University of Love Conference Agenda

Laura Vivanco

The joint programme of events put together by the Romance Writers of Australia and Flinders University for the 2016 Romance Writers of Australia conference (18-21 August) is now online. It includes:

• Cliteracy: Women and Sexual Pleasure in the Romance Novel
  - Presented by: Dr. Catherine Roach, New College, University of Alabama


• Love and Listening: The Erotics of Talk in the Popular Romance Novel
  - Presented by: Dr. Jodi McAlister


• The Genre World of Romance in the Twenty-First Century
  - Presented by: Dr. Lisa Fletcher, University of Tasmania; Dr. Beth Driscoll, University of Melbourne; Dr. Kim Wilkins, University of Queensland


• Defying Decorative Objectification: The Appeal of the Heroine in Historical Western Romance Fiction.
  - Presented by: Dr. Amy Matthews, Flinders University


• Representations of Single Mothers in Contemporary American Romance Fiction
  - Presented by: Ms. Michelle Douglas, University of Newcastle


• The (Saggy) Bottom Line: Women of a “Certain Age” and Romance Fiction
  - Presented by: Dr. Sandra Barletta

Full details of all the papers and activities can be found here.

Keira Soleore reports back on the PCA/ACA conference

Laura Vivanco

Keira Soleore has posted summaries of papers presented on romance at the recent PCA/ACA conference:

The Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association's national conference was on Tuesday, March 22 in Seattle. I attended five of the seven sessions in the Romance Area, which was chaired by Eric Selinger of DePaul University.

Keira's first post summarises

"Novel" Representations of Female Sexuality in Popular Fiction Across Cultures by Claire Watson

Aspirational Labor in the Creative Industries: Becoming a “Real” Romance Writer by Jen Lois

Analyzing Dan Savage's "Monogamish" Claim by Shaun Miller

Keira's second post summarises

Poldark As Anti-Antihero: Rebooting Romantic Masculinity for an Age of Crisis by Kyle Sclabach

All Around Great Guys, Mostly: The Evolving Romantic Hero in Literary Webseries by Margaret Selinger

Alpha, Beta, and the Ambiguous Omega: The Diversity of Heroes by Veera Mäkelä

Constructing Black Masculinities in Romance Fiction by Julie Moody-Freeman

Keira's third post summarises

"Lifting as We Climb": Iola LeRoy and the Early African-American Romance by Pamela Regis

Making It American: Epic Romance and the National Myth by Maryan Wherry

You Say Anal Like It's A Bad Thing by Meagan Gacke

Muslim Love American Style: Islamic-American Hybrid Culture and Romance in Muslim Fiction by Layla Abdullah-Poulos

Keira's fourth post summarises

Session Four, on Diversity in Historical Romance

and

Lady Catherine's Descendents: Examples of the Older Other Woman in Romance Fiction by Olivia Waite

A Short Inquiry into the Gothic Romance by Angela Toscano

New Pages (and Videos) on Love (and Romance Scholarship)

Laura Vivanco

Documentary-maker Laurie Kahn invited Eric

to curate some “Resource Pages” of links relevant to topics raised in Love Between the Covers, the romance documentary, and they’re now live!  They’re designed to be of use both to teachers and curious readers.

The pages include links to video-clips, documents and other web-pages on the topics of

• The Happily Ever After -- and the Tragic Ending
• Race and Romance
• Love Across Cultures
• Jane Austen and the Romance Revolution
• Romance in the Digital Age

Over on the website of Kahn's production company, you can see videos taken at the Library of Congress during

What Is Love? Romance Fiction in the Digital Age [...] a two-day Popular Romance Project conference that brought romance authors, readers, publishers, and scholars in many disciplines together for four fascinating panel discussions.

The links below take you straight to the videos on Vimeo:

Panel 1 discussed "What Belongs in the Romance Canon?"

Panel 2 asked "What Do The Science and History of Romance Reveal?"

Panel 3 looked at "Community and the Romance Genre"

Panel 4 focused on what's "Trending Now: Where is Romance Fiction Heading in the Digital Age?"

Details about all of the panelists, panels and the introduction to the conference as well as all the videos can be found here.

Also out recently is a podcast featuring Lisa Fletcher,

one of the scholars working on a project called Genre worlds: Australian popular fiction in the 21st century (2016–2019). This project won an RWA (US) grant, followed by a very prestigious grant from the Australia Research Council. Lisa talks about the project’s goals and  methodology, as well as other themes and topics in popular fiction that pique her interest. She also talks about the challenges of teaching romance at university, and some of the books and techniques she uses in her classes.

The podcast can be found here.