Journal of Popular Romance Studies Call for Papers

CALL FOR PAPERS: Romancing the Library
Submissions are due by May 1, 2014.

Access to information is at the core of a library’s mission, whether it serves a public, academic, or special library audience. When it comes to romance novels, however, reader demand is often more than a library can meet, with constrained library budgets outstripped by the sheer volume of titles published each year. How, then, does a library decide which titles to purchase? What factors motivate selection or de-selection? How do the explicitness of love scenes and/or controversial subject matter shape that decision making process? Where does the line between selection and censorship lie?

Once an electronic or print title has been acquired, the library must decide where to house it within the collection and how best to inform readers of its existence. A library can create finding aids or subject guides, designate a specialist on the subject of romance, or find other ways to coordinate reference services around popular romance titles. What are the best practices for readers’ advisory and reference for romance? How are other media, such as romantic films or graphic novels, incorporated into reference services for romance novels? Is there a significant enough overlap between those audiences to warrant doing so?

The Journal of Popular Romance Studies (JPRS) seeks articles for a special issue on the intersection between romance and all types of libraries, anywhere in the world. This issue will discuss policy and practice, controversies, patterns and changes in the way that the library profession deals with popular romance fiction and with romance in other media (film, graphic novels, magazines) as well.

Submissions are particularly welcome on the following topics, although articles that examine other intersections between popular romance and libraries will also be considered for publication.

–Collection development policy, practice, and preservation
–E-books versus print books, publisher/vendor e-book check out and geographic limits
–Popular romance in special collections, browsing collections
–Defining a core collection of romance novels
–Censorship of popular romance in libraries
–Romance reference and readers’ advisory
–Romantic films and other media within the library

Submissions are due by May 1, 2014. This Special Issue of The Journal of Popular Romance Studies is being guest edited by Crystal Goldman. Please submit scholarly papers of no more than 10,000 words, including notes and bibliography, to An Goris, Managing Editor, at managing.editor@jprstudies.org. Submissions should be Microsoft Word documents, with citations in MLA format. For more information on how to submit a paper, please visit www.jprstudies.org/submissions.

Published by the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance (IASPR), the peer-reviewed Journal of Popular Romance Studies is the first academic journal to focus exclusively on representations of romantic love across national and disciplinary boundaries. Our editorial board includes representatives from Comparative Literature, English, Ethnomusicology, History, Religious Studies, Sociology, African Diaspora Studies, and other fields. JPRS is available without subscription at www.jprstudies.org.

Medieval Chronicle Call for Papers

The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at The University of Liverpool will be hosting the 7th International Conference on the Medieval Chronicle July 7–10, 2014.

Papers are invited in English, French, or German in accordance with the following main themes:

Chronicle: history or literature?

The chronicle as a historiographical and/or literary genre; genre identification; genre confusion and genre influence; typologies of chronicle; classification; conventions (historiographical, literary or otherwise) and topoi.

The function of the chronicle

The function of chronicles in society; contexts historical, literary and social; patronage; reception of the text(s); literacy; orality; performance.

The form of the chronicle

The language(s) of the chronicle; inter-relationships of chronicles in multiple languages; prose and/or verse chronicles; manuscript traditions and dissemination; the arrangement of the text.

The chronicle and the representation of the past

How chronicles record the past; the relationship with ‘time’; how the reality of the past is encapsulated in the literary form of the chronicle; how chronicles explain the past; motivations given to historical actors; the role of the Divine.

Art and Text in the chronicle

How art functions in manuscripts of chronicles; do manuscript illuminations illustrate the texts or do they provide a different discourse that amplifies, re-enforces or contradicts the verbal text; origin and production of illuminations; relationships between author(s), scribe(s) and illuminator(s).

For further information, please email the conference organizers at medchron@liverpool.ac.uk.

Picture Day Friday: Meenakshi Temple of Madurai India

How gorgeous is that?! Such finely detailed carvings painted over so painstakingly.

The current version of the Meenakshi Temple was built in 1655, but its long history is mentioned since antiquity in the literature of the 2,500-year-old city of Madurai in southern India. There are nearly 33,000 sculptures on the temple façade, in addition to the 14 gateway towers of the temple complex. The central temple, for example, is a Russian doll-like structure with three temples within temples.

Click on the image below to see the picture in its full glory.

From 1869: Book of Days by Robert Chambers

The 1869 edition of The Book of Days by Robert Chambers is made available for free by Hillman.

This day, July 24th in 1801, witnessed this: a train of mules drawing small wagons of stone along a very narrow-gauge railway. This was the first tramway built above ground for the transport of goods. Previously, these were in use only in coal mines.

Certain improvements made in 1800 by Mr. Benjamin Outram [to the original coal mine rails], led to the roads being termed Outran roads; and this, by an easy abbreviation, was changed to tramroads, a name that has lived ever since. Persons in various parts of England advocated the laying of tram-rails on common roads, or on roads purposely made from town to town; in order that upper-ground traffic might share the benefits already reaped by mining operations.

In 1800, Mr. Thomas, of Denton, read a paper before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in which [...] he proceeded to argue that the use of such tramways would lessen distances as measured by time, economise horse-power, lead to the improvement of agriculture, and lower the prices of commodities.

Thus, increasing the distribution radius for goods and reaping the monetary benefits of efficiency was how the tramway came into being. Transporting people was still many years into the future.

Jane Austen's Early Childhood and Schooling

Contrary to the accounts by the Austen family of Jane Austen's idyllic childhood in the warm bosom of her family, it has recently come to light that she was away from five out of the first eleven years of her life.

From three months to two years of her life, Jane was boarded with a nurse in the village of Steventon. She was then brought home till she was seven, at which point she was sent away to school. Despite the practice of Georgian times to send children away to boarding schools, girls were rarely sent until they were well into their teens. It was usually boys who were sent away to schools when they were twelve; fewer girls were sent.

So Jane being sent away was unusual in itself and an anomaly to be sent away so young. What's also strange is that she was sent away to a much inferior schooling than the one her father could've offered her at home. He was not discriminatory towards his girls and offered all his children the same scholarly teaching.

It is now generally believed that her parents, Rev. George and Cassandra Austen, wanted to make room for paying students to be housed at the rectory since they were perenially in debt, so the girls and then some of the boys had to be sent away to school. Eventually, all the boys went away, but the girls stayed home once they were older.

Picture Day Friday: Romance Novel Covers as Decoupaged Art on Shoes

Graduate student of romance fiction studies, Rudi Bremer, indulged in her love of romance novels and shoes by creating an art project, titled "The Sole of a Romantic."

Rudi says, "I've spent the past couple of weeks working on a visual art piece that celebrates my love of romance novels. My work is a pair of high heels that have been decoupaged with romance novel covers (both old skool and recent releases). They are entirely functional and I have plans to wear them ... pretty much everywhere. Essentially, they were for an assignment and will be in a small exhibition/showing."

Sarah Wendell called these shoes "The Most Awesome Shoes in the Universe."

And I have to agree. Take a look...