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News Mon Jul 13 2009
Academia Gets Romantic
This USA Today article takes a look at the academic study of romance novels. Yep, romance novels. It seems that romance novels are gaining ground in academia, as Princeton University held a conference titled "Love as the Practice of Freedom? Romance Fiction and American Culture" this past April. Here they talk to, among other authors, DePaul University English professor Eric Selinger, the organizer of the conference. Says Selinger on the ease of being a man in the romance world, "Nobody thinks I'm a spinster or trapped in a bad marriage, or I'm betraying feminism...People don't judge me as much." I'm not a fan of romance novels myself and I would, in all likelihood, scoff heartily at the idea of a conference on the genre, but, as a student at DePaul, I've heard nothing but positively glowing reviews of Selinger's romance novels course from classmates who would consider themselves as disinclined to the literature as I am. So maybe there's something to it.
