New book on historical romance and other new articles

Conflict and Colonialism in 21st Century Romantic Historical Fiction: Repairing the Past, Repurposing History, edited by Hsu-Ming Teo and Paloma Fresno-Calleja is out today (13 June) from Routledge. The introduction, "Conflict and Colonialism in 21^st Century Romantic Historical Fiction: Repairing the Past, Repurposing History" is open access and can be downloaded from here.

The other essays about romance in the collection are:

The Australian Convict Prostitute Romance: Narrating Social and Sexual Justice for “Damned Whores” - Hsu-Ming Teo

Love in Victorian London: Immigrant Histories and Intersecting Diversities in K. J. Charles’s Sins of the Cities - Jayashree Kamblé 

Language, Sexuality and “Necessary” Anachronism in Lorraine Heath’s Neo-Victorian Popular Romance Series Scandalous Gentlemen of St. James - Carmen Pérez Ríu

Suffragette Historical Romances: Re-Purposing Women’s Suffrage in a Postfeminist Context - Mariana Ripoll-Fonollar

The US Civil War and its Aftermath in Historical Quaker Romances Hailing White Heroines as Builders and Healers of the Nation - Carolina Fernández Rodríguez 

Historical Reparation, Emotional Justice: The Navajo Long Walk in Evangeline Parsons Yazzie’s Her Land, Her Love - Silvia Martínez-Falquina

When a Jew Loves a Nazi: Problems with Repurposing the Holocaust for Reparative Romance - Hsu-Ming Teo

Abstracts for all of those can be found here.

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Other recent publications are:

Austin, Allan W. (2024) "Courting Tragedy: Romance and the Liberal Redemption of Japanese American Mass Incarceration". Journal of Popular Romance Studies 13. [Of the two novels discussed, only one is a romance, by Danielle Steel.]

Lukas, Iwan, Muarifuddin, and Rahmawati Azi (2024). "Formula Romance dalam Roman Mes Amis Mes Amours Karya Marc Lévy." LE PARIS: Journal de Langue, Litterature, et Culture 5.1:15-3. [There's an abstract in English but the article itself is written in what I assume is Indonesian.]

 

Rimmer, Abi (2024). "Can I have a side hustle as a doctor?" BMJ 385. [Short article which includes quotes from Fearne Hill. Abstract here.]

Sanders, Lise Shapiro (2024). "Girls Growing Up: Reading ‘Erotic Bloods’ in Interwar Britain". The Edinburgh History of Children's Periodicals, edited by Kristine Moruzi, Beth Rodgers and Michelle Smith. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press: 93-111. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781399506663-009

Call for Papers: Bridgerton and Philosophy

 

Call for Abstracts 

Bridgerton and Philosophy 

Edited by Jessica Miller

The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series

Contributors of accepted essays will receive an honorarium. Abstracts and subsequent essays should be philosophically substantial but accessible, written to engage the intelligent lay reader. 

Essays may focus on the Netflix series (including Queen Charlotte), the books, or both.

Submission Guidelines:

1. Submission deadline for abstracts (350-500 words) and CVs: August 30, 2024
2. Submission deadline for drafts of accepted papers: January 27, 2025

Kindly submit by e-mail to Jessica Miller: Bridgertonandphilosophy@gmail.com

The final papers should be about 3000 words including notes. More details about possible themes/topics can be found here.

New Publications: A History of the RWA; Fat in Contemporary Romance; Romance and Philosophy

In a rather weird coincidence, just days after the Romance Writers of America filed for bankruptcy (which, as explained elsewhere, does not mean it's going to cease to exist, because 

the RWA expects a “swift resolution” to its bankruptcy restructuring, which “will not impact its day-to-day operations” of providing training and other resources to its members. The group “is not going out of business, as some others have made it sound,” (Beckett, The Guardian)

Christine A Larson's Love in the Time of Self-Publishing: How Romance Writers Changed the Rules of Writing and Success is coming out with Princeton University Press. It could be considered a history of the RWA and romance publishing, though Larson emphasises the book's wider appeal to those interested in the topic of

self-organization and mutual aid in the digital economy. In Love in the Time of Self-Publishing, Christine Larson traces the forty-year history of Romancelandia, a sprawling network of romance authors, readers, editors, and others, who formed a unique community based on openness and collective support. Empowered by solidarity, American romance writers—once disparaged literary outcasts—became digital publishing’s most innovative and successful authors. Meanwhile, a new surge of social media activism called attention to Romancelandia’s historic exclusion of romance authors of color and LGBTQ+ writers, forcing a long-overdue cultural reckoning.

Drawing on the largest-known survey of any literary genre as well as interviews and archival research, Larson shows how romance writers became the only authors in America to make money from the rise of ebooks—increasing their median income by 73 percent while other authors’ plunged by 40 percent. The success of romance writers, Larson argues, demonstrates the power of alternative forms of organizing influenced by gendered working patterns. It also shows how networks of relationships can amplify—or mute—certain voices.

I've got excerpts and links in the Romance Scholarship Database entry.

 

Some other new publications are:

 

Cole, Lauryn (2023) Fat and Fabulous: The Power of Contemporary Romance as a Site of Anti-Oppression Work. Bachelor of Arts dissertation, University of Oregon. [This focuses on Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie and Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert.]

 

Lancaster, Guy (2024) "'God loves you nearly as much as I do': Toward a Poetics of Natality in Maureen Bronson's Delta Pearl, a 1989 Harlequin Historical Romance.' Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies 55.1:27–39. [Abstract here.]