Popular Romance in the New Millennium, an international conference co-sponsored by McDaniel College and the Nora Roberts Foundation, concluded yesterday, Nov. 11, 2011. McDaniel College English professor Pamela Regis, the author of A Natural History of the Romance Novel, organized the two-day event, which was held on the college’s Westminster, Md. campus.
Among the many sessions planned for the conference were a keynote address by Professor Mary Bly (also known as historical romance author Eloisa James) on "Sex Acts, Social Identity, and the State of the Field in Romance Scholarship," a workshop by Amy Burge on "(Re) Reading the Romance: A Hands-On Harlequin Workshop," a speech by Sarah S. G. Frantz on "'Strange Stirrings': Feminism, Rape, and Sexual Awakening in the 1970s Blockbuster Historical Romance" and Pamela Regis’s "Q&A with Sarah Wendell."
An Goris’s plenary address, "Studying the Popular Romance: Reading Nora Roberts," held particular interest for followers of Roberts’ novels. Goris argued in support of teaching efforts centered on studying individual romance writers, such as Roberts, instead of the more common practice of examining the romance genre as a whole.
Funding for the Popular Romance in the New Millennium conference came from the Nora Roberts Foundation’s May 2011 grant of $100,000 to McDaniel College. The grant will advance research efforts in romance literature, begin an online creative writing course in romance fiction and establish an academic minor in the field.
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