Kristin Noone (Irvine Valley College)
kris@****.com (Log-in to reveal)
Popular romance narratives are compellingly woven into popular culture, from the success of queer hockey phenomenon Heated Rivalry to the perpetual popularity of Hallmark rom-com movies, from historical romances like the Bridgerton series to the rise of romantasy and authors such as Sarah J. Maas. The romance tradition is rich and complex, appearing across various forms of media and spanning the globe.
For this special session, we invite papers and presentations which explore the diversity of popular romance narratives. Submissions related to this year's general PAMLA conference theme is “Our Ruling Classes: Culture, Power, Conflict” are particularly welcome; however, we are certainly open to all popular-romance themed proposals, showcasing the vitality of the field.Popular romance narratives are compellingly woven into popular culture, from the success of queer hockey phenomenon Heated Rivalry to the perpetual popularity of Hallmark rom-com movies, from historical or alternate-historical romances like Julia Quinn's Bridgerton series to the rise of romantasy and authors such as Sarah J. Maas. The romance tradition is rich and complex, appearing across various forms of media and spanning the globe.
For this special session, we invite papers and presentations which explore the diversity of popular romance narratives. This year's general PAMLA conference theme is “Our Ruling Classes: Culture, Power, Conflict,” and submissions related to the distribution of power, aristocracy or inheritance, community and collective action, class or social structures (or challenges thereto), and revolutionary movements against traditional hierarchies are particularly welcome. However, we are open to all popular-romance themed proposals, regardless of how closely they adhere to the general conference theme!
Potential topics might include, for example:
-cultural memory, history, and the romance novel
-reading the romance as reparative - or investigating this concept
-heroes, anti-heroes, and masculinity
-aristocrats, billionaires, and power
-inheritance, histories, and haunting, and/or the Gothic
-representations of class, gender, race, and social structures
-romantasy, fantasy, and centering pleasure as activism
-popular romance trends, e.g. historical, queer, or dark romance
-fandom and community
-discussions of creative work in the field
-and more!