Teach Me Tonight

Musings on Romance Fiction from an Academic Perspective

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

News, Commentary, Registration for IASPR 2023 and New Publications

The closing date for early-bird registration for the IASPR conference is 31 March. There's a hybrid as well as an in-person option.

The BBC has published an article with the annoying premise 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

Last year, sales of romantic fiction in the US shot up by 52.4%, compared with an increase of just 8.5% for adult fiction overall.

Meanwhile, sales of the genre in the UK have increased more than two fold over the past three years.

Erin at The Smut Report explores the preponderance of penetrative sex in m/m romance and concludes that 

Sexual fantasy and wish fulfillment is all over the place in romance. But while wish fulfillment and smoothing out rough edges (I mean, is 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.

And on the topic of inaccuracies/fantasies, Scientific American offers 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."

This year's issue of the Journal of Popular Romance Studies has begun to appear online, and includes:

  • Genre-savvy Protagonists in Queer YA Rom-coms
    Alex Henderson
  • Literary Fiction from the Perspective of Romance: Normal People
    Francesca Pierini

Other recently published works on romance are:

Burge, Amy (2022) "Beyond Outlander: Annie S. Swan and the Scottish popular romance novel." Scottish Literary Review 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.]

Cannon, Emanni N (2022). Contemporary Romance and the Question of Literary Value. Master of Arts in English Literature, San Francisco State University. 

Ghosh, Srijani (2023). "Diversity Sells: Uzma Jalaluddin’s Muslim Adaptation of Pride and Prejudice." English Studies. Online First. [Abstract]

Lindström Kruse, Miranda (2022). Pinsamma läsningar: En affektteoretisk studie av #SpicyBooks på TikTok. Masters thesis, Uppsala universitet. 

McDade, Monique (2023). California Dreams and American Contradictions: Women Writers and the Western Ideal. 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 the RSDB for more details.]

Pupipat, Apisak (2023). "Should a Book Be Judged by its Back Cover? Some Written/Formal Features as Observed in Happily- Ever-After Women’s Novel Blurbs." LEARN Journal: Language Education and Acquisition Research Network 16.1:604-630.

Rattanamathuwong, Bancha (2023). "Time Is on Our Side?: Homo Economicus in Time-Travel Romance." Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction. [Abstract]

Posted by Laura Vivanco at Tuesday, March 21, 2023 0 comments
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Labels: Amy Burge, Eva Rutland, IASPR, Islam, LGBTQUIA, literary merit, paranormals, paratext, publishing, readers, Scotland, sexuality
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Romance Scholarship Database

Romance Scholarship Database

The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Romance Fiction

The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Romance Fiction
Ed. Jayashree Kamblé, Eric Murphy Selinger, Hsu-Ming Teo, 2021

Faith, Love, Hope and Popular Romance Fiction

Faith, Love, Hope and Popular Romance Fiction
by Laura Vivanco, 2020

Love, Language, Place, and Identity in Popular Culture: Romancing the Other

Love, Language, Place, and Identity in Popular Culture: Romancing the Other
Ed. María Ramos-García and Laura Vivanco, 2020

Romance Fiction and American Culture: Love as the Practice of Freedom?

Romance Fiction and American Culture: Love as the Practice of Freedom?
Ed. William A. Gleason and Eric Murphy Selinger, 2016

Pursuing Happiness: Reading American Romance as Political Fiction

Pursuing Happiness: Reading American Romance as Political Fiction
Laura Vivanco, 2016

New Approaches to Popular Romance Fiction: Critical Essays

New Approaches to Popular Romance Fiction: Critical Essays
Ed. Sarah S. G. Frantz and Eric Murphy Selinger, 2012

For Love and Money: The Literary Art of the Harlequin Mills & Boon Romance

For Love and Money: The Literary Art of the Harlequin Mills & Boon Romance
Laura Vivanco, 2011

A Natural History of the Romance Novel

A Natural History of the Romance Novel
Pamela Regis, 2003

Academic Links

  • International Association for the Study of Popular Romance (IASPR)
  • Journal of Popular Romance Studies (JPRS)
  • Romance Scholarship Database
  • Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association
  • The European Popular Culture Association

Academic Libraries with Romance Collections

  • African Studies Centre University of Leiden
  • BGSU's Browne Popular Culture Library
  • Indiana University's Lilly Library acquired an entire romance collection
  • McDaniel College Hoover Library Nora Roberts Collection
  • University of Calgary
  • University of Chicago Alfred Willis Collection of African-American Popular Fiction 1958-2016
  • University of Melbourne
  • University of Reading
  • University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Specialist Romance Blogs

  • An Introduction To the Romance Pulps
  • Close Reading Romance (an academic does close readings of romance)
  • Cold War girl/adolescent romances - Amanda K. Allen
  • Haunted Hearts (vintage gothic romance)
  • Romance Has a History (an archivist explores the history of romance)
  • Romance in Color (review site "focused on African-American romance")
  • Sequential Crush (vintage romance comic books)
  • The Good Bad Book (1920-30s US romances)

Other Romance Resources

  • A Black Romance Author Timeline
  • A guide to category romance series 1965-1989
  • Black Romance Podcast
  • De l'amour à 10¢: Le roman sentimental en fascicules au Québec de 1940 à 1965
  • Love for Sale: Dime Novels in Quebec from 1940 to 1965
  • Research Archive of Romance Websites
  • Romance Wiki
  • Romancing the Bard
  • The Disability and Romance Project
  • Unsuitable (blog of 'students and instructors of “Publishing & Marketing Popular Fiction: A Case Study of the Romance Novel” course at Duke University')
  • Why Read Mills & Boon Romances?

Romance/Romantic Authors' Associations

  • Romance Writers of America
  • Romance Writers of Australia
  • Romance Writers of New Zealand
  • Romance Writers Organisation of SA
  • Romantic Novelists' Association

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