Jodi McAlister, Claire Parnelland Andrea Anne Trinidad's Publishing Romance Fiction in the Philippines has just been published by Cambridge University Press and "is free online from 19th May 2023 - 2nd June 2023." You can download it from https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009092289 by clicking on the "save pdf" button which appears directly below the summary.
Here's some more information about the book:
The romance publishing landscape in the Philippines is vast and complex,
characterised by entangled industrial players, diverse kinds of texts,
and siloed audiences. This Element maps the large, multilayered, and
highly productive sector of the Filipino publishing industry. It
explores the distinct genre histories of romance fiction in this
territory and the social, political and technological contexts that have
shaped its development. It also examines the close connections between
romance publishing and other media sectors alongside unique reception
practices. It takes as a central case study the Filipino romance
self-publishing collective #RomanceClass, analysing how they navigate
this complex local landscape as well as the broader international
marketplace. The majority of scholarship on romance fiction exclusively
focuses on the Anglo-American industry. By focusing here on the
Philippines, the authors hope to disrupt this phenomenon, and to
contribute to a more decentred, rhizomatic approach to understanding
this genre world.
Hughes, Bill
(2021).
"Genre Mutation in Young Adult Gothic: The Dialectics of Dystopia and Romance in Holly Black's The Coldest Girl in Coldtown."
Young Adult Gothic Fiction: Monstrous Selves/Monstrous Others. Ed. Michelle J. Smith and Kristine Moruzi. Cardiff:
University of Wales Press. [More details here.]
Nickel, Eleanor Hersey
(2020).
Christian Popular Culture from The Chronicles of Narnia to Duck Dynasty.
Eugene, Oregon:
Wipf and Stock Publishers. [There is a chapter about Francine Rivers's Redeeming Love. Excerpt available here.]
Parnell, Claire, Andrea Anne Trinidad & Jodi McAlister(2021).
"Live literature in the Philippines: an ethnographic study of #RomanceClass and reading as performance."Creative Industries Journal. Online First. [Abstract]
Pierre-Robertson, Petronetta (2021). "Literature as an Agent of Change." Gender and Domestic Violence in the
Caribbean. Ed. Ann Marie Bissessar and Camille Huggins. Palgrave Macmillan,
Cham. 87-103. [More details here and here.]
It hasn't taken long for the RWA crisis to be turned into a case-study:
Lawrence, Kelsey, 2020. "No Happy Ending: Leadership Falls Apart at the Romance Writers of America." SAGE Business Cases. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529741117 and here's the abstract:
This short case asks students to examine the controversy stemming from
allegations of racism within the Romance Writers of America (RWA), one
of the largest U.S. writers’ and trade organizations. Students will
assess the organization’s response to the allegations, its subsequent
change of leadership, and what this indicates about the overall culture
within the RWA.
The crisis is also mentioned, albeit briefly, in the article by McAlister et al (see details below): "the implosion of the Romance Writers of America in late 2019 over issues of institutionalised racism demonstrated that the romance industry is still suffering from 'publishing’s diversity deficit'."
I'll take the opportunity, since I've brought up the topic of the RWA, to mention that the new Board of Directors issued an apology to members (archived here) and also to Courtney Milan:
The Board Members wrote:
Dear Courtney,
For our first and most important order of business, we,
the members of the Board of Directors of Romance Writers of America,
are writing to apologize to you. We acknowledge the improper, unfair,
and wrongful handling by RWA of the ethics complaints filed against you.
We offer our sincerest apology to you for what transpired. We object
vehemently to the way the proceedings were conducted, and we are very
sorry for the resulting impact on you.
As a result, in a unanimous vote as a new Board, we
have expunged both the complaints and the ensuing proceedings from the
record. This should never have happened, and the fact that it happened
to you--someone who has worked so hard to champion diversity, inclusion,
and equity for our members from marginalized communities--is a
travesty.
While we regrettably cannot undo how your case was
managed, we will be conducting a thorough review of the current RWA Code
of Ethics and surrounding procedures, as well as the RWA Policy manual,
to ensure that they best reflect RWA's current priorities and
principles, and so that RWA can help avoid situations like this in the
future.
We thank you for your years of dedicated service to RWA, and we will work hard to be worthy of that dedication.
And in other publications:
Adamenko, Olga and Olga Klymenko, 2020. "Communicative Behavior via Gender Identity (Based on the English language 'love stories')." Psycholinguistics 27.2. 44-70.
https://doi.org/10.31470/2309-1797-2020-27-2-44-70 The abstract is in English but the paper itself is not.
