Prof. Deborah Philips (University of Brighton):

“In Defence of Reading ‘Trash’”

Chair: Paloma Fresno-Calleja

Chair: David Río

Eva M. Pérez-Rodríguez (University of the Balearic Islands): “Like Old Bruises”: Widowhood and Family Traumas in Leah Fleming’s The War Widows and Sofka Zinovieff’s The House on Paradise Street”

Miquel Pomar-Amer (University of the Balearic Islands): “The inescapable past: haunting memories of the war in Jo Eames’ The Faithless Wife”

Federica Montella (University of Calabria): “Body, spaces of love, illusion and delusion in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

Chair: Astrid Schwegler

Ingrid Pfandl-Buchegger (University of Graz): “Romantic E-scapes: The impact of digital communication on the writing of popular romances”

Elina Valovirta (University of Turku): “The stuff of which fairytales are made: The formula, readers and writers of popular e-romance”

Chair: Eva Pérez-Rodríguez

Carmen Pérez Ríu (University of Oviedo): “Neo-Victorian popular romance and the pleasures(?) of anachronism”

Toni Jordan (Deakin University): “Embracing the Hidden Romantic: Re-Evaluating the Genre Participation of Moliére Using Parodic Fictocriticism”

Chair: Pilar Villar Argáiz

Paloma Fresno-Calleja (University of the Balearic Islands): “100% Pure Romance? Rosalind James’s ‘Escape to New Zealand’ Series”

Astrid Schwegler Castañer (University of the Balearic Islands): “Devouring Textual Love: The Culinary Metaphor in Contemporary Historical Romance”

“Writing and Publishing Romance in the Digital Age”.

Emily Benet, Jane Kelder and Toni Jordan

Chair: Alejandra Moreno Álvarez

Chair: Elisa Serna Martínez

Marta María Gutiérrez Rodríguez (University of Valladolid): “Love and Witchcraft: Contemporary Historical Romances about the Salem Witch Trials”

David Río Raigadas (University of the Basque Country): “Western Romance Novels: Escapism and the Cowboy Myth”

Silvia Martínez Falquina (University of Zaragoza): “Her Land, Her Love: Navajo Captivity and the Romance Novel”

Prof. M. Socorro Suárez Lafuente (University of Oviedo):

“Love Stories: the Dialogical Tension between Emotion and Reason”

Chair: Carolina Fernández Rodríguez

Chair: Lynda Gichanda Spencer

Pilar Villar-Argáiz (University of Granada): “History, Exoticism and Romance in Popular Fiction set in Ireland”

María-Isabel González Cruz (University of Las Palmas): “Exploring the Exotic Other and Paradise Discourse in a Sample of English Romances set in the Canaries”

Aurora García-Fernández (University of Oviedo): “Between Exotic Postcards and Green Activism: Environmental Preoccupations in Contemporary Australian Romance”

Chair: Carmen Pérez Ríu

Raquel Álvarez-Riera Escandón (Universidad de Oviedo/University of Utrecht): “Violence in the Myth of Romantic Love: An Analysis of Suicide and Death as an Act of Love in Contemporary Film Adaptations of Romeo and Juliet”

Marek Wojtaszek (University of Lodz): “Romancing the Digital: Sensory Interface and Algorithmic Desire in a Society of Anticipation.

Mislav Zivkovic (University of Zagreb): “ ‘Heaven is a Place on Earth’: Codes of Love and Fantasy in Black Mirror’s ‘San Junipero’ and ‘Hang the DJ’”

Chair: Irene Pérez Fernández

Lynda Gichanda Spencer (Rhodes University, South Africa): “ ‘A New Kind of Romance’: Romance Imprints and the Digital Age in Nigeria”

Cristina Cruz-Gutiérrez (University of the Balearic Islands): “ ‘Yeah, I love it too but just don’t romanticize it’: An African City at the Crossroads of Romance and InsubordiNation”

Chair: Miquel Pomar Amer

Manasi Gopalakrishnan (University of Cologne): “The quiet native: colonized women in historical romances”

Komal Vinayak Tujare (St. Mira’s Collage for Girls, Pune): “Retelling of the Female: Reading Mastani’s Historical Romance”

Alejandra Moreno Álvarez (University of Oviedo): “De-exotifying Romance Novels in Postcolonial India”

Muhammad Abdullah (Forman Christian College University, Lahore): “Emergent sexualities and intimacies in contemporary Pakistani Anglophone Literature”

Chair: Silvia Martínez Falquina

Carolina Fernández Rodríguez (University of Oviedo): “Nora Roberts’ Inn Boonsboro Trilogy: Fuelling the Myth of Romantic Love, Stoking the Fire of Consumerism”

Inmaculada Pérez Casal (University of Santiago de Compostela): “A Study in Contradictions: Feminism in Lisa Kleypas’ Ravenels Series”

Alison Lutton (Somerville College, University of Oxford): “Escaping Creative Conventions: Romantic Paratextual Innovation and Belonging in You-Tube-to-Print Field Migration”

Chair: Cristina Cruz Gutiérrez

Irene Pérez Fernández (University of Oviedo): “Atoning the Colonial Past in Contemporary Caribbean Romance: Female Characters Challenging the Norms”

Elisa Serna-Martínez (Autonomous University of Madrid): “Painting Away Regrets, A Caribbean Antiromance by Opal Palmer Adisa”

Macarena García-Avello (University of Cantabria): “Resisting Genres: Angie Cruz’s Soledad and Nelly Rosario’s Song of the  Water Saints and the Anti-Romance”

Chair: Alison Lutton

Elin Abrahamsson (Stockholm University): “Mas(s)turbatory Readings: A Queer Theoretical Analysis of Popular Romance”

Danielle Girard (Lancaster University): “The Queer Romance of Slash Fanfiction: From Fetishization to Orientation”

Mariana Ripoll-Fonollar (University of the Balearic Islands): “Opening Venues for Transgender Anti-Romance(s): “Cultivating Response-ability” in the web series Her Story”

Prof. Hsu-Ming Teo (Macquarie University):

“Falling in love with the past: History and the romance novel”

Chair: Aurora García-Fernández