Shelf Love: Romance Novel Discourse
237 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 days ago - ★★★★★ - 54 ratingsShelf Love is about romance novels and how they reflect, explore, challenge, and shape desire. Host Andrea Martucci invites experts from a variety of perspectives to critically engaging with romance novels. Listen for discussions of individual books, genre discourse, and scholarly topics.
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Episodes
Kiss an Angel by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
April 25, 2024 04:00 - 1 hour - 59.3 MBIf you’ve always wanted to hear about a romance that takes place within a traveling circus and features a telepathic tiger, hang onto your trapeze bar: Emma from the Substack Restorative Romance and the Reformed Rakes podcast is here to talk about Susan Elizabeth Phillips' “Kiss an Angel,” a contemporary romance that feels like a historical and features an arranged marriage that leads to circus life. In a highly contentious conversation between rival podcasters, the one thing we can agree on...
Evolution of Romance Novel Cover Design
April 12, 2024 04:00 - 1 hour - 61.5 MBGuest: Sarah Rutherford, a romance reader and Associate Professor of Design at Cleveland State University @sarahatschool on Instagram Highlights: The evolution of romance novel covers from the 1980s to the contemporary post-digital age. The significant role of design elements such as typography, color, and imagery in conveying the genre and themes of romance novels. The impact of digital publishing on cover designs, including the preference for stock photography and simplified imagery. ...
Harlequin Kiss & Collecting Category Romance on Categorically Romance Podcast
February 19, 2024 05:00 - 1 hour - 56 MBI was a guest on The Categorically Romance Podcast to discuss my category romance collecting addiction, reading some books from Kiss a short-lived Harlequin line from the early 20 teens, and how not being allowed to read romance as a teen actually made me more obsessed with reading romance. Hope you enjoy this episode and I definitely recommend that you check out the Categorically Romance Podcast if you're not already listening. We read The One that Got Away by Kelly Hunter (Kiss #1) and If...
Covering Romance: John Ennis's Art & Thoughts on Fandom
February 12, 2024 05:00 - 39 minutes - 36.3 MBIn this episode, host Andrea Martucci embarks on a journey with Dame Jodie Slaughter to the Covering Romance exhibition. The event showcases romance novel cover art by award-winning artist, John Ennis. Interviews with John Ennis and other attendees, including author Nisha Sharma, romance fan Mary Lynne Nielsen, and Fin, owner of Wolf and Kron books, a genre bookstore. Andrea purchases several pieces of cover art and reflects with Jodie on the cultural significance of fandom and passion for t...
Prison Planet Romance: Love in a Hopeless Place
January 16, 2024 05:00 - 39 minutes - 35.7 MBAn exploration of prison planet romances with Megan Erickson. We discuss Guardian by Emmy Chandler and how it explores issues of consent, agency, and morality through an extreme version of the forced proximity trope. Are these brutal dystopians actually hopeful explorations of humanity and love? Shelf Love: NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Email: [email protected]
Romancelandia Holiday Fairies!
December 13, 2023 00:32 - 3 minutes - 3.1 MBRomancelandia Holiday Fairies 2023! Romancelandia Holiday Fairies is a mutual aid effort for the romance novel reader community to support anyone in the community who could use a little material help with purchasing gifts for themselves, or loved ones this holiday season. Learn more: bit.ly/holidayfairies shelflovepodcast.com/holiday-fairies Shelf Love: NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Email: [email protected]
Shame
November 16, 2023 05:00 - 49 minutes - 45.2 MBIs shame productive? This question guides part 2 of a Whoa!mance/Shelf Love convo about A Lady of the West by Linda Howard as we discuss the paradox of enjoying highly problematic books. We interrogate our feelings of shame, enjoyment, and the importance of critically dissecting the pleasures derived from reading, no matter how uncomfortable it may feel. Look at your society, look at your life! Along with me and Whoa!mance, in this crossover episode. Shelf Love: NEW! Substack for origina...
A Lady of the West: The Rules for Good Women
November 09, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 55.6 MBI humbly asked Morgan and Isabeau to help me understand why A Lady of the West by Linda Howard had a chokehold on my young romance-reading imagination, and they delivered. We discuss how this book has rules for good (white) women, and explores Manifest Destiny, settler colonialism, sexuality, violence, violent sexuality, and being a desirable (white) woman. Button up your white high-necked blouse and gallop on a virile stallion into the wild west with Whoa!mance, in this crossover episode. ...