Kamitsuka, Margaret D., 2020. “Prolife Christian Romance Novels: A Sign that the Abortion-as-Murder Center Is Not Holding?” Christianity & Literature 69.1: 36-52. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/752347
McAlister, Jodi, Claire Parnell and Andrea Anne Trinidad, 2020. "#RomanceClass: Genre World, Intimate Public, Found Family." Publishing Research Quarterly. Online First. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-020-09733-1
Paradis, Kenneth, 2020. “Types and Tropes: History and Moral Agency in Evangelical Inspirational Fiction.” Christianity & Literature 69.1: 73-90. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/752349
To help spread awareness of what colleagues are researching, at a time when people can only do this online, I'll post the titles of papers, including a link to the abstracts.
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
'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
E.E. Lawrence
“She didn’t really look like a librarian to him”: An Analysis of
Professional Stereotype Reaffirmation and Resistance in Popular Romance
Novels Authored by Librarians
RWA awarded funding to E.E. Lawrence to explore depictions of librarians in romance novels authored by librarians.
Dr. Jodi McAlister and Claire Parnell
#RomanceClass: Mapping the Genre World of English-Language Romance in the Philippines
RWA awarded funding to Dr. Jodi McAlister and Claire Parnel to conduct
research on English-Language romance fiction in the Philippines through
author interviews and other fieldwork.
Anna Michelson
Redefining the Romance: Classification and Social Change in Romance Genre Fiction RWA awarded funding to Anna Michelson to conduct source and
field research on classification and social change in romance fiction.
The IASPR 2018 conference now has its programme online but prior to that appearing there was a lot of very thorough tweeting by a number of attendees, using #iaspr18. Since Kat (@BookThingo) has really comprehensive threads, I've used the threadreaderapp to bundle her tweets together and I'm linking to them below.
Session 1 - Romancing Australia, with papers by Amy T. Matthews and Amy Mead (Flinders University), Kate Cuthbert and Jodi McAlister (Deakin University) SEE THREAD
There's more about changes affecting cover art, as discussed by Kate Cuthbert, here, from Claire Parnell via the @PopFicDoctors: Coverart and here's a podcast interview with Jodi McAlister in which she discusses her paper: Podcast. In addition, Renée Dahlia has written a blog post about the session.
Session 2 - Gender and Sexuality, with papers by Ellen Carter (University of Strasbourg), Christina Vogels (AUT New Zealand) and Andrea Anne Trinidad (Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines) SEE THREAD
Renée Dahlia's written a blog post about this session.
Here's a podcast from New Zealand Radio with Christina Vogels about her PhD thesis, titled It's a masculinity sort of thing: Young men talk about the rules of (hetero)romantic relationships.
Session 3 - Places and Spaces of Love, with papers by Kecia Ali (Boston University), Jacqueline Jones (LaGuardia CC, City University of New York) and Vassiliki Veros (University of Technology, Sydney) SEE THREAD
A similar presentation by Vassiliki Veros on "Exploring library metadata and how it can marginalise romance fiction" is up on YouTube.
Session 4 - Keynote Panel on “Romancing Popular Fiction Studies: A Theory of Genre Worlds” by Beth Driscoll (University of Melbourne), Lisa Fletcher (University of Tasmania) and Kim Wilkins (University of Queensland) SEE THREAD and, from Jodi McAlister, with more graphics: See thread
There's also a podcast recorded with the presenters in advance of this panel: Podcast
Session 5 - History and Romance, with papers by Stephanie Russo (Macquarie University), Jennifer Wallace and Francesca Pierini (Academia Sinica, Taiwan).
Kat had to miss most of this session, so the thread is by Jodi McAlister: SEE THREAD
Philippa B's summary of Stephanie Russo's paper on "Georgette Heyer’s Unruly Eighteenth Century" can be found here.
Phillipa B's summary of Pierini's presentation about "Italian timelessness" can be found here.
Jennifer Wallace writes romance as Jennifer Hallock and she's put her paper up on her website in two parts. Part one looks at how the bestsellers in historical romance are
disproportionately: (1) set in Great Britain; (2) overpopulated with
nobles; and (3) selective in their historical accuracy. Part two looks at how the aggregate impact of these chronotopes can be
harmful to our understanding of history, to the romance market as a
whole, and particularly to authors of diverse books. For links to more graphics and a way to help Jennifer crowdsource historical romances which differ from the chronotope she identified, go here and scroll to the end of the post.
Phillipa B's summary of Jennifer Wallace's "History Ever After: Fabricated historical chronotopes in romance genre fictions" can be found here.
Session 6 - Power and Patriarchy, with papers by Heather Schell (George Washington University), Nattie Golubov (Centro de Investigaciones sobre América del Norte, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), Therese Dryden (University of Newcastle) and Jayashree Kamblé (LaGuardia CC, City University of New York) SEE THREAD
Philippa B's post about Heather Schell's "The Soft Power of Popular Romance" can be found here.
