UPDATED: The Northeast Popular/American Culture Association (NEPCA) is seeking paper proposals on the topic of Romance/Popular Romance Fiction for its annual conference.  

NEPCA’s 2023 fall conference will be held as a virtual conference from Thursday October 12 to Saturday October 14, 2023. The deadline for proposals is August 1, 2023.   

We welcome a wide variety of papers related to romance and popular romance fiction. Possible approaches can include cultural studies, narrative analysis, issues of representation, production and dissemination of romance fiction, audience studies, the public uses of romance fiction/s, and more.  

 We are also interested in forming panels around some of the following topics: 

•  Queen Charlotte (the Bridgerton prequel) – Is it a romance? Does the series address the criticisms of race and colonialism in Seasons 1 and 2 of Bridgerton? How well does the show adapt the characters from the original book series? 

• Romance and fanfiction – fandom as a training ground for developing romance writers 

• The romance industry and social media marketing 

• Romance re-imagining itself – How does contemporary romance fiction take on and transform its own genre? How does it re-make the “pirate romance,” the “arranged marriage” trope, fairy tales and mythological re-tellings? 

• Romance fiction in languages other than English 

 NEPCA welcomes individual papers and complete panels.   Papers are generally 15-20 minutes in length. NEPCA also encourages works in progress, and informal presentations. The only restrictions on presentations are that: 

• Proposals should be rooted in research. We do not automatically exclude original poetry, composed works of fiction, or musical/dance/storytelling performance, but such works must be connected to greater theoretical and research frameworks. 

• NEPCA generally avoids proposals whose intent is overtly commercial. 

• Proposals should appeal to a broad audience. 

 For more information about the conference, please visit https://nepca.blog/conference/.   Abstracts should be submitted by August 1, 2023, through this form:  NEPCA Call for Proposals for 2023 Fall Conference (google.com) 

 If you have questions about this area, please reach out to the Area Chair for the Romance/Popular Romance Fiction area, Wendy Wagner, Johnson & Wales University, at wwagner@jwu.edu.