Erotic Romance: A Gentleman in the Streets by Alisha Rai
October 17, 2023 04:00 - 52 minutes - 47.9 MBThe difference between erotic romance and romance is all about feelings, in particular, where you feel them. Shelf Love’s Kink Correspondent, Dame Jodie Slaughter, joins the podcast to discuss A Gentleman in the Streets by Alisha Rai. Only enter if you consensually dare. Shelf Love: NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Email: [email protected] Guest: Dame Jodie Slaughter, Shelf Love’s Kink Correspondent Website | Twitter | Inst...
Bisexuality in Romance
October 10, 2023 04:00 - 1 hour - 60.6 MBBisexuality in romance with writer and reviewer Ellie Mae MacGregor (@bisexual_booknerd). When it comes to romance, a genre that explores romantic and sexual desires, what does “good” bisexual representation look like? How can books with or without bisexual representation create worlds that feel safe for bisexual readers? Shelf Love: NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Email: [email protected] Guest: Ellie Mae MacGregor Instag...
The Agony and the Candlelight Ecstasy
October 03, 2023 04:00 - 51 minutes - 47.5 MBI own 91 Candlelight Ecstasy Romances, so it was high time I read one... then I read another 13 for good measure. In December, 1980, Vivian Stephens launched a new line of contemporary category romance at Dell called Candlelight Ecstasy. The line pushed the envelope when it came to sex and sensuality on the page. But how sexy are they and how do these books hold up in 2023? Shelf Love: NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Email: Andrea@sh...
Mistress of Mellyn: In love with the man or the house?
September 26, 2023 04:00 - 1 hour - 70.4 MBMistress of Mellyn by Virginia Holt is often hailed as responsible for kicking off a boom of modern gothics in the mid-20th century. In this crossover with Reformed Rakes, we ask: is this a gothic first and a romance second? Is our plucky main character in love with the man of the house, or just the house? How does Mistress explore transgression of boundaries, gender, eight-year-olds, and heroines “ahead of their time”? Shelf Love: NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | T...
Heroines: Creating Identity in Romance
September 18, 2023 04:00 - 58 minutes - 53.6 MBWhat makes a heroine in romance, a genre invested in exploring how can women be happy in culture? Is the genre a place where heroines create integrated identities that reject binaries of what society tells them to be? Dr. Jayashree Kamble discusses her latest book on romance scholarship, Creating Identity: The Popular Romance Heroine's Journey to Selfhood and Self-Presentation. Shelf Love listeners can use “UShelfLove” to get 35% off the book at Indiana University Press, from now until Novem...
The Flame and the Flower (Flames on the Sides of my Flower)
September 05, 2023 04:00 - 1 hour - 78.9 MBFour romance reading friends embark on a romance history reading project, based on a BookRiot list, and in this episode, two of them — Leigh Kramer and Hannah Hearts romance — have Flames on the Sides of their Face when talking about the Flame and The Flower by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. To keep things interesting, we talk less about the book itself and more about questions of reader reception and the relationship between the 1972 text and the romance texts that followed. Have we come a long way...
Romance Scholars After Hours
July 20, 2023 04:00 - 21 minutes - 19.3 MBWhat happens when 35 romance scholars walk into a bar, after hours at the IASPR 2023 Romance Revitalised conference? They share their favorite romance scholarship, and why! Shelf Love: NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Email: [email protected] Thanks to all of the contributors to this episode! Full list of romance scholarship mentioned on Substack: https://shelflovepodcast.substack.com/ Romance Reader Stereotype research: h...
Romance isn’t for everyone
June 15, 2023 04:00 - 1 hour - 74.3 MBThe fabulous foursome (Morgan & Isabeau from Whoa!mance, Dame Jodie Slaughter, Andrea Martucci from Shelf Love) get meta textual as we reflect on our meta podcasting project on Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas. What’s this episode about? Take a guess from this collection of possible episode titles: Panopticon Alert: Meta Reflections on Dreaming of You The Internet Killed Romance Whoa! That’s Some Weird Romance Our Current Romance Panopticon Alienating Persons in Romance Love Us or Hate ...
This Guy? "Dreaming Of You" By Lisa Kleypas [Whoa-llab w/ Shelf Love]
May 25, 2023 04:00 - 1 hour - 63.4 MBThis week, yr grls at long last encounter Derek Craven in "DREAMING OF YOU" by Miss Massachu herself LISA KLEYPAS. It is time for Morgan and Isabeau from Whoa!mance to wade into this collaboration with Shelf Love. You probably already know this - but Sarah is a regency country mouse who is secretly a best-selling novelist. Facing the dreaded sophomore slump, she seeks out a real Gambling Hell to research her next novel and instead finds Derek Craven. Derek's a gutter baby cum Cockney made g...
