All events listed below are free of charge and open to the public.
Parking: Parking is available on Spring Street and on the Williams College campus at the 62 Center for Theatre and Dance, the upper and lower chapel lots, plus several other locations to which Williams College security will guide you. Please arrive on time for those events you plan to attend. For more information about parking on the Williams College campus, please use the interactive map of Williams College.
Those with mobility issues who are attending conference panels should park in the lot behind Chapin Hall. Please use the rear entrance to Bernhard Music Center (to the Brooks-Rogers elevator) or the ramp at the front entrance of Chapin Hall (which connects to Brooks-Rogers).
Friday, April 21
4:00 – 6:30 pm: Screening of Love Between the Covers at Images Cinema (50 Spring Street, Williamstown MA) followed by Q&A with director Laurie Kahn, author Eloisa James (Mary Bly), and author/publisher Radclyffe (Len Barot)
Saturday, April 22
8:00 – 10:00 am: Panel 1: Theories of Pleasure (Brooks Rogers Auditorium on the Williams campus)
Chair: Leyla Rouhi, Williams College
Panelists:
- Laura Frost, Stanford University: “Stories of O: The Language of Orgasm in Women’s Romance”
- Julie Cassiday, Williams College: “A World Without Safe-Words: Fifty Shades of Russian Grey”
- Eric Selinger, DePaul University: “Xenophile’s Paradox: Reading for Pleasure Across the Great Divides”
10:15 am – 12:15 pm: Panel 2: New Subjects and Audiences (Brooks Rogers Auditorium)
Chair: Alison Case, Williams College
Panelists:
- Sonali Dev, author: “Genre Structure and Learning to Dance Within its Boundaries”
- Hsu-Ming Teo, Macquarie University: “Tigresses, Tang Dynasty, and the Ten Commandments: The East Asian Romance Novels of Jade Lee, Jeannie Lin, and Camy Tang”
- Jayashree Kamblé, LaGuardia Community College: “When Wuxia Met Romance: The Pleasures and Politics of Multiculturalism in Sherry Thomas’s My Beautiful Enemy”
- Len Barot (Radclyffe), author and publisher: “Lesbian Romances and the International Market in the Digital Age”
2:15 – 4:15 pm: Panel 3: New Media Platforms and the Global Marketplace (Brooks Rogers Auditorium)
Chair: Leyla Rouhi, Williams College
Panelists:
- Mary Bly (Eloisa James), Fordham University, author: “Romancing the World: How and Where American Romance Sells”
- Katy Regnery, author: “From Stay-at-Home Mom to NYT Bestseller in 30 Months: A First-Hand Perspective on the Digital Revolution in the Romance Publishing Industry”
- Sarah Wendell, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books: “The World is So Big; the World is So Small: The Global Community of Romance”
- Patience Bloom, Harlequin: “Harlequin’s International Program: A World of Romance Readers”
5:30 – 7:00 pm: Book Signing at Water Street Books (26 Water Street, Williamstown MA) with romance authors Patience Bloom, Alison Case, Sonali Dev, Eloisa James, Radclyffe, Katy Regnery, and Sarah Wendell → Author bios available here
Sunday, April 23:
9:00 – 11:00 am: Panel 4: Transnational Romance (Brooks Rogers Auditorium)
Chair: Emily Vasiliauskas, Williams College
Panelists:
- Jin Feng, Grinnell College: “Time-Travel to P & P: Web-based Chinese Fanfic of Jane Austen”
- Emily Johnson, University of Oklahoma: “Exploring His/Her Library: Reading and Books in American and Russian Romance”
- Kathrina Mohd Daud, University of Brunei Darussalam: “How ‘halal’ Are Muslim Romances?: Shariah Compliance and Contestations in Ayat-ayat Cinta, The Translator, and She Wore Red Trainers” (Via skype)
- Heather Schell, George Washington University: “After ‘I Do’: Turkish Harlequin Readers Re-imagine the Happy Ending”
Sponsored by Romance Writers of America; The Oakley Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences; The Center for Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Cultures; the Departments of German and Russian, Romance Languages, and English; the Programs in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Leadership Studies; and the Michael Dively ’61 Lecture Committee for Human Sexuality and Diversity.