CALL FOR PAPERS

NORTHEAST POPULAR CULTURE ASSOCIATION, Virtual, October 20 to October 22, 2022
AREA: ROMANCE/POPULAR ROMANCE FICTION
Deadline: August 15, 2022

            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 2022 online conference will be held Thursday October 20 – Saturday October 22, 2022. The extended deadline for proposals is August 15, 2022. 

The Romance Area welcomes a wide variety of papers related to romance and popular romance fiction. Possible approaches could include historical or 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 the following topics:

• Romance and fanfiction – fandom as a training ground for developing romance writers
• Romance on screen – if the “rom-com” is in decline, why is romance in movies (The Lost City, Palm Springs, Mr Malcom's List) and television/streaming media (Bridgerton, Outlander) so popular?
• Romance and adaptation – why do some romance writers (Jane Austen, Julia Quinn, Sally Thorne) get adapted and others (Georgette Heyer, Kathleen Woodiwiss, Jennifer Crusie) do not?
• Romance re-imagining itself – How does contemporary romance fiction take on and transform its own genre? 
• Romance across Time, Space and Genre - Is Romance a languange that speaks across all borders, and yet lends itself to reconfigerations sensitive to the moment?

NEPCA welcomes individual papers and complete panels.   Papers are generally 15-20 minutes in length. NEPCA discourages (but does not forbid) verbatim reading of papers and encourages creative delivery of papers.  We also encourage works in progress, and informal presentations. The only restrictions on presentations are that:

• While we encourage original poetry, composed works of fiction, or musical/dance/storytelling performance, those works should be  connected to theoretical and research frameworks.

Questions regarding proposals can be sent to Angelawhyland6@gmail.com

For more information about the Conference, please visit https://nepca.blog/conference/.

 Abstracts should be submitted by August 15, 2022 through this form:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeC392QZ6u6yFcXp5HD-7crhNk1-yUJU2916xYZJm--QTB0Tw/viewform