moderated due to the amount of spam we were getting.<br /></p><p>All the best,</p><p>Laura<br /></p>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-31571794927592700202023-04-24T13:11:00.006+01:002023-04-24T13:11:59.621+01:00New Publications: Beefcake, Bridgerton, Gender, Ecocriticism, Publishing, Adaptation<p> </p><p>The full schedule of the 2023 conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance <a href="https://www.iaspr.org/conferences/schedule-romance-revitalised/" target="_blank">is now online</a>. The conference itself is taking place from 28-30 June.</p><p>---</p><p>Here are the new publications, which I've added to the <a href="https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography" target="_blank">Romance Scholarship Database</a>:<br /></p><p>Allan, Jonathan A.
(2023).
<span>"Softcore romance: on naked heroes and beefcakes in popular romance novels."</span> <i>**** Studies. </i>[Some quotes and link <a href="https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/softcore-romance-naked-heroes-and-beefcakes-popular-romance-novels" target="_blank">here</a>. I'm trying to avoid getting caught in a Blogger filter so I'm starring out words I think might trigger it.]</p><p>Davisson, Amber and Kyra Hunting (2023).
"
<span>From private pleasure to erotic spectacle: Adapting Bridgerton to female audience desires."</span><i> J</i><i>ournal of Popular Television</i>
11.1:7-25. [I've not been able to access this, but the abstract can be found <a href="https://doi.org/10.1386/jptv_00090_1" target="_blank">here</a>. It's part of a special issue about the television version of the Bridgerton novels.]<br /></p><p>Hanson, Donna Maree
(2022).
<i>
<span> <a href="https://researchprofiles.canberra.edu.au/en/studentTheses/romance-fiction-as-a-bridge-to-understanding-changing-gender-role" target="_blank">Romance fiction as a bridge to understanding changing gender roles in society</a></span></i><span>.</span><i><a href="https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/romance-fiction-bridge-understanding-changing-gender-roles-society"><span></span></a></i> PhD in Creative Writing,
University of Canberra. </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">[The
dissertation is partly a discussion of two surveys carried out in
2016/2017, one with romance readers and the other with romance authors,
with a view to understanding their attitudes towards feminism. The full
dissertation is available via a link provided on the page to which I've
linked above.] </p><p>Pérez-Gil, María del Mar (2023). "<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/8BPBETUKX7J9NXDWS72N/full?target=10.1080/14688417.2023.2202190" target="_blank">Mass Tourism, Ecocriticism, and Mills & Boon Romances (1970s-1980s)</a>." <i>Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism</i>.</p><p>Reed, Eleanor
(2023).
<i>
<span>Woman's Weekly and Lower-Middle-Class Domestic Culture in Britain, 1918-1958: Making Homemakers</span>
</i>
Liverpool:
Liverpool University Press. [More details <a href="https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/womans-weekly-and-lower-middle-class-domestic-culture-britain-1918-1958-making" target="_blank">here</a>.]</p><p>Sharma, Vishal, Kirsten Bray, Neha Kumar, and Rebecca E. Grinter. 2023. “<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Vishal-Sharma-60/publication/369528995_It_Takes_at_least_Two_The_Work_to_Make_Romance_Work/links/641f634666f8522c38d2c57b/It-Takes-at-least-Two-The-Work-to-Make-Romance-Work.pdf" target="_blank">It Takes (at least) Two: The Work to Make Romance Work</a>.” In <i>Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’23), April 23–28, 2023, Hamburg, Germany</i>. ACM, New York, NY, USA.</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">This discusses the work involved in self-publishing romance. It notes that:</p><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><div style="margin-left: 40px;">
