Romance, Romantic Love, and the ‘want of a fortune’

Helen Fordham (Notre Dame University) and Barbara Milech (Curtain University) – Romance, Romantic Love, and the ‘want of a fortune’ – Contemporary popular romance has a generic history – it is anchored in the rise of the novel – like the 18th century novel, popular romance purveys bourgeois assumptions and values in regard to women, […]

Sex and Sensibility: The pursuit and recognition of reality through analysis of romance fiction in popular culture

Bridget Ransome (University of South Australia) – Sex and Sensibility:  The pursuit and recognition of reality through analysis of romance fiction in popular culture – The notion of ‘culture’ is often applied to such things as classical works of literature, music and the arts, with the term ‘cultured’ considered applicable to an elite level within […]

Destabilising Divides and Re-imagining Subjectives: The Romance of Eloisa James

Helen Fordham (Notre Dame University) – Destabilising Divides and Re-imagining Subjectives:  The Romance of Eloisa James First of all, there was a session between Jennifer Kloester’s Heyer panel and this one. Dr Rachel Robertson of Curtin University did a presentation called Counting on love?: mental illness and romantic engagement in Toni Jordan’s Addition.  It was […]

Writing History, reflecting history: Georgette Heyer’s Recency Novels in Context

Dr Jennifer Kloester (University of Melbourne) –  Writing History, reflecting history:  Georgette Heyer’s Recency Novels in Context b 1902 d 1974 – has never been out of print since 1919 (The Black Moth) – changing perceptions of her work – her own, publisher, reader – 20th century woman with Edwardian perceptions – wrote novels in […]

Swashbuckling girls and foppish men: the unusual pleasures of Georgette Heyer’s Regency Romances

Jade Armstrong (Curtain University) –  Swashbuckling girls and foppish men:  the unusual pleasures of Georgette Heyer’s Regency Romances Jane is a lecturer at Curtain University.  Her PhD thesis and research interests focus on adolescent femininity and popular culture, and one of the things that interests her about Heyer books is how they belong to the […]

Exploring women and modalities of power in fiction: escaping the straightjacket of genre into digital space

Dr Lynn Allen  – Exploring women and modalities of power in fiction:  escaping the straightjacket of genre into digital space – when a subject is highly controvertial, one cannot hope to tell the truth.  One can only hope to show how one came to hold one’s own opinion – Virginia Woolf Modalities of Power – […]

The Distance Between: Romance readers, authors, publishers and the book industry in Australia

Bronwyn Parry / Bronwyn Clarke – The Distance Between:  Romance readers, authors, publishers and the book industry in Australia Context – Rapid change – readers’ social connections – readers’ book-buying patterns – shifts in book retailing – digital books, paper books and distributors – territorial rights – authors publications choices Reading is individual, but has […]

Romancing Feminism: From Women’s Studies to Women’s Fiction

Dr Elizabeth Reid Boyd (Edith Cowan University)- Romancing Feminism:  From Women’s Studies to Women’s Fiction After the keynote address, the rest of the day was 30 minute panel discussions. The first of these that I attended was by Dr Elizabeth Reid Boyd, from the School of Psychology and Social Science at Edith Cowan University.  I […]

EJC Keynote speaker – Professor Imelda Whelehan

Meaningful encounters – 40 years of feminists reading romance This was a session that was very interesting, but it was also a little disappointing for reasons I will go into at the end. Professor Whelehan looked at how feminists have viewed romance literature – usually in a negative way – yet at the same time […]