Call for Papers: Researching the Romance Conference at BGSU, Ohio

Researching the Romance: Romance Across Boundaries

Bowling Green State University, Ohio

April 24-25, 2020

More about the Conference
Romance fiction is shaped by boundaries and rules- the expectations of tropes and subgenres, the centrality of the love story, the requirement of the happy ending. Authors and readers rely on the boundaries of romance to help them write and read, yet also sometimes revel in their subversion. Academics use those same boundaries to form their avenues of inquiry into this vast genre. Taken together, the boundary lines provide endless points of discussion and controversy for those who produce and consume romance. This conference will provide a venue for all of those interested in romance fiction- authors, academics, and readers- to come together and discuss their interactions with the genre’s boundaries.


Call for presentations:
We are seeking presentations of approximately 15-20 minutes in length. The scope of the conference is deliberately broad in order to encourage presenters to be creative and take interdisciplinary approaches. Individual and panel presentations will be considered. Some examples of potential topics include but are not limited to:

• Romance tropes and how are they defined, enforced, and subverted
• In-depth analysis of particular authors’ work
• The history and growth of subgenres within popular romance fiction
• The history of the Happily Ever After
• Predictability and freedom within category romance
• Authors’ approaches to research on time periods, subgenres, etc
• How authors, readers and academics can occupy multiple identities within popular romance fiction
• Romance novel covers across the decades and subgenres
• Popular romance fiction around the world- how national borders influence the genre
• How the traditional boundaries of romance impact self-publishing

Presentation proposals should consist of an abstract of no more than 250 words. The deadline for submissions is November 1, 2019.

More details here.

New to the Wiki: Publishing, Brockmann and More

I've added a new page to the blog: it's a Race and Romance Bibliography.

In addition, there are some new items which have been added to the Romance Wiki bibliography.

Billekens, F.G.W., 2019. 

Never Mind Me When There's You: The Submission Of The Heroine In YA Supernatural Romance Fiction, Bachelor's Thesis, Utrecht University. Abstract and link to pdf

Brouillette, Sarah, 2019. 

"Romance Work." Theory & Event 22.2, pp. 451-464. Abstract

Haefner, Margaret J., 2009. 

"Challenging the -isms: Gender and Race in Brockmann's Troubleshooters, Inc. Romance Novels", Journal of Media Sociology 1.3/4: 182-201.

McAlister, Jodi, 2018. 

'The literary text as historical artifact: The colonial couple in Australian romantic fiction by women, 1838-1860', Lilith: A Feminist History Journal, No. 24: 38-51. Abstract

Priest, Hannah. 2018. 

“Sparkly Vampires and Shimmering Aliens: The Paranormal Romance of Stephenie Meyer.” Twenty-First-Century Popular Fiction, edited by Bernice M. Murphy and Stephen Matterson, Edinburgh University Press, 2018, pp. 182–192.

Sagun, Karryl Kim Abella, 2019. 

Book Mavens of Manila : an interpretative phenomenological analysis of contemporary niche publishers in the Philippines. Doctoral thesis,Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. [I include this because it incorporates material from "three Wattpad self-publishers based in the Philippines: Mina V. Esguerra, Noreen Capili, and Kimberly Villanueva. All three agreed to be quoted verbatim, and to be referred to by name. They have all published both on electronic platforms (particularly Wattpad) and on print. They also share the same genre for their works: romance" (123).]

Taylor, Jessica Anne. 2013. 

“Write the Book of Your Heart: Career, Passion and Publishing in the Romance Writing Community,” Ph.D. Thesis, University of Toronto. Abstract and link to pdf