PCA Romance, 2014

Although we're not formally affiliated, there's quite an overlap between the Romance Area of the Popular Culture Association / American Culture Association and the community that puts together the Journal of Popular Romance Studies.  At the moment, the area co-chairs for Romance are Eric Selinger and An Goris, who are also the Executive Editor and Managing Editor of JPRS, and they--we--are always hoping to solicit submissions to the journal from the papers we hear at the conference. We're very excited, then, to offer this spiffy new CFP for next spring's PCA/ACA National Conference, which will be held in Chicago, April 16-19, 2014!

PCA/ACA 2014 National Conference

Chicago, April 16-19, 2014

Call For Papers: Romance Area

Deadline for submission:  November 1, 2013

The discourse of romantic love permeates popular culture.  The Romance area includes papers on love, romance, and relationships, in real life and as represented in any medium, now and in the past.  From ad campaigns to Supreme Court decisions, Dan Savage to Sweet Savage Love, K-Pop to qawwali,:  if it’s about love, it’s a welcome topic at the PCA Romance area. 

We will consider proposals for individual papers, sessions organized around a theme, and special panels. Sessions are scheduled in 90-minute slots, typically with four 15-minute papers or speakers per standard session, with the remaining time available for discussion.

If you are involved in the creative industry of popular romance and are interested in speaking on your own work or on developments in popular romance culture, please contact us!

Some possible topics include:

• Romantic love in political discourse (revolutionary, reactionary, colonial / anti-colonial, marriage equality, etc.)
• Love, Globally:  local traditions, transnational media, adaptation and translation issues
• Fifty Shades of WTF:  the reception of popular romance media
• Romance High and Low (i.e., texts that remix or blur distinctions between “high” and “low” culture, like the Lizzie Bennet Diaries)
• Love Theory / Romance Practice:  theoretical approaches to love and romance, and popular romance as a place where love is theorized
• Romancing the Marketplace: romantic love in advertising, marketing, and consumer culture
• Queering the Romance: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Kink romance
• Romance communities, IRL and on-line
• Young Adult, Paranormal, and other emerging genres of romance fiction
• Individual Creative Producers or Texts of Popular Romance (novels, authors, film, directors, writers, songwriters, actors, composers, dancers, etc.)

As we do every year, the Romance area will meet in a special Open Forum to discuss upcoming conferences, work in progress, and the future of the field of Popular Romance Studies.  All are welcome to attend.

Presenters are encouraged to make use of the new array of romance scholarship resources online, including the romance scholarship bibliography, the RomanceScholar listserv, and the  peer-reviewed articles and interviews published in the Journal of Popular Romance Studies.  

Submit a one-page (200-300 words) proposal or abstract by November 1, 2013, to the PCA/ACA conference database.  Directions for submission can be found here.  

Please feel free to forward, cross-post, or link to this call for papers!

If you have any questions as all, please contact the area co-chairs:

Eric Selinger

Professor of English

DePaul University

eselinge@depaul.edu

An Goris

Postdoctoral Fellow

University of Leuven

An.Goris@arts.kuleuven.be