writing structure

Eric Murphy Selinger (DePaul University) Session 11.1: Subversions of Race, Culture and History Abstract: Chinese-American novelist Sherry Thomas sets two acclaimed books in the Silk Road regions of Central Asia: Not Quite a Husband (2009; RITA 2010), set in the Swat Valley during the 1897 Pathan Revolt; and My Beautiful Enemy, set partly in Chinese […]

Kat Mayo (Bookthingo) and Mina V. Esguerra (#romanceclass) Session 10.2: South / South-East Asian Romance Communities Abstract: Author Mina V. Esguerra has single-handedly defined the English-language romance genre in the Philippines through the #romanceclass initiative, which has helped over 100 Filipino authors publish over 200 new titles. This interview will explore the evolution of #romanceclass […]

Dr Erin S.Young (SUNY Empire State College) Session 9.4: Romancing Chinese Worlds Abstract: This project will explore romantic relationships in the short fiction of Edith Maude Eaton (Sui Sin Far), with a particular focus on her 1912 collection of stories, Mrs. Spring Fragrance. Since the critical rediscovery of Eaton’s writings in the 1970s, her work […]

Dr Fang-Mei Lin (National Taiwan Normal University) Session 9.1: Romancing Chinese Worlds Abstract: Taiwanese author Wu Zhuo-Liu’s novel, Orphan of Asia, was written during the end of WWII and Japanese colonial rule. This celebrated novel, which depicts the hero Taiming’s unsuccessful pursuit of identity among three options: the Japanese, the Chinese, and the Taiwanese, has […]

Dr Amy Burge (University of Birmingham) Session 8.4: Muslim and Middle Eastern Romances Abstract: The Middle East has long held a romantic fascination for the west, characterised by the popular sheikh romance. Yet, as myself and others have argued (Burge 2016; Jarmakani 2015; Teo 2012) in these novels Middle Eastern women are often depicted as […]

Javaria Farooqui (University of Tasmania) Session 8.3: Muslim and Middle Eastern Romances Abstract: This paper aims to explore the popular romance reading culture of Pakistan which includes, but is not limited to, magazines designed specifically for female readers. It is [Farooqui’s] contention that the works of fiction, published in these magazines, focus on imbuing the […]

Claire Parnell (University of Melbourne) Session 8.2: Muslim and Middle Eastern Romances Abstract: Participatory media production through online self – publishing platforms affects the publishing field in interesting and important ways. In particular, the call for diverse representation in genre fiction has been growing in online communities, such as Wattpad, for some time. Narratives that […]

Steven Gil (Queensland University of Technology) Session 7.2: 19th century legacies Abstract: Upon its bicentennial anniversary, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus (1818) remains vests with significance. Most are aware of a simplified version of her narrative where a man ‘playing God’ creates new life only to be ultimately destroyed by his work. However, […]

Dr Sarah Ficke (Marymount University) Session 7.1: 19th century legacies Abstract: Home. For Elizabeth Bennet, as for many real middle- and upper-class women during the Regency and Victorian periods, “home” was a concept fraught with anxiety. Legal restrictions on women’s right to own property, entailed estates, and limited economic opportunities meant that marriage was the […]

Jayashree Kamblé (La Guardia CC, City University of New York) Session 6.4 Power and Patriarchy Abstract: Harriet Bradley’s study of gender in work history documents how gender roles affect the practice and perception of labour. Her observations are crucial to understanding the labour of Eve Dallas, the murder cop in J.D. Robb’s long-running In Death […]