Dreaming of You: Justice for Joyce
May 18, 2023 04:00 - 1 hour - 66.3 MBLet’s talk about Joyce Ashby from Lisa Kleypas's novel Dreaming of You. We delve into the dichotomous portrayal of Joyce as an irredeemable villainess alongside her foil, the redeemable “hero” Derek Craven. We explore the parallel themes of violence, possessiveness, and animalistic sexuality resulting in problematically differing fates and treatment by the text. Belched from the underworld, Defender of Bisexual Villainesses Dame Jodie Slaughter joins Shelf Love in this special cross-over pro...
Autistic Representation in Romance with Amanda Cinelli
May 08, 2023 04:00 - 42 minutes - 39.1 MBAmanda Cinelli joins me to discuss representation of autistic characters in romance novels. Amanda shares how reading Helen Hoang’s "The Kiss Quotient" played a big part in her realizing that she was autistic, and talks about some other romances with autism representation that she loved. We also discuss why representing autistic love is important to Amanda as an author and her writing journey pre and post diagnosis. - Shelf Love: NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Tw...
The Problematic is Calling From Inside the House
April 05, 2023 04:00 - 26 minutes - 24.2 MB"Somebody’s Trying To Kill Me and I think it’s my husband" by Joanna Russ is a brilliant bit of 50 year old scholarship about modern gothics, but I say it applies just as well to romance novels of today. In part one, I explore the theme of passive protagonists in adventure stories. Part 2, the personal is the problematic. In all parts: unpacking heteropatriarchy. Discussed: Adventure Stories with Passive Protagonists: https://shelflovepodcast.substack.com/p/adventure-stories-with-passive...
2 North, and 2 South: Romance Catnip
March 07, 2023 05:00 - 39 minutes - 36.1 MBPart 2 of the conversation about North and South with Helena Greer. AI generated these action items from the transcript of this episode. AI responses can be inaccurate or misleading. [ ] Schedule a kiss scene between the main characters for modern audiences [ ] Make the male protagonist more sympathetic by toning down his violent behavior [ ] Make the female protagonist more likable and relatable to modern romance audiences [ ] Follow a beat sheet to hit expected pacing and plot points f...
Look Back at Me: North and South with Helena Greer
March 01, 2023 05:00 - 52 minutes - 47.9 MBTrains! Fruit! Allusions to Hell abound! Victorian industrialist city mortality rates! Writer, sex educator, and librarian Helena Greer is here to discuss North and South. Did the 2004 BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's 1854 serialized novel make the heroine more likable and everyone else less nuanced? This conversation is serialized just like the original text. We compare and contrast the romantic moments in the book and adaptation, highlighting how the adaptation focuses more on negativ...
When Your Lover Rips Your Father’s Heart Out
February 08, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 67.4 MBDame Jodie Slaughter, Feather Fetish Understander, and I recently discussed how The Savage and The Swan speaks the unspoken, what a winged wolf looks like, and whether this book is a metaphor for toxic masculinity and healing generational trauma. This summary below was written by AI using my episode transcript: The Savage and the Swan by Ella Fields is a groundbreaking work of Enemies to Lover literature that combines elements of dark fairytale retellings, a possessive anti-hero, and spicy ...
Cold(breath) Comfort Reads: January 2023
February 01, 2023 05:00 - 25 minutes - 23 MBStarting the year off with some cozy re-reads, comfort reads, and short reads to combat the wintery weather and get through winter cold season. I share thoughts on all the books I read in January 2023, including Alice Coldbreath’s Victorian Prizefighter series, A Holiday by Gaslight by Mimi Matthews, His Majesty by Shon, Better Off Wed by Susanna Craig, Hero by Claire Kent, and the Murderbot series by Martha Wells. Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/Shelf...
Anais Nin, writer of “Female Erotica”?
January 17, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 64.8 MBWe need to talk about Anais Nin and her erotic short story collection Delta of Venus. Did Anais Nin write "female erotica"? Is there such a thing? Have Things™️ changed much since 1941? Noted smut writer Dame Jodie Slaughter is Shelf Love's international smut history correspondent. She schools us on the long history of smut, French people, Choice Feminism, why she doesn't believe in the female gaze, how her work is contributing to the demise of "our value system," and more! We unpack Anais's...