Philippa B's post about Nattie Golubov's "Dangerous loves endangered: nationalism, violence and territoralization in US paramilitary romance fiction" is here.
Philippa B's summary of Therese Dryden/Michelle Douglas's "The Single Mother and the Law: Romance novels making room for female voices in patriarchal spaces" is here.
And details of Jayashree Kamblé's “One of the Guys? Eve Dallas as a Masculine Worker Heroine in J.D. Robb’s In Death series", also by Philippa B.
Session 7 - 19th Century Legacies, with papers by Sarah Ficke (Marymount University), Steven Gil and Lucy Sheerman SEE THREAD
See Renée Dahlia's blog post about the session.
Details here about Sarah Ficke's “House, Home, and Husband in Historical Romance Fiction", from Philippa B.
Steven Gil's "Beloved Monstrosity: Romance and Romanticism in Frankenstein" has been summarised by Philippa B.
Philippa B has summarised Lucy Sheerman's “Reader, I mirrored him: the recasting of romance tropes in Jane Eyre fanfiction" here.
Session 8 - Muslim and Middle Eastern Romance, with papers by Kathrina Daud (University of Brunei), Claire Parnell (University of Melbourne), Javaria Farooqui (University of Tasmania) and Amy Burge (University of Birmingham) SEE THREAD
See Renée Dahlia's blog post about the session.
Philippa B's posted about Kathrina Daud's "Muslims reading romance: Bruneian considerations of “Halal” and romance novels" here.
The abstract of Claire Parnell's “Reading and Writing Muslim Romance Online” and notes on the session by Philippa B can be found here.
Philippa B's post on Javaria Farooqui's “The Kitchen and Beyond: Romantic Chronotope of Pakistani Popular Fiction" is here.
Amy Burge's “Girls of Riyadh and Desperate in Dubai: Reading and writing romance in the Middle East" is summarised here by Philippa B.
Session 9 - Romancing Chinese Worlds, with papers by Fang-Mei Lin (National Taiwan Normal University), Huike Wen (Willamette University), Jin Feng (Grinnell College) and Erin S. Young (SUNY Empire State College) SEE THREAD (by Jodi McAlister)
See Renée Dahlia's blog post about the session.
The abstract of Huike Wen's “On the Way to a Better Life: Countryside themed romance in recent Chinese Television" and some additional comments from the paper are provided by Philippa B here.
Philippa B also provides these for Jin Feng's “Life Is Elsewhere: The Economy of Food and Sex in Chinese Web Romance”
and for “Romance in Chinatown: The Love Stories of Edith Maude Eaton” by Erin S. Young.
Session 10 - South/South-East Asian Romance Communities with a paper by Meghna Bohidar (University of Delhi)
Bohidar: young romantic couples are less concerned with caste and religious differences, however they still shape subjectivity e.g. through taste. #IASPR18pic.twitter.com/QrvvM5tZFt
For those who can't read the text in that photo, it contains a definition of an important term used in Bohidar's paper: "Habitus is a set of microbehaviors consisting of a matrix of perceptions, appreciations, and actions that are unconsciously ingrained based on one's class position"
SEE THREAD and Philippa B's summary of Meghna Bohidar's “Negotiating Romantic Love in India: Family, Public Space, and Popular Cinema"
The session then moved on to Kat Mayo's interview of/conversation with Mina V. Esguerra
Session 11 - Subversions of Race, Culture and History with papers by Eric Murphy Selinger (DePaul University), Mallory Jagodzinski (Indiana University South Bend) and Johanna Hoorenman (Utrecht University) SEE THREAD and, from Jodi McAlister, A SUPPLEMENTARY THREAD
The abstract of, supplemented by notes by Philippa B on, Eric Murphy Selinger's “The Wild Heart of the Continent: Love and Place in Sherry Thomas’s Silk Road Romance Novels”
The same, but for Mallory Jagodzinski's “Love is (Color) Blind: Race, Belonging, and Nation in 21st Century Historical Romance Fiction" is here.
Again, an abstract followed by comments by Philippa B, this time on “‘You stayed’: Love, law and the reservation in Jenna Kernan’s Apache Protectors series" by Johanna Hoorenman.
Session 12 - Love in Other Worlds with papers by Donna Hanson (University of Canberra), María T. Ramos-García (South Dakota State University), Athena Bellas (University of Melbourne) and Kristin Noone (Irvine Valley College) SEE THREAD and coverage of the FINAL PAPERS in this thread by Jodi McAlister.
Philippa B's post about Donna Hanson's “Love in Outer Space: Science fiction romance
—
the ideal place to explore gender and
love” can be found here.
