{"id":885,"date":"2020-02-04T16:51:51","date_gmt":"2020-02-04T16:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/?p=885"},"modified":"2020-11-17T20:51:13","modified_gmt":"2020-11-17T20:51:13","slug":"romance-reading-group-valentines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/2020\/02\/04\/romance-reading-group-valentines\/","title":{"rendered":"Romance Reading Group Launch: Valentines Special"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, sans-serif\"><span class=\"contextualExtensionHighlight ms-font-color-themePrimary ms-border-color-themePrimary ident_393_581\" role=\"button\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-886\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/75\/2020\/02\/Romance-poster.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"791\" height=\"766\" \/>Launching on <strong>Thursday 13th February 2020<\/strong>, the Romance Reading Group will be running bi-monthly, postgraduate-led sessions on <strong>Thursdays 4:00-6:00 in Arts 439<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-family: arial, sans-serif\">These sessions will all focus on the undervalued yet meaningful popular genre: romance. <\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, sans-serif\">Have you ever wondered what the difference is between romance and romantic fiction? Or questioned whether a romance novel can be feminist? Or speculated as to whether this genre is sexist, heterosexist or racist? Or pondered about the sexualisation of male predators? All these important considerations will be discussed, and potentially answered, in our free, helpful and fun reading group sessions.\u00a0Our aim is to debate, analyse and discuss the history of romance and its\u2019 impact on society\u2019s culture today.\u00a0We are meeting every two months, will provide snacks and, of course, stimulate your mind with thought-provoking, intriguing discussions all relevant to the brilliant genre of romance. So, no matter what stage you are in your academic careers (undergraduates, postgraduates, post-docs and staff) and regardless of your college or school, come along to one of our sessions and debate, analyse and learn about romance fiction, critics and theorists. Texts will range nineteenth-century fiction to contemporary literature and the theories we will discuss include feminism, queer and postcolonial.<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><u><span style=\"font-family: arial, sans-serif\">An overview of our first session is:<\/span><\/u><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, sans-serif\">The first session, 19th Century Romance, will take place on Thursday 13th February, 4-6pm, in Arts 439 and it is a Valentine\u2019s Day special! Due to the session\u2019s proximity to the day dedicated to love, we will be delving into extracts of two classics: Jane Austen\u2019s <i>Pride and Prejudice<\/i>\u00a0(1813) and Emily\u00a0<i>Bronte\u2019s Wuthering Heights<\/i>\u00a0(1847). We will be questioning whether these important works would be described as romance or romantic fiction, while examining definitions formed by key romance critics Janice Radway and Pam Regis as well as the romance writers association: Romance Writers of America. Additionally, we will be comparing 19<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0century Valentine\u2019s Day to modern day Valentine\u2019s Day, evaluating what has changed for better or for worse in both romance novels and romantic relationships as a whole over the past 200 years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div>For future sessions, get in touch or find us online:<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>Website: <a href=\"https:\/\/romancereadingroup.wixsite.com\/readingromancegroup\">https:\/\/romancereadingroup.wixsite.com\/readingromancegroup <\/a><\/li>\n<li>Twitter: @Romance_UOB<\/li>\n<li>Email: romancereadinggroup@gmail.com.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Launching on Thursday 13th February 2020, the Romance Reading Group will be running bi-monthly, postgraduate-led sessions on Thursdays 4:00-6:00 in Arts 439.\u00a0These sessions will all focus on the undervalued yet meaningful popular genre: romance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":886,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[210],"tags":[212,211,153],"class_list":["post-885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-romance-reading-group","tag-emily-bronte","tag-jane-austen","tag-romance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":896,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions\/896"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}