Arranged Marriage Trope in Contemporary Indian American Diaspora Romance Novels
January 09, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 60.2 MBArranged marriage trope in contemporary Indian American diaspora romance novels with cognitive psychologist and author Sri Savita. Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Patreon | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Email: [email protected] Discussed: Running Away With the Bride by Sophia Singh Sasson Dating Dr. Dil by Nisha Sharma Marriage Game by Sara Desai The Trouble with Hating You by...
Findom, Care, and the Submissive Billionaire: Preferential Treatment by Heather Guerre
December 23, 2022 17:15 - 1 hour - 63.7 MBA billionaire romance novel that name drops Citizen’s United only comes along every so often. Carter Sherman, Senior reporter for VICE News, joins me to discuss Preferential Treatment by Heather Guerre. We talk about power exchange, heterosexual marriage as a transaction, and subverting the single script of the hegemonic BDSM billionaire romance to focus on the fantasy as care & safety as opposed to letting go of control. Romancelandia Holiday Fairies: https://shelflovepodcast.com/blog-post...
The Vindication of the Rights of Man in Romance Novels
December 07, 2022 05:00 - 1 hour - 62.9 MBAre men in romance novels granted agency & subjectivity, and do readers have the same expectations for male consent as they do for female characters in M/F romance? Lynell from Weekend Reader has some thoughts on mutual consent in romance, especially as she’s binging dark mafia romance with kidnapping plots. What happens when your real life values conflict with your fantasy world values, and how do ideas about happily ever after change as our culture changes? Romancelandia Holiday Fairie...
Black Romance and Historical Spaces
December 01, 2022 05:00 - 1 hour - 75.5 MBHear Elysabeth Grace & Katrina Jackson in conversation: a recording from Black Romance and Historical Spaces presentation put on by the Center for Black Diaspora at DePaul University on November 5th, 2022. This episode is a co-release with Black Romance Podcast, hosted by Dr. Julie Moody-Freeman. Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove NEW! $1 Patreon tier “Here for the Discourse” - for those of you bummed by the decline of Twitter Sign up for the ...
Harlequin’s New Sexy Contemporary Line: Breaking News!
October 21, 2022 18:05 - 1 hour - 67.8 MBBreaking News! Harlequin Associate Editor John Jacobson is here to give the scoop on Harlequin’s newest, currently unnamed line of sexy new contemporary romances. We talk about Harlequin’s intentions, hopes, and dreams for the line, and also talk about the unfulfilled… gaps in the market, especially for younger readers who want to imagine their own unique, personalized, non-normative happily ever afters. Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove Sign ...
Cinderella & Beauty and the Beast: Retellings, Reversions, Subversions
October 04, 2022 04:00 - 1 hour - 66.8 MBClassic fairy tales Cinderella & Beauty and the Beast may have gotten their Disney-fication, but there are many ways to slide your feet into these glass (or are they fur?) slippers, and romance novels love to play with these tropes. Writer Renee Dahlia and podcaster Philippa Borland join the podcast to discuss fairytale retellings, reversions, and subversions in romance novels. - Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove Sign up for the email newslet...
Hairy on the Inside: Teen Werewolves & Red Riding Hood
August 30, 2022 04:00 - 50 minutes - 46.4 MBWhat is beastliness? Little Red Riding Hood stories used to be tales of warning for young women to manage their sexuality in the face of the dangerous beasts of court, who were smooth on the outside, but hairy on the inside. In the 21st century, paranormal teen romances use enchantment to transform the beasts into objects of desire. Dr. Nicola Welsh-Burke, a scholar of fairy tales and romance, is here to discuss hot wolf boys, brooding Byronic figures, pseudomarriage and pseudovirginity, hot...
Only Tingles Before Marriage: Junior Novels in Post-War America with Dr. Amanda K. Allen
July 22, 2022 04:00 - 1 hour - 69.7 MBJunior novels were early romances for young readers, published in the 1940s-1960s. Learn from expert guest Dr. Amanda K. Allen how the didactic and heteronormative messages in these novels make a lot of sense when you consider that they were created to respond to demand from librarians and schools for “bibliotherapy” texts to “teach teenage girls how to be women,” which included winning that class ring and becoming besties with the popular girl who you’re not sure if you want to be or date. ...
