Romance fiction will ignite discussion at The University of Queensland this week as part of Australia’s first annual conference on popular romance studies.
Held at QUT on Thursday (August 13) and UQ on Friday (August 14), the conference is the inaugural event of the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance and the Journal of Popular Romance Studies, with future conferences planned for Belgium in 2010 and New York in 2011.
UQ academics Dr Toni Johnson-Woods, Dr Kim Wilkins and Dr Anthea Taylor will present talks alongside scholars from around the world, including Australians Juliet Flesch and Lisa Fletcher.
AustLit, the national Australian literary resources database which is led from UQ, will be highlighted as part of Friday’s discussions, with focus given to its role in documenting Australian popular fiction.
Friday’s event will be held in the UQ Library Conference Room (Duhig Building, Level 1), from 9:30am – 4:30pm. The University of Queensland’s Fryer Library recently purchased a collection of Australian romance fiction.
Topics highlighted across the two days include: representations of romance in book, comics, film, television and on the internet; constructions of the romance reader and writer; and explorations of classical and innovative romantic fiction.
Dr Johnson-Woods, who is also an organiser of the event, said romance fiction was the most read and most maligned fiction genre of all.
Dr Johnson-Woods, who did her PhD on 19th century popular fiction and is now conducting ARC-funded research into 1950s Australian popular fiction, was eager to be involved in an annual conference on home soil.
“We want to get Brisbane and Australian romance writers and readers out of the bedrooms and into the classrooms,” she said.
“Romance fiction is based on family life and courtship rituals and that’s why it’s fascinating to read Australian 1950s fiction in the 21st century or to consider how Indonesian women read popular romance.
“Since Plato’s Symposium, thinkers have grappled with the philosophical nature of romantic love. Romance focuses on the search for a ‘partner’ – one of the most quintessential human elements, yet many people malign romance fiction.
“I’m excited by the recent surge in romance scholarship and by the enthusiastic response we received from scholars around the world.”
Conference details:
Thursday, August 13 (8:30am-5pm)
Wordsworth Room, S Block
Queensland University of Technology
Friday, August 14 (9:30am – 4:30pm)
UQ Library Conference Room (Duhig Building, Level 1)
University of Queensland
Media: Dr Toni Johnson-Woods (t.johnsonwoods@uq.edu.au) or Eliza Plant at UQ Communications (07 3365 2619)
