***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