Romance Area

Conference of the Popular Culture Association (PCA/ACA)

April 16-19, 2025 – New Orleans, Louisiana

Disrobing the Trope

It does not take an expert to see how important tropes currently are in the marketing of romantic media. Whether we’re talking about friends who find themselves in an only-one-bed situation (and thus become lovers), or enemies forced to fake date (and thus become lovers), or a grump who gets a second chance (to become lovers) with their sunshine-y childhood sweetheart, tropes have become ubiquitous to the way romance narratives are discussed.

In the Romance area of PCA, however, we are experts—and thus, for this year’s conference, we’d like to provoke people to think through and theorize the trope in popular romantic media.

In particular, we pose three provocative questions:

1) what are tropes?

2) what do tropes do?

3) where do tropes come from?

We encourage you to respond to these questions broadly, and to think not just about specific texts but also about their creators, consumers and critics, to understand the broader discussions in which these texts are implicated.

We need to stop taking tropes for granted. This conference is the time to set aside our customary acceptance of tropes as a central feature of romance and look more analytically at their origins, functions, and meanings. As both scholars and consumers of romantic imagery and narratives, of course we have our own favorite tropes, and others we despise. However, our aim in raising this topic is not to rehash those familiar debates about which texts and tropes are “good” or “bad.” Instead, we invite deep thinking from the scholarly community on the strange problem that is the trope.    

If the thought of talking about tropes doesn’t float your boat, or you simply want to pursue your own intellectual passion, you are very welcome to do so.

Who we are

The Romance Area of the PCA is deeply interested in popular romance both within and outside of mainstream popular culture, now or in the past, anywhere in the world. Scholars, romance writers, romance readers/viewers, romance industry professionals, librarians, and any combination of these are welcome. You do not need to be an academic or have an institutional affiliation to be part of the Romance area. Undergraduates sponsored by an academic mentor are also welcome. Please see the Romance area on the PCA website for our policy for undergraduates; if the website is difficult to navigate, contact us and we’ll send you a copy of the policy.

The Romance area invites any theoretical or (inter)disciplinary approach to any topic related to romance. Past presenters have drawn on methods from literary studies, history, library sciences, sociology, film studies, and creative writing, to name the most common approaches—we’ve even had a presentation with puppets (you know who you are). We’ve loved all of these.

Finally, we are not interested solely in novels! The Romance area is open to engagements with all forms of media and culture that are concerned with romance, including, but not limited to, the following: art; literature; philosophy; radio and audio media; film and television; comics and graphic novels; videos, webzines and other online storytelling; and apps, including dating apps. 

As the global pandemic continues, plans may change. You can check the PCA website for updates. We will also send updates to our Romance Area mailing list. If you are not on the mailing list and wish to be, please contact us.

Submit 250-word abstracts to pcaaca.org by November 30, 2024. One of us will review them within two weeks or so and notify you about our decision. You’ll hear more from us as the date approaches.

Please feel free to forward, cross-post, or link to this call for papers.

If you have any questions at all, please contact the area chairs:

Dr. Heather Schell
George Washington University
Washington, DC
schellhm@gwu.edu

Dr. Jodi McAlister
Deakin University
Melbourne, Australia
jodi.mcalister@deakin.edu.au