Beverly Jenkins' Avon True Romances: The Parental Gaze (guest: Funmi)
July 13, 2022 04:00 - 1 hour - 65.8 MBFunmi’s Beverly Jenkins collection is complete, and of course it includes the queen of Black historical romance’s young adult romances that were originally published in the short-lived Avon True Romance line in the early 2000s. We discuss Belle and the Beau and Josephine and the Soldier. Did these romances hit the spot for early aughts tweens? And why do we feel like the parental gaze is peering over our shoulder while we read it? - Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://ww...
Jessica (Sunfire): Bad Dads & Mad Men (Young Adult Romance series)
June 29, 2022 04:00 - 1 hour - 66.5 MBJess joins Shelf Love to discuss the Sunfire romance that shares her name: Jessica by Mary Francis Shura. This historical teen romance from 1984 centers on a highly-competent, independent Kansas teen in 1873 and her many suitors: is the mad man who wins her heart the right guy or is he just the one who gets along best with her bad dad? - Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Patreon | Twitter | In...
Sunfire Romance: Adventures for Girls (guest Candice Ransom)
June 22, 2022 04:00 - 37 minutes - 34.6 MBSunfire, a historical romance series for young adults, debuted in 1982 with two books by Candice Ransom. 40 years later, Candice pulls back the curtain on her process and how Scholastic editor Ann Reit shaped the series, which was many young readers’ first taste of romance packaged in a girl’s adventure story. Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Patreon | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Email: And...
Romance for Young Adults: A Quick 80-Year Overview
June 15, 2022 04:00 - 31 minutes - 29 MBA brief overview of romance for young adult readers throughout time, with a focus on the romance series boom of the 1980s and the reverberations into the early 2000s. Wildfire, Sunfire, Sweet Dreams, Oh My! But some people haven’t always been on board with young people consuming age-appropriate romance. - Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Patreon | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Email: Andrea@...
Queer Romance: A History with Lucy Hargrave
June 07, 2022 04:00 - 1 hour - 72.8 MBLucy Hargrave shares her research into the history of queer romance. While Lucy dates published narratives of fictional happy endings for queer characters back to 1906, she charts the evolution since then in 5 significant time periods with different political, cultural, and technological climates. Plus, Lucy shares some results from her quantitative research into modern readers and writers of queer romance books. Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLo...
Psycho Killer, Come Kiss Me (Antagonist April #4, Darkly, Madly Duet with Fangirl Jeanne)
May 04, 2022 04:00 - 1 hour - 87.2 MBFangirl Jeanne answers the question: Why might people, and women in particular, find serial killers to be romantic figures in dark romance in a hetero patriarchal capitalist, racist, etc. society? We discuss the Darkly, Madly Duology by Trisha Wolfe, a dark romance with 2 serial killer main character antagonists. - Guest: Fangirl Jeanne Website | Twitter Jeanne’s tweet thread on the power fantasy of being the singular focus of a powerful man present in Romantic literature and fan fiction...
Stay Un-Alive (Antagonist April #3)
April 27, 2022 04:00 - 34 minutes - 31.8 MBReaders weigh in on killers in romance novels (AKA people who un-alive other people) and I challenge myself to see if the distasteful elements in the Darkly, Madly duology (discussed next episode!) showed up in less-egregious ways in texts I did enjoy. Also, more thoughts on power, gender roles, and the desire to conquer a protector. Responses from Antagonist April social media prompts: Books with MCs who kill Killer Poll Why Bad People Do Bad Things Fangirl Jeanne’s tweet thread on t...
Because I Love Her, Had to Killer (Antagonist April #2, Manacled with Fangirl Jeanne)
April 07, 2022 04:30 - 51 minutes - 47 MBAntagonist April: discussing killers in romance. Fangirl Jeanne is back to continue our discussion of Manacled, a dark romance fan fiction story. What is the appeal of enemies to lovers? How do readers wrestle with justification for killing in romantic stories, and how does Manacled explore a romantic relationship, not just a romantic fantasy for an individual? How does creating within communal systems, as opposed to capitalist ones, enable different kinds of stories? This is part 2 of 2 di...
Killing Them Swiftly, With His Wand (Antagonist April #1, Manacled with Fangirl Jeanne)
April 07, 2022 04:00 - 55 minutes - 50.9 MBAntagonist April: discussing killers in romance. Manacled by SenLinYu is a wildly popular dark romance fanfic with Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger, that remixes alternate universe Harry Potter with Handmaid’s Tale. Fangirl Jeanne joins me to discuss how war is hell, what it means to be a killer in a world where there are fates worse than death, and the appeal of the murderous antagonist hero. What does it help us understand about conceptions of masculinity and emotions as well as feminine ...
