Category: Notes and Queries

I came to the study of romance media largely by accident. I didn’t grow up reading or watching romances: those activities were for girls, or…

Here’s what sparked my interest in popular romance: a tottering stack of books next to my mother’s bed. The paperbacks were her romance novels, what…

In July 2021, I travelled for a family holiday to the sleepy, largely rural Shetland Islands (population 22,990) in far northern Scotland. My chosen holiday…

I started reading romance novels when I was twelve years old. These books were not my mom’s forbidden paperbacks, which had titles like Wild Rapture…

It’s the summer of 1969, and my father is singing a love song. I am five, living in the white, two-story Dean’s House at the…

As a researcher, I often find myself in a situation where I can reflect on two of the fields I work in at once. These…

Sally Rooney’s Normal People (2018) is a refined, touching, and quintessentially current coming-of-age narrative that recounts the romantic encounters of two young people, Marianne and…