</div><p style="margin-left: 40px;"><span dir="ltr">While white participants reported using pen-names to separate</span><span dir="ltr"> their writer identity from their personal one, our participants of</span><span dir="ltr"> color undertook much more significant identity management. In</span><span dir="ltr"> addition to adopting white-sounding pen names, they mentioned</span><span dir="ltr"> about how race influenced their story lines and characters. Digital</span><span dir="ltr"> platforms, and the need they create for writers to engage with read</span><span dir="ltr">ers, surface questions of how they become arenas in which some are</span><span dir="ltr"> excluded while others are privileged based on whether it is possible</span><span dir="ltr"> for everyone to engage equally (e.g. whether everyone can use video</span><span dir="ltr"> for conversations). [...] </span><span dir="ltr">Romance novelists continue to confront</span><span dir="ltr"> issues of racism within the community, and our research suggests</span><span dir="ltr"> another dimension to this reckoning, which shows how the tools</span><span dir="ltr"> writers use perpetuate or even exacerbate discrimination.</span></p>
</blockquote><p></p>Wells, Juliette (2022). "Afterword: Sex, Romance, and Representation in Uzma Jalaluddin’s <i>Ayesha at Last</i>." <i>Jane Austen, Sex, and Romance: Engaging with Desire in the Novels and Beyond</i>. Ed. Nora Nachumi and Stephanie Oppenheim. University of Rochester Press. Rochester, NY. 243-252. [Some quotes and links <a href="https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/afterword-sex-romance-and-representation-uzma-jalaluddins-ayesha-last" target="_blank">here</a>.]Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-35414224357213397442023-03-21T01:12:00.000+00:002023-03-21T01:12:41.074+00:00News, Commentary, Registration for IASPR 2023 and New Publications<p>The closing date for <a href="https://www.iaspr.org/conferences/romance-revitalised-birmingham-uk-2023/registration/" target="_blank">early-bird registration</a> for the IASPR conference is 31 March. There's a hybrid as well as an in-person option.</p><p>The BBC has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64975524" target="_blank">published an article with the annoying premise</a> that, as the most formulaic genre of popular fiction, romance is presumably the most at risk of being produced by artificial intelligence. However, the article does also mention that</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Last year, sales of romantic fiction in the US <a class="ssrcss-k17ofw-InlineLink e1no5rhv0" href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/91298-romance-books-were-hot-in-2022.html">shot up by 52.4%,</a> compared with an increase of just 8.5% for adult fiction overall.</p><div class="ssrcss-11r1m41-RichTextComponentWrapper ep2nwvo0" data-component="text-block"><div class="ssrcss-7uxr49-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1"><p class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph eq5iqo00">Meanwhile, sales of the genre in the UK have increased more than two fold <a class="ssrcss-k17ofw-InlineLink e1no5rhv0" href="https://www.economist.com/britain/2023/03/06/sales-of-romance-novels-are-rising-in-britain">over the past three years.</a></p></div></div></blockquote><div class="ssrcss-11r1m41-RichTextComponentWrapper ep2nwvo0" data-component="text-block"><div class="ssrcss-7uxr49-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1"><p class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph eq5iqo00"><a class="ssrcss-k17ofw-InlineLink e1no5rhv0" href="https://www.economist.com/britain/2023/03/06/sales-of-romance-novels-are-rising-in-britain"></a></p></div></div><p><a href="https://smutreport.com/2023/03/14/penetration-isnt-necessary-they-sayand-then-it-always-happens/" target="_blank">Erin at <i>The Smut Report</i> explores</a> the preponderance of penetrative sex in m/m romance and concludes that </p><p></p><blockquote>Sexual fantasy and wish fulfillment is all over the place in romance.
But while wish fulfillment and smoothing out rough edges (I mean, <em>is</em>
douching sexy? Apparently not, because—while showers are prolific—these
guys never do it.) is one indisputable component of genre romance, it
also often contributes to certain groups of readers feeling invisible.