What Books Do, Empirically Speaking with Dr. Andrew Piper
March 30, 2022 04:00 - 1 hour - 62 MBData scientist Dr. Andrew Piper joins Shelf Love to share how data science can help the romance community answer the big questions that close reading can’t answer. Andrew’s the director of McGill University’s .txtlab, a laboratory that uses machine learning to ask questions like why do people enjoy the work they love? And once we empirically quantify what’s going on here, he asks us to think about what we’d like to do about it. Guest: Dr. Andrew Piper Website | Twitter | Enumerations: D...
Swan Song: If You're Listening to This In the Future, We'll Be Dead
March 22, 2022 04:00 - 1 hour - 61.4 MBSwan Song (2021) is a movie that forces us to confront the "After" part of Happily Ever After. Shelf Love's Sad Media Correspondent, Dame Jodie Slaughter, is here to discuss lax security at cloning facilities, the ethics of cloning, the aesthetics of the future: pretty much anything that allows us to avoid the banal truth about our own mortality. Content Note: discussion of death and mortality. - Discussed: Swan Song (2021) Guest: Dame Jodie Slaughter, Shelf Love’s Sad Media Corresponden...
The Fated Sex Mates to Perfectly Matched Spectrum
March 16, 2022 04:00 - 39 minutes - 36.1 MBDo our fated lovers smell like ambrosia because of the cosmic love connection? How do romance novels use language to convey romantic love? I propose a spectrum that ranges from "fated sex mates" to "perfectly matched" using examples from 4 romance novels (not all of them recommended). Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Patreon | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Email: [email protected] ...
Time Travel Romance: A Fantasy Escape to a Glorious Space
March 08, 2022 05:00 - 50 minutes - 46.2 MBHave you ever wished you could just escape the anxieties and mundanity of modern life by traveling back to Qing Dynasty China? How does time travel romance create a simulacra of a “glorious and wealthy feudal past” that allows audiences to “effortlessly become a love interest and an admired woman through the male gaze shaped by multiple admirers”? Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Patreon | Twi...
The Hunger Games & Extraordinary Girl Romance Narratives
March 01, 2022 05:00 - 48 minutes - 44.6 MBThe Hunger Games may have featured a prominent love triangle, but are those the relationships teen girl audiences care most about? Dr. Tina Benigno shares her research about how the teen romance narrative for the extra-ordinary girl in some ways reinforces neoliberal feminist or popular feminist messages around empowerment discourses, on the heels of postfeminism. Discussed: The Hunger Games, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Guest: Dr. Tina Benigno Website | Twitter Shelf Love: Join t...
Romance-Friendly Bookstores with Copper Dog Books (everything about the supply chain you've never thought to ask)
February 22, 2022 05:00 - 1 hour - 57.4 MBRomance-Friendly Bookstores with Copper Dog Books (and everything about the supply chain you've never thought to ask)! Copper Dog Books is an independently-owned, genre-inclusive bookstore in Beverly, MA and co-owners Julie Karaganis & Meg Wasmer join Shelf Love to share the joys, challenges, and future possibilities for romance in brick and mortar bookstores. Guests: Copper Dog Books: co-owners Julie Karaganis & Meg Wasmer Twitter | Instagram | Website Shelf Love: Join the Conversa...
Love & Marriage & The Simpsons: The Happily Ever After 10 Years with Joe Martucci
February 09, 2022 05:00 - 38 minutes - 35.1 MBLove & Marriage...and The Simpsons. Join me & my IRL love partner to celebrate what "ever after" looks like this Valentine's Day. We discuss how romantic love, infidelity, & marriage are portrayed in The Simpsons. Reader...I married him and he DID eventually redo my website. Shelf Love: Join the Conversation on Discord: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLove Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Patreon | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Email: [email protected] Guest: Jo...
She-Devil (1989): Who's Entitled To Be Selfish in Love & Life? (Whoa!mance spectacular)
January 20, 2022 05:00 - 1 hour - 66.2 MBMary Fisher lived in a palace by the sea, and like all romance novelists, just needs love to complete her idyllic rose-colored life. Too bad the man she wants is married to bored housewife Ruth, who embarks on a journey of revenge. But who is the titular She-Devil in this 1989 film starring Meryl Streep and Roseanne Barr? What does this film imagine is worse than being a bored housewife? Whom do we root for, and who gets to be selfish in life and love? Morgan & Isabeau from Whoa!mance invite...