***Below is the schedule for the IASPR Conference (19-21 June, 2014).***

Thursday, June 19

9:00am – 10:00am, Thursday, June 19
Registration

9:30am – 10:00am, Thursday, June 19
Introduction and Welcome

10:00am – 11:30am, Thursday, June 19
Session 1: Romance Versions of Greece

Betty Kaklamanidou (Aristotle University, Greece): Perpetuating Gender Stereotypes: The 1960s Greek Rom Com.

Eirini Arvanitaki (University of Hull, UK): Greek Lover or Simply a Hero? Oriental and Occidental Attitudes and Behaviours in Romance Fiction.

Artemis Lambrinou (independent scholar): What Does it Take to Be a Greek Protagonist within a British Popular Romance?

11:30am – 1pm, Thursday, June 19
Session 2A: Who’s In? Who’s Out? Romance and Representation

Renee Bennett-Kapusniak & Adriana McCleer (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA): Love in the Digital Library: A Search for Racial Heterogeneity in E-Books.

Vassiliki Veros (University of Technology, Sydney): A Meta of Romance in Libraries: The impact of the under-representation of romance fiction in metadata and metatexts.

Maria Ramos-Garcia (South Dakota State University, USA): From Contemporary to Dystopian Fiction: The Changing Realities in Paranormal Romance.

11:30am – 1pm, Thursday, June 19
Session 2B: Love as Image, Love as Narrative

Catherine Roach (Alabama University, USA): (Another) Eight Essential Elements of the Romance Novel.

Angela Toscano (University of Iowa, USA), Rendering the Romance: image and storytelling in The Ethiopian Story and The Windflower.

Lesley Ann Smith (Curtin University, Australia): Deep structures of popular romance fiction.

1 pm – 2pm, Thursday, June 19
LUNCH

2 pm – 3:30pm, Thursday, June 19

Keynote Address: Deborah Jermyn (University of Roehampton, UK):The New Romantics?: Meryl Streep, contemporary romcom and the ‘graying’ of Hollywood cinema.

3:30pm – 4pm, Thursday, June 19
BREAK

4 pm – 5:30pm, Thursday, June 19
Session 3: Television and the Internet

Heather Schell (George Washington University, USA): Hurrem in the Harem:  The Sheik Fantasy on Turkish Television.

Patrycja Wawryka (University of Ottawa, Canada): “Before You Find True Love, You’re Gonna Need Some Tough Love:” Constructing the Matchmaker Figure in Romance-Based Reality TV.

Alicia Williams (Independent Scholar): Relocating Weddings Online.

Friday, June 20

8:30am – 9 am, Friday, June 20
Registration

9 am – 10:30am, Friday, June 20
Session 4: Science and Romance

Peggy Tally (Empire State College, USA): What’s Love Got to do with it?: Helen Fisher and the Science of Love.

Anna Malinowska (University of Silesia, Poland): Affectionate temporalities. On time in love in a quasi-scientific sense.

Erin S. Young (Empire State College, USA): Romancing Science: An Analysis of Rhetorical Strategies in Popular Science Television.

10:30am – 12pm, Friday, June 20
Session 5: Concurrent Panels

Session 5A: Love, American Style

Pamela Regis (McDaniel College, USA): Child’s Play? An American Philosopher’s Historical Romance Novel.

Stacy Holden (Purdue University, USA): Reconcilable Differences: Post-9/11 American Captivity Fantasies in Sheikh Romance.

Session 5B: Loves Unorthodox, Unspeakable, and Unsexed

Zefi Kavvadia (Aristotle University, Greece): “Loves That Dare Not Speak Their Names”: Bisexuality, Asexuality, and Polyamory in Popular Cultural Discourse.

Karin Heiß (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany): The Politics of Polyamory and Violence: Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series.

Ashley C. Bourgeois (University of Kentucky, USA): Unsexing Eros: Queer Intimacies in Contemporary Fiction and Film.