Fantasy is great and all, but sometimes it would be nice also to stop
the barrage of input that maybe something’s broken because one hasn’t
met one’s perfect Romance Novel Partner yet, and that’s why one
struggles to orgasm / doesn’t enjoy penetration / doesn’t enjoy sex at
all / fill in the blank.</blockquote><p></p><p>And on the topic of inaccuracies/fantasies, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-the-alpha-wolf-idea-a-myth/" target="_blank"><i>Scientific American</i> offers</a> a reminder that wolves generally do not behave the way that shifter/werewolf romances imply they do: "The idea that wolf packs are led by a merciless dictator, or alpha wolf,
comes from old studies of captive wolves. In the wild, wolf packs are
simply families."</p><p><a href="https://www.jprstudies.org/issues/#v12" target="_blank">This year's issue</a> of the <i>Journal of Popular Romance Studies</i> has begun to appear online, and includes:</p><div class="post-content">
<ul class="lcp_catlist" id="lcp_instance_0"><li><a class="lcp_title" href="https://www.jprstudies.org/2023/02/genre-savvy-protagonists-in-queer-ya-rom-coms/">Genre-savvy Protagonists in Queer YA Rom-coms</a><div class="lcp-customfield">Alex Henderson</div></li><li><a class="lcp_title" href="https://www.jprstudies.org/2023/02/literary-fiction-from-the-perspective-of-romance-normal-people/">Literary Fiction from the Perspective of Romance: <i>Normal People</i></a><div class="lcp-customfield">Francesca Pierini</div></li></ul>
</div><p>Other recently published works on romance are:</p><p>Burge, Amy
(2022)
"<a href="https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/beyond-outlander-annie-s-swan-and-scottish-popular-romance-novel"><span data-once="quickedit" data-quickedit-field-id="node/4287/title/en/teaser">Beyond Outlander: Annie S. Swan and the Scottish popular romance novel</span></a><i>." Scottish Literary Review</i>
14.2:1-19 [I've linked to the entry at the Romance Scholarship Database as there's both an official version (behind a paywall) and a free, pre-print version.]<br /></p><p>Cannon, Emanni N
(2022).
<i>
<a href="https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/downloads/pr76f966z" target="_blank"><span data-once="quickedit" data-quickedit-field-id="node/4365/title/en/teaser">Contemporary Romance and the Question of Literary Value</span></a>.
</i>
Master of Arts in English Literature,
San Francisco State University. </p><p>Ghosh, Srijani
(2023).
<span>"Diversity Sells: Uzma Jalaluddin’s Muslim Adaptation of <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>."</span>
<em>English Studies</em>. Online First. [<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0013838X.2023.2180896" target="_blank">Abstract</a>]<br /></p><p>Lindström Kruse, Miranda
(2022).
<i><a href="https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/pinsamma-lasningar-en-affektteoretisk-studie-av-spicybooks-pa-tiktok">
<span data-once="quickedit" data-quickedit-field-id="node/4346/title/en/teaser">Pinsamma läsningar: En affektteoretisk studie av #SpicyBooks på TikTok.</span></a> </i>Masters thesis,
Uppsala universitet. </p><p>McDade, Monique
(2023).
<i>
<span data-once="quickedit" data-quickedit-field-id="node/4349/title/en/teaser">California Dreams and American Contradictions: Women Writers and the Western Ideal</span>.
</i>
Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press. [There is a chapter on Eva Rutland, and though the focus is not on her romance novels, this is the first significant academic work about her. See <a href="https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/california-dreams-and-american-contradictions-women-writers-and-western-ideal" target="_blank">the RSDB for more details</a>.]</p><p>Pupipat, Apisak
(2023).
"<span data-once="quickedit" data-quickedit-field-id="node/4350/title/en/teaser"><a href="https://so04.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/LEARN/article/view/263458/178440" target="_blank">Should a Book Be Judged by its Back Cover? Some Written/Formal Features as Observed in Happily- Ever-After Women’s Novel Blurbs</a>."</span> <i>LEARN Journal: Language Education and Acquisition Research Network</i>
16.1:604-630.</p><p>Rattanamathuwong, Bancha
(2023).
"<span data-once="quickedit" data-quickedit-field-id="node/4371/title/en/teaser">Time Is on Our Side?: Homo Economicus in Time-Travel Romance."</span>
<i>Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction. </i>[<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00111619.2023.2186212" target="_blank">Abstract</a>] <br /></p>Laura Vivancohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com0