First #popcaanz18 Romance panel post-lunch begins with Ellen Carter, comparing hero/ine's names in M/F vs M/M romance fiction.
Carter's corpus contains 2536 contemporary romance novels, about one third M/M, two thirds M/F, where she studied the phonology of hero/ine names.
Carter: male names in both corpora are more likely to be monosyllabic, especially in M/F romance. #popcaanz18
Carter: striking result - male characters much more likely to have names with /k/ sounds, especially male characters in M/F romance. #popcaanz18
Carter found that M/M hero names were phonologically less masculine/more feminine than M/F hero names. #popcaanz18
Next up, Eden French, discussing trans representation in popular romance. #popcaanz18
French has found disclaimers and disavowals in some of her corpus which make it clear that the assumed readership is entirely cis. #popcaanz18
What brought French to academia was her wish to write a contemporary romance with a trans heroine. #popcaanz18
French reads trans theory not necessarily out of scholarly interest but to understand how to live. #popcaanz18
French: "coming out" is often seen as bringing people closer, but this does not always ring true for trans people. #popcaanz18
Finally in this session, Francesca Pierini, talking about the idealisation of Italian timelessness in romantic novels. #popcaanz18
Pierini: in these stories, the romance is secondary to the heroine's pursuit of her own origins in Italy. #popcaanz18
Pierini: heroines move across the past and present in Italy, and their romantic union with an Italian man solidifies her place in the "timeless" society. #popcaanz18
