Professor Margo Hendricks' Masterclass "Those Purple Hands Really Intrigue Me" on Beverly Jenkins' Indigo is now available on YouTube
Dr. Val Derbyshire has discussed Penny Jordan on The Categorically Romance Podcast:
or https://thecategoricallyromancepod.podbean.com/e/episode-113-on-penny-jordan-with-dr-val-derbyshire/
The 2022 volume of the Journal of Popular Romance Studies is now being published (articles etc. are published throughout the year). At the moment, there is only one article available (by Bonnie White, see below) but there are also some book reviews.
Here's my round-up of recent publications:
Garber, Linda (2021). Novel Approaches to Lesbian History. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. [This is not just about lesbian historical romance, but there is a discussion which is particularly focussed on romance in the chapter titled "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lesbian Sex* *But Only In Historical Fiction." An excerpt can be found here.]
Ivanski, Chantelle, Marta M.Maslej and Raymond A. Mar (2022). "Empirical Approaches to Studying Emotion in Literature: The Case of Gender." The Routledge Companion to Literature and Emotion, Ed. Patrick Colm Hogan, Bradley J. Irish and Lalita Pandit Hogan. London: Routledge. [See https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/empirical-approaches-studying-emotion-literature-case-gender for links. At the time of writing, the chapter was available in full via Google Books.]
Lecercle, Jean-Jacques
(2022).
"Interpellation and Counter-Interpellation in the Novel."
The Rhetoric of Literary Communication: From Classical English Novels to Contemporary Digital Fiction. New York: Routledge. [Excerpt here.]
Pierini, Francesca (2021). " “Sharing the Same Soil:” Sally Rooney’s Normal People and the Coming-of-Age Romance." Prospero. Rivista di letterature e culture straniere :141-166. [It argues "for the importance and validity of a genre and the field of expertise attached to it – scholarship of the (popular) romance – that has developed, during the last decades, and especially since the beginning of the current century, important analytical tools for reading and understanding the representation of love in literary as well as popular narratives. Despite the undeniable revitalisation generic forms of literature are currently undergoing, the romance – and its critics – tend to remain excluded from academic debates concerning such revival." ]
Šmídová, Monika Markéta
(2021).
Five Thousand for Justice: The Use of English Folklore in the Novels of KJ Charles.
Masters thesis,
Masaryk University.
van Halteren, Hans
(2022).
"Automatic Authorship Investigation."
Language as Evidence: Doing Forensic Linguistics.
Ed. Victoria Guillén-Nieto and Dieter Stein. Palgrave Macmillan. 219-255.
White, Bonnie (2022). "Freedom, Sincerity, and the Modern Woman in the Interwar Romances of Berta Ruck." Journal of Popular Romance Studies 11.
As promised, here's a link to:
“El ‘chico malo’ en la novela romántica paranormal post-9/11 en Estados Unidos”
MARÍA T. RAMOS GARCÍA
Universidad Estatal de Dakota del Sur
The video should start with Maria's presentation (which was the fourth of the colloquium). If it doesn't, you can go here and skip forward to 1:44:46.
Coming up on the 14th is a colloquium which will be streamed live. "Figuraciones del chico malo: género, deseo y poder en narrativas románticas populares. Lunes 14 de febrero de 2022, 10:00-16:00"
One of the papers is
“El ‘chico malo’ en la novela romántica paranormal post-9/11 en Estados Unidos”
MARÍA T. RAMOS GARCÍA Universidad Estatal de Dakota del Sur
It will stream live here. More details here. I've been told that it will remain available afterwards, so I'll post a link to that later, in a different post.
The other event is one I only found out about recently, it's in Australia, and it's on the 10th. I'm hoping I've got this up before it starts but I'm really unclear about the impact of the time difference.
Will You Be My Valentine?: Romance, Love, and Lust in Popular Culture
Join us on the 10th of February 2022 for our free online symposium exploring the many ways love is represented in popular culture.
Keynote: Dr Jodi McAlister, Deakin University
It’s Not You, It’s Me: Breaking Up in Popular Culture
To register for attendance please send an email to popcrn@une.edu.au. Programme and book of abstracts are available here.
Two of the papers are:
Happy Objects: The Pleasures of Reading the Romance
Nattie Golubov, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
This paper argues that popular romance novels actively participate in the circulation of “happy objects” in two senses: they promise happiness as one outcome of the reading experience, on the one hand, while, on the other, they contribute to the circulation of affect by attaching the promise of happiness to certain objects which, in turn, connect to ideas and values. This affective work is accomplished through the use of literary techniques such as the familiar plot structure, the happy ending, the use of cliché and stereotype which I read as features with affordances conducive to a pleasurable reading experience. Based upon the work of new formalists such as Rita Felski and Caroline Levine and Sara Ahmed’s notion of the happy object, I argue that these formal elements incite an embodied type of reading. Contrary to much reader reception theory which dismisses the affective reaction of readers, I argue that (re)reading the romance is a positive, desirable experience because it is embodied, a style of reading that readers expect and unashamedly enjoy.
