Following are some of my fallible, incomplete, impressionistic notes from a Romance Area panel session at the PCA conference in St. Louis. These are notes on works in progress,and do not purport to be complete records of the papers presented. Please follow up with individual presenters for full copies of their papers or to have specific questions about their work addressed.
Romance VIII: Exploring History, Genre, Media
Session Chair: Darcy Martin, East Tennessee State University
“American Roots of the Popular Romance Novel: Sentimental, Domestic, and Dime Novels”‖ Maryan Wherry, Black Hawk College
Some American characteristics of romance (she gives lots of textual examples from sentimental, domestic and dime store novels)
- Individualism and meritocracy – self made women and men, challenge social rules, etc. Act boldly, show grit
- Sense of class – commoners, have no servants, wealth (self made) = worth, status is earned
- Racial issues
- Lack of hereditary class means we need behavioral rules. Ex Cult of True Womanhood – piety, chastity, submissiveness, and domesticity.
- Ever present frontier—wildness, unsettled, conflict, “out there”; (different from “wild west” which is a particular location, whereas frontier is conflict zone between civilized and uncivilized); always that threat out there
- Loving to hate the romance. Longstanding, not a product of 1970s feminism. Hawthorne comments to his editor about “damned scribbling women” was directed at romance novelist.
When you look at American romances, you have to look at surrounding culture and ideologies. It is more than contingent – “it happens to be the setting” – but influences text.
“Comparison of Romance Videogames to other Romance Media”‖ Jill Astley
She reads manga and Regency romance. And plays romance video games –otome. And reads and speaks Japanese.
Her website.
Substantial niche industry in Japan. Played on PSPs, mobile phones and personal computers. Games are usually gender coded.
Substantial m/m games targeted towards women.
She will focus on games targeted to girls and woman featuring heterosexual relationships.
You can have branching storylines and multiple heroes in these games – these are 2 of the biggest differences from other romance media.
Some common tropes:
Character archetypes: hottie rich guy, sports guy, playful guy, bad boy, dependable childhood friend etc.
Often characters subvert their archetypes to keep users’ interest
Heroine dropped into unfamiliar environment, often fantasy (different time and world)
Seemingly average heroine with special quality or ability (ex. Key to magical power)
Heroine as leader of all male group (captain of space ship or ruler of continent), but often symbolic power only
Invisible heroine – player supposed to feel like she is the heroine. So heroine rarely has avatar that shows up on screen like other characters.
You could lodge same feminist criticisms of these games as of romance novels. for example, that they can be hampered by strict gender roles for the heroine.
OTOH, some are feminist in plot characterization or both. Ex. Alice in Heartland – heroine is cynical and untrusting, she doesn’t perform femininity or change personality to catch a hero.
This genre is in its infancy. Lot of growth and perhaps change to come.
“Crikey, It’s Romance for Men: Australian Sports Novels and Westerns of the 1950s‖ Toni Johnson-Woods, University of Queensland, Australia
New President of Australian/New Zealand Popular Culture Association
“Australians write crappy romance” – something a lot of folks believe.
Gothic influence of the bush infects national literature – just survival is the key, forget courting
Mateship, not courtship, is grand narrative of Australia, so one place to seek romance is mateship between 2 men
Ex. Adventures of a Squatter (19th century) – classic romance, but b/t 2 men
Silence and lack of performative speech act is central to Australian romance
1950s –sports fiction, especially boxing and horse racing – so romantic, contain all generic markers of romance Ex. Barriers Down: A Racing Romance (194?)
Working class hero, aspirational female, obstacles to overcome.
Her question: Are these romance? Answer: These are romantic in a kind of Australian way.
Ends with an Australian joke. Man walks up to woman in a bar and asks, “Wanna root?”. She replies: “I didn’t, but now I do, you sweet talking bastard.”
“Discovering Liminal Spaces: Gossip and Self-Exposure in Jennifer Crusie’s Romances and Eighteenth-Century Amatory Fiction”‖ Kimberly Baldus, University of Missouri, St. Louis
18th century British lit is her home territory. She links that to Jennifer Crusie.
Discovery fantasies in WTT. Shifting boundaries between public and private spaces.
Liminal spaces – borderlands where things blur, concepts merge
Circulation of gossip, breaks boundaries between private and public
Crusie inverts, note Mae Wests epigraph
18th century amatory fiction, esp the secret history: sheer voyeuristic erotic fiction
Collections of lurid gossip of public figures.
Manley. New Atlantis.
Gossip as a sensual pleasure, seductive
Anticipates Crusie
Her work informed by recent theoretical approaches to gossip. They diverge – some see it as repressive, some see it as opening new territory, creating distinctive kind of social space
Gossip constrains in TML. Maddie finally rejects TML’s constraining influence.
WTT – more complicated. Respects and acknowledges power of gossip to give power.
Public and private constantly collapse – screen doors, windows, remind us of permeable boundaries – almost invite intrusions as much as provide barrier
Generic attraction to the prurient aspects of the private. Overlooked in both early 18th century and in romance criticism.
Jessica, thanks again for the notes. I’ve been finding them really interesting and helpful (even bearing in mind your long disclaimer!)
The link to Jill Astley’s website isn’t working, by the way.
thanks Laura. I fixed the broken link. Jill plans to post her talk as well.
ooooh, fascinating. Wish I’d heard this one for myself. The American/ Australian characteristics of romance were particularly interesting. I love the concept of ‘mateship’.
@Tumperkin: I agree. and I think it is really interesting to look for “romance” in places other than where we usually find it. I think paying attention to context opens up this possibility
Thanks again for the notes! I’m gulping them all down.