Researching the Romance - Conference

Researching the Romance has been cancelled. We hope to reschedule the conference for a later date soon.

Romance Across Boundaries: A Two-Day Conference About Romance Fiction

The Browne Popular Culture Library at BGSU will host an academic conference focused on various aspects of the romance genre on April 22-23, 2020. Thursday evening's closing event with Alyssa Cole is free and open to the public.

Researching the Romance: Romance Across Boundaries will be held in two locations over the course of the weekend. Wednesday's events, as well as Thursday's daytime sessions will be held in the Jerome Library on the campus of Bowling Green State University, while Thursday evening's closing event will be held at the Wood County District Public Library in downtown Bowling Green. Thursday evening's event is free and open to the public. A schedule of conference events is available.

The guest of honor for the conference will be bestselling author Alyssa Cole. Cole is an award-winning author of historical, contemporary, and sci-fi romance. Her Civil War-set espionage romance An Extraordinary Union was the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award’s Best Book of 2017 and the American Library Association’s RUSA Best Romance for 2018, and A Princess in Theory was one of the New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2018. She’s contributed to publications including Bustle, Shondaland, The Toast, Vulture, RT Book Reviews, and Heroes and Heartbreakers, and her books have received critical acclaim from The New York Times, Library Journal, BuzzFeed, Kirkus, Booklist, Jezebel, Vulture, Book Riot, Entertainment Weekly, and various other outlets. When she’s not working, she can usually be found watching anime or wrangling her pets.

This event will be the fourth such conference hosted by the Browne Popular Culture Library and Bowling Green State University. The first conference, titled “Re-Reading the Romance,” was in 1997 and included authors and academics, including Jennifer Crusie, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and Cathie Linz, sharing their experiences and love for the genre.  A follow up conference titled “Romance in the new Millennium” was held in 2000, featuring even more academic looks at romance as the area of study began to grow. And in 2018, we rejuvenated the tradition with our first Researching the Romance conference, which drew authors, academics, and readers from around the country and featured guest speaker Beverly Jenkins.

This year's conference comes at a pivotal time for the romance community, and our varied group of presenters will provide a look at where the genre has been and where it is going. We hope you will join us!

Please contact Steve Ammidown (sammido@bgsu.edu) with any questions or concerns.