A discussion with "with special guests editor and librarian Jessica Pryde, best-selling author Beverly Jenkins, and host of Romance Ever After Allie Parker" is being held on 22 February.
More details here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_rCsTiAqURGaKw93KtgxDug
This presentation focuses on a reasoned discussion of the female protagonists of the popular romance narratives [...]. The main goal is familiarizing students with the definitions, development, and cultural significance of popular romance fiction through a parallel exploration of the novels’ heroines. The talk will touch upon themes such as: the evolution of the female character in romance novels, educating students on the waves of scholarship on romance fiction, and exploring and problematizing the complex relationship between popular literature and literary scholarship.
More details here.
Duke University's course on romance, UNSUITABLE (with an associated blog and events) has announced that its 2022 season begins
on Friday, January 21st [...] with author Deborah Fletcher Mello who will talk with us about What Characterizes a Romance Novel? Negotiating Industry Norms and Expectations.
All are welcome! Preregister here. UNSUITABLE events are free and open to the public.
That's via Zoom.
On February 26th, also online, there will be a
Black Romance Master Class. Sponsored by the Center for Black Diaspora.
"Those Purple Hands Really Intrigues Me:" Beverly Jenkins' Indigo
The aim of this master class is to offer a pedagogical and scholarly approach to reading and teaching Black Romance fiction, specificially, historical Black romance novels. What this class will offer is a model, using Indigo as the class text, for teaching the literariness of novel, its continuity with the history of the romance genre, and the importance of reassessing the teaching of and writing about Black romance, and the romance genre in general. What the course will offer Black romance readers, scholars, and teachers is a critical approach easily adapted to anti-racist pedagogy and scholarly writing about romance.
The class is being led by Dr Margo Hendricks and you can register here.
On the topic of Black romance, I was interested to see that Harlequin have now produced a page to spotlight their romances by Black authors (most seem to be "Black romance," though some may not be, due to having one or more non-Black protagonist): https://www.harlequin.com/shop/pages/black-romance-stories.html They seem to be appearing in a wide range of lines: Special Edition, Presents, Desire, Intrigue, Romantic Suspense, Medical Romance, Romance, Heartwarming, Historical and ebook-only imprints.
Dr Sam Hirst has released a round-table conversation with KJ Charles, Rose Lerner, Cat Sebastian and Olivia Waite which was part of a recent conference on Heyer:
This will be the last of my new publication lists for 2021. Articles about romance have been continuing to appear (see below). This has also been a busy year for academic books on romance, and two more have been published just before the end of 2021. Although I haven't read either of them yet, I've collaborated with many of the authors of the essay collection and read an earlier version of the other.
With the rise in recent years of the Christian romance market, dominated by American Evangelical companies, there has been a renewed interest in fictional Quakers. In the historical Quaker romances analyzed in this book, Quaker heroines often devote time to spiritual considerations, advocate the sanctity of marriage and promote traditional family values. However, their concern with social justice also leads them to engage in subversive behavior and to question the status quo, as illustrated by heroines who are active on the Underground Railroad or are seen organizing the Seneca Falls convention. Though relatively liberal in terms of gender, Quaker romances are considerably less progressive when it comes to race relations.
Thus, they reflect America's conflicted relationship with its history of race and gender abuse, and the country's tendency to both resist and advocate social change. Ultimately, Quaker romances reinforce the myth of America as a White and Christian nation, here embodied by the Quaker heroine, the all-powerful savior who rescues Native Americans, African Americans and Jews while conquering the hero's heart.
Here are links to: the publisher's website; an excerpt on Google Books; Amazon (ebook and paperback)
Hefner, Brooks E.
(2021).
Black Pulp: Genre Fiction in the Shadow of Jim Crow
Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press. [Excerpt available via Google Books. See in particular Chapter 2, "Romancing the Race: The Politics of Black Love Stories."]
Hernandez-Knight, Bianca
(2021).
"Race and Racism in Austen Spaces: Jane Austen and Regency Romance's Racist Legacy."
ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830
11.2.
Johnson, Brian (2022). "Weird Bedfellows: H. P. Lovecraft, m/m Romance, and the New Queer Families of Jordan L. Hawk's Whyborne & Griffin Series." Lovecraft in the 21st Century: Dead, But Still Dreaming. Ed. Antonio Alcala Gonzalez, Carl H. Sederholm. New York: Routledge. [Abstract]
Khumwongdee, Yanisa (2021). Reading and Rewriting Fat Romance: A Study of Twenty-First Century Thai and US Fat Romance Novels. PhD thesis, University of York. [Abstract]
Moolla, F. Fiona (2021). "Her Heart Lies at the Feet of the Mother: Transformations of the Romance Plot in Leila Aboulela’s Minaret." African Journal of Gender and Religion 27.2:1-21.
Pierre, Zakiya (2021). Browsing in nuances: Using ethnographic research to design for the experience of browsing. Bachelor's thesis, Malmö University.