María T. Ramos-García's “Representations of Otherness in Paranormal Romance: Nalini Singh and J.R. Ward” is summarised by Philippa B here.
I've now come across a couple of reports on the recent Georgette Heyer conference. Sophie Weston mentions that
A terrific paper from Vanda Wilcox made
the point that, however precise Heyer’s grasp of strategic issues at
Waterloo might have been, her officers “embody World War I values and
leadership style”. At the same time Heyer’s other ranks (gorgeous Gideon
Ware’s straight-talking soldier servant, for instance) are basically
WWI Tommies in red coats, rather than Wellington’s rapists and
pillagers. Convinced me completely.
Her full report can be found here. The evening discussion session is described here by Nicola Cornick.
On 29 June, at the Gendered Emotions in History conference held at the University of Sheffield there was a paper on romance, presented by:
Agnes Arnold-Forster (QMUL) - Gender, Emotions, and Professional Identity in Twentieth Century Medical Mills and Boon Novels
The EUPOP2018 conference will be held from July 24th – 26th, 2018. One of the keynote speeches is by
Professor Petr A. Bilek (Charles University, Prague)
Distant Encounters of the Third Kind: Why Is Popular Culture Not Popular within Central European University Curricula?
'Traveling Through Time and Genre: Are the Outlander Books Romance Novels?', Adoring Outlander: Essays on Fandom, Genre and the Female Audience, ed. Valerie Estelle Frankel (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland), pp. 94-105. Excerpt
I decided I wanted to do two things in this unit: (1) ask whether genre fiction is as worthy a subject of ethical criticism as literary fiction (Wayne Booth explicitly says no, and most other ethical critics implicitly reject this possibility), and (2) introduce feminist critique as a mode of ethical critique. I also wanted something fun, since pretty much everything else I assigned is a real downer. I think Bet Me is a fun book that can work in all of those ways.
I’ve got an academic anthology I edited coming out next year: New Approaches to Popular Romance Fiction. My article in there talks about Joey Hill’s BDSM romance, Holding the Cards. I’m ALSO in the (very slow) process of writing a book called ALPHA MALE: POWER AND MASCULINITY IN AMERICAN POPULAR ROMANCE FICTION. I’ll have a chapter in there about m/m romance.
I was able to read one romance novel after another and see where the woman’s voice had been silenced, her power neutralized, her body appropriated, her desires perverted --- BUT, I could also see where the woman’s power and autonomy had been left intact, where she had submitted only because she had no choice and because it was the way to maintain what little autonomy was granted to her.
On a related note, DM guestblogged at Dear Author about the "Defeated Heroine." She
used to dismiss Radway and her work as elitist and blinkered, but after a recent glom of Madeline Hunter’s Regencies, and Lara Adrian’s Breed books (Adrian’s series title kinda says it all…) I started to feel uncomfortable. There seemed to be a message in these books, conscious or unconscious on the part of the authors, that supported Radway’s conclusions.
The Sourcebooks version changes Heyer’s original wording from
The instinct of his race made him prefer, whenever possible, to maintain a manner of the utmost urbanity,
to
His instinct made him prefer, whenever possible, to maintain a manner of the utmost urbanity,
But editors can’t do much about the name, and they keep the stereotypical descriptors, e.g., “greasy” and “ingratiating,” not to mention the “Semitic nose.”
Apart from the importance of analysing the depiction of race in romances, this post also reminded me that one can't assume that the text of a second or subsequent edition of a romance is identical to that of the original. I don't know if Sourcebooks indicate that their edition differs from the original but I've certainly come across examples of romances in which changes have been made to a subsequent edition and there is no way a reader would know this unless she/he compared the two editions.
Given the popularity of romances about SEALs, I thought I'd mention that
WAR-Net was founded in 2010 by Kate McLoughlin and Gill Plain as a virtual and actual forum for scholars based in northern England and Scotland working on war representation. It now welcomes members from all over the UK and the rest of the world.
written in street-level Tagalog, the books emerged in the early 1980s when an economic crisis forced the importers of western "chick literature" paperbacks to seek out alternatives. [...]
Romance author Maia Jose, who began writing in 1990, said the genre centred on the build-up of a romantic relationship that must end either in marriage or in a commitment.
"The book must be 128 pages long and it's a formula, so it must have a happy ending. If it doesn't have a happy ending the reader would be offended," the mother-of-three said.
The authors typically do not have any formal writing background, with housewives, students and moonlighting accountants among a mixed bag of storytellers.
Jose said she generally took between two and four weeks to write a book, while one particularly prolific writer once churned out nearly 100 in a year. (AFP, via The Independent)