12pm – 1pm, Friday, June 20
LUNCH

1pm – 2pm, Friday, June 20

Plenary Session: Hsu-Ming Teo (Macquarie University, Australia): Beyond Desert Passions: Rethinking Orientalist Love, Rereading Sheikh Romance Novels.

2pm – 3:30pm, Friday, June 20
Session 6: Concurrent Panels

Session 6A: East Meets East

Fang-Mei Lin (National Taiwan Normal University): When the East Encounters the Orient.

Su-hsen Liu (National Quemoy University, Taiwan): The Transmutation of Harem Imagination from Translated Desert Romances to Contemporary Chinese Popular Romance in Taiwan.

Session 6B: Scandinavia and Eros

Maria Nilson (Linnaeus University, Sweden): Love in a Cold Climate? Romance, Power and Desire in the Scandinavian Romance Tradition.

Helene Ehriander (Linnaeus University, Sweden): Simona Ahrnstedt and New Swedish Romance.

3:30pm – 4pm, Friday, June 20:
BREAK

4pm – 5:30pm, Friday, June 20
Session 7: Authors, Scholars, and the Market Matrix

Chryssa Sharp: Lindenwood U, St Charles, Missouri : Author as Producer, Brand and Friend: Considering the Structure of the Romance Novel Marketplace.

An Goris (Leuven University, Belgium): Triumphs in the Marketplace: An Updated Look at Romance’s Institutional Matrix.

Jayashree Kamble (LaGuardia Community College, USA): Studying (the) Romance (Novels): Negotiating the Journey from Doctoral Research to Book Publication.

8 pm – 11 pm, Friday June 20
CONFERENCE DINNER (Please see our dinner information page)

Saturday, June 21

9am – 9:30am, Saturday, June 21
Registration

9:30am – 11am, Saturday, June 21
Session 8: Romance and Religion: Global Perspectives

Charles Nuckolls (Brigham Young University): Romancing the Goddess: Desire in the Popular Religious Mythology of Hindu South India.

Kathrina Haji Mohd Daud (Brunei University): How Indonesian Religious Romance engages with Popular Romance Tropes in the West.

Eric Selinger (DePaul University, USA): I Want to be Your Husband, Not Your God: the Allusive Art of Francine Rivers’ Redeeming Love.

11am – 12:30pm, Saturday, June 21
Session 9: Love’s Stories: Virginity, Courtship, Divorce

Jodi McAlister (Macquarie University, Australia): Falling in love with virginity: the changing relationship between romantic love and virginity loss in the Harlequin Mills & Boon romance.

Margaret Toscano (University of Utah): The Courtship of Penelope and Odysseus.

Marie-Louise Wijne (University of Amsterdam): Understand After Forever. Love Narratives of Divorcees.

12:30pm — 1:30pm, Saturday, June 21
LUNCH

1:30pm – 3pm, Saturday, June 21
Session 10: Advice for the Lovelorn: Mediated Love

Amy Burge (Edinburgh University, UK): The perils of falling in love in late medieval and modern relationship advice.

Jin Feng (Grinnell College, USA): “Love Me, Don’t Love Your Family: Discussing and Debunking Romantic Love On the Chinese Internet.”

Julie E. Moody-Freeman (DePaul University, USA): Feminism, Race, and Romance.

3pm – 4:30pm, Saturday, June 21
Session 11: Love’s Bodies: Ability, Technology, and Race

Ria Cheyne (Liverpool Hope University, UK): The Blindman in the Romance Novel: Jane Eyre and the Representation of Visual Impairment.

Sarah Ficke (Marymount University, USA): Tinkering: Physical construction and emotional connection in the Iron Seas world.

Mallory Jagodzinski (Bowling Green State University, USA): “He Didn’t Seem Indian”: Exploring and Analyzing the Construction of Race in Meredith Duran’s The Duke of Shadows.

4:30pm – 5pm, Saturday, June 21
Farewell