Pradhan, Anil
(2021).
"The literary field of queer cultural production in contemporary India: considering popular queer texts via Bourdieu."
Runas: Journal of Education & Culture
2.4.
Weimer, Christopher
(2021). "Romancing Weird Fiction: Lovecraftian Reinscriptions in Jordan L. Hawk's Whyborne and Griffin."
Aeternum: The Journal of Contemporary Gothic Studies 8.1:61-76. [Download the whole issue.]
17 Friday December:
— Center for Black Diaspora DPU (@cbddepaul) December 7, 2021
Register for the final part of our international Black Romance series! This will be a roundtable on Black Popular Romance in Africa, with Lynda Gichanda Spencer, @Tlalanemanciya, @romance_project, @DoselineKiguru, and Sheena Overmeyer.https://t.co/hxrSAVZkYo pic.twitter.com/MmXBJeEHvI
In case you can't access that tweet, the link to sign up is this one: https://ugent-be.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAufumhrDgrGNUzX0uwquyx53lrjqxbIrrO
The previous sessions can be found here:
1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTWrNhYZKqU
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KXT1CIz184
3) https://blog.bham.ac.uk/cclc/2021/10/27/black-british-romance/ and direct link to the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ_qTQFarFw&t=1s
Some other recently published works are:
Billekens, Franciska (2021). The Editor and Translator's Passionate Embrace: Cultural and Linguistic Alterations in Translated Harlequin Category Romance Novels. Masters thesis, Radboud University.
Carlos, Giovana Santana (2021). "Literatura pop feminina: as fãs de romance no Brasil." Comunicação e Culturas Urbanas: temas, debates e perspectivas. Ed. Simone Luci Pereira, Thiago Tavares das Neves e Fernanda Elouise Budag. INTERCOM. 189-216
Registration for the Concepts in Popular Genre Fiction symposium, hosted by Deakin's Literature and its Readers research network, is now open! Sign up (it's free!) to hear all the fascinating papers and the three live keynotes. https://t.co/7wggJ6v3Uz
— Writing & Literature at Deakin (@WriteLitDeakin) November 14, 2021
I'm expecting this to include at least some papers about romance given that
Our second keynote speaker will be Jayashree Kamble (@prof_romance). Jayashree is currently the vice-president of @IASPR and the author of Making Meaning in Popular Romance Fiction: An Epistemology.
Registration is via Eventbrite.
A quick reminder about the PCA/ACA conference: I've already posted about the romance area's call for papers but Jodi McAlister (one of the area chairs) recently tweeted that "The PCA conference is going to be fully online in 2022!"
The University of New England's Popular Culture Research Network have put out a call for papers for "a virtual symposium to be held online on Thursday 10th of February 2022" which "will explore the ways
that romantic themes are threaded throughout popular culture. We welcome
papers from researchers across the academic spectrum on the theme of
romance, love, and lust in popular culture." More details here (scroll down to the list of calls for papers and click on the last one, for "Will you be my Valentine?: Romance, love, and lust in popular culture"). The closing date is the 31st of December 2021.
Also in February 2022, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México is holding a symposium on "El Chico Malo." Unfortunately I couldn't find a webpage about this, only a tweet from Nattie Golubov containing an image. I'll paste it in below. The closing date is 1 December 2021 and the contact email is Nattie Golubov's.
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Please note that Jodi McAlister's book on New Adult Fiction is available for free (to read online and/or download as a pdf) only until 8 November 2021.
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Awad, Amal (2021). “Desert dreamings and sheikh-lit.” Meanjin 80.3: 114-118.
Cuthbert, Kate (2021). "The Australian Digital Publishing Bubble, 2012-2016: An Insider Perspective." Post-Digital Book Cultures: Australian Perspectives. Ed. Alexandra Dane and Millicent Weber. Monash University Publishing. 115-138.
McAlister, Jodi (2021). New Adult Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Novakova, Iva (2021). "Les motifs phraséologiques pour distinguer les genres littéraires. Sur l’exemple des motifs de la communication verbale et non verbale." Kalbotyra 74:160–181.
Ntelia, Renata Elizabetta (2021). "How Damsels Love: The Transgressive Pleasure of Romance." New Horizons in English Studies 6: 146-159.
Parnell, Claire (2021). “Independent Authors’ Dependence on Big Tech: Categorization and Governance of Authors Of Color on Amazon.” AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research.
Pritchard, Jamee Nicole (2021). That 90's Kind of Love: the Rise of African American Romance Novels in Traditional Romance Publishing. Master of Arts Dissertation at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee embargoed until 2023.
Seifrit, Rachel Joy (2021). Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are: Sexuality and Gender Exploration in Contemporary Slash Fanfiction. M.A. English, Kutztown University.
Valovirta, Elina (2021). "Repeated Pleasure: Reading the Threesome Ménage Romance as Digital Literature." Powerful Prose: How Textual Features Impact Readers. Ed. R. L. Victoria Pöhls and Mariane Utudji. transcript Verlag. 45-61.
