[Laura fluffs out her feathers and suns a little bit more] Thanks, Tumperkin. I’m really glad you think so because I do very much want to make our visitors feel welcome, whether they lurk or whether they comment. The genre belongs to all of us, and although I can’t guarantee never to use jargon or to always write in a way that’s as clear as possible, I hope what we’re doing at TMT makes our academic work accessible rather than something that’s restricted to a tiny group of scholars. I see us as being part of the romance community, and I hope other members of the romance community feel able to come across and read, query, or critique what we’ve written.

There was a listserv, Romance Readers Anonymous

Even the name is depressing! The community really has come a long way in a short time!

The short answer to why I founded TMT and RomanceScholar, the listserv that has given us a name, lies right in Janine’s post. I wanted there to be a “romance scholar community,” and now there is one, sooner and bigger and more active than I’d ever hoped. We have scholars and grad students working on four continents, all in touch with each other. And thanks to Sarah, soon we’ll be a formal Association!

Feeling pretty darned good right now, I must say. Thanks for reminding me why I spent all this time on something other than my own scholarship!

I must say I have tremendous respect and admiration for the romance scholar community. When I was undergrad in the late eighties, there was a graduate seminar on popular culture at my university which took a feminist approach to looking at soap operas, romances and other aspects of popular culture. I begged the professor to let me in to this course, but it was in high demand and as I was not a graduate student, there was no room for me. I still remember my disappointment. I purchased the books on the syllabus, which inlcuded Radway’s Reading the Romance, a book I kept wanting to argue with.

I’ve been out of school for a long time, but as someone who once enjoyed the analysis that went into writing papers on film and literature, I really appreciate the thought that goes into it.

And I also have to confess to a little envy of Eric, Laura, Sarah, and the rest of the romance scholars. Not that I don’t love reviewing for DA and trying my own hand at romance writing, but the grass is always greener… and I have this fantasy about constructing a romance syllabus for eager students… Maybe in another life.

Kristie, you’d be very welcome if you did pop in, but I fully understand that sometimes our content can be long and therefore time-consuming to read, or for a variety of other reasons it may not be what someone wants to read at a particular time. Some of my posts on specific novels are full of spoilers, for example. We’re not always positive about the genre, because it’s important to critique some aspects of it too. I suppose it’s the equivalent of not always giving 5-star-plus reviews. If all we did was say how great everything was, I don’t think our writing would be either true or credible.

There was a time I heard this term and shuddered, because it represented one possible awful nonchosen fate (as a spouse of an academic, this is the route the other spouse often goes). I now hear the term and think positive, wistful thoughts. How things change!

I am indeed the spouse of another academic.

I know some of it is born of necessity, but this kind of inclusiveness, and unwillingness to allow external markers of academic status fully determine the worth of someone’s work, is really terrific in my view.

It no doubt shows how naive I am and how unaware I am of how to go about building an academic career, but I never even thought of the possibility of exclusion. After all, I’ve got my PhD and a publications record, so it never occurred to me that anyone would think I was anything other than an academic. In the area of romance, jay Dixon wrote a very important study of Mills & Boon, and she’s an independent scholar. That was another thing that gave me the impression that being an independent scholar wasn’t going to be a problem. Now that you’ve mentioned the possibility I’ll bear it in mind.

Hi, Jessica! I’ll be happy to tell you all about why I started TMT and RomanceScholar, and what my secret ambitions are, etc. But not tonight. I’ve been reading applications all day for my NEH seminar on poetry (http://condor.depaul.edu/~english/pedagogy/poetry/neh/index.html), and just can’t think or write any more.

Would love to know it — I will subject you personally to the questionnaire when you have the time, okay?

Laura Vivanco wrote:

Unlike all my fellow bloggers at TMT, I’m what’s sometimes called an “independent scholar.”

There was a time I heard this term and shuddered, because it represented one possible awful nonchosen fate (as a spouse of an academic, this is the route the other spouse often goes). I now hear the term and think positive, wistful thoughts. How things change!

Anyway, if you look at the PCA romance roster, you see that tenured academics are on panels with high school teachers, independent scholars, people of diverse fields of study, romance authors, and others.

I have sat on many a program committee over the years, and I can tell you that for some of them, no high school teacher or fiction writer would have gotten on the program, no matter how great their proposal (ostensibly under the guise of saving places for tenure stream academics and ABD grad students, but everyone knows that’s not the whole reason).

I know some of it is born of necessity, but this kind of inclusiveness, and unwillingness to allow external markers of academic status fully determine the worth of someone’s work, is really terrific in my view.

Laura, I’m very glad to see you getting the praise you deserve. What aplomb & finesse in your answers!

Sarah, glad to hear you’re back to doing those little fiddly things we all appreciate so much! Hmmm…. That didn’t come out quite right. But you know what I mean.

More soon, if you’d like.

E