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Laura Vivanco

@lauravivanco.bsky.social

2.6K followers 220 following 2.5K posts

Independent scholar of popular romance fiction (https://www.vivanco.me.uk/), member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Popular Romance Studies (https://www.jprstudies.org/) My database of scholarship about romance novels: https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk

www.vivanco.me.uk

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · Sep 24

I thought I'd try out making a starter pack. So here's one of romance scholars. Please let me know if you've spotted an omission.

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 11h

I can't read it either. Though I think it's The Times not The New York Times.

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 15h

It's the percentage of the young people

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 1d

Just remembering this:

Hark, a vagrant: 202

www.harkavagrant.com

Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 1d

It would be probably be more of an Anne Bronte story though, rather than a Charlotte Bronte one.

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 1d

To make the "seducing the hot priest" version viable as a love story, Jane would have to change St. John's mind about aspects of his theology, and somehow the author would have to have him start finding something about Jane physically attractive, which seems unlikely given his type is Rosamund.

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 1d

From reading modern popular romance, I get the impression that "saving the bad boy" is v. v. popular with heterosexual women readers. And I'm guessing that plot would also have deep appeal to heterosexual men who want women to be angels/saviours/pure/do emotional work for them.

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 1d

Oh, I know, I'm just thinking about most readers and which dynamics they're used to/prefer. I have the impression that Rochester sees himself as fallen (well, he is literally fallen from his horse but I mean morally) and in need of saving, and that's what's set up as being attractive by the novel.

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 1d

I wonder if readers' interpretations may be shaped by whether they have a "saving the sexy Satan" orientation or a "could I seduce the hot priest" one. And if they're results orientated: "saving" a dependent Rochester would be very, very much easier for Jane than seducing St John.

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 1d

St John is a better person*, but not a better person for Jane to be married to unless she wants to devote the rest of a shortened life to doing "good works".

* I have concerns, about the colonialism and white saviour aspect of his proposed mission, but it's a long time since I read JE.

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 2d

Is this a parody/protest street sign?

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 2d

Maybe they're not allowing names of specific flowers?

Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 2d

I'm 😡 and 😱 and sending 🫂 to my US colleagues. [Words are failing me somewhat, hence the emojis.]

US professors facing threats, firings and harassment over Charlie Kirk posts

As many as 40 academics have been dismissed in aftermath of shooting, allegedly without due process

www.theguardian.com

Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 3d

This sounds like a version of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Ar... and I hate it!

What Are Little Boys Made Of? - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 3d

And

I think that, as she identifies with a hero, a woman can become what she takes joy in, can realize the maleness in herself, can experience the sensation of living inside a body suffused with masculine power and grace (adjectives very commonly applied to heroes, including my own), can explore anger and ruthlessness and passion and pride and honor and gentleness and vulnerability: yes, ma'am, all those old romantic cliches. In short, she can *be* a man.

Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 3d

OK, have had to go off and find the essay. Still not sure about all this, but you can read the whole essay here: books.google.co.uk/books?id=TRA... and here's a screenshot of what I think is a key part of the argument:

Feminists need not tremble for the reader - she does not identify with, admire, or internalize the characteristics of either a stupidly submissive or an irksomely independent heroine. The reader thinks about what she would have done in the heroine's place. The reader measures the heroine by a tough yardstick, asking the character to live up to the reader's standards, not vice versa.
Placeholding and reader identification should not be confused. Placeholding is an objective involvement; the reader rides along with the character, having the same experiences but accepting or rejecting the character's actions, words, and emotions on the basis of her personal yardstick. Reader identification is subjective: the reader *becomes* the character, feeling what she or he feels, experiencing the sensation of being *under control* of the character's awareness.
Even the most well-conceived and fascinating of romance heroines embodies an element of placeholding. However, it is myopic to believe that just because the reader is female she is confined to the heroine's character as the target of authentic reader identification.
In romance it is the hero who carries the book. Within the dynamics of reading a romance, the female reader *is* the hero, and also is the heroine-as-object-of-the-hero's interest (the placeholder heroine). The reader very seldom *is* the heroine in the sense meant by the term "reader identification." There is always an element of analytical distance.

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 3d

I think she was saying that readers would like to behave the way heroes often do, but they're not allowed to in real life due to gender roles, so that's why heroines are kind of boring and the readers love badly-behaved heroes. Something like that, anyway.

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 3d

I think the self-inserting thing has more to do with the "placeholder heroine". Which is kind of the opposite of the reader identifying with the hero? But it's a while since I read that essay.

Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 4d

Amy Krug from the University of Dayton got in touch about their library's popular romance novel collection, which is being created by her students

Romance at the University of Dayton

Amy Krug, from the University of Dayton, is happy to report that the University of Dayton (Dayton, Ohio) now has a dedicated collection, the...

teachmetonight.blogspot.com

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 4d

To paraphrase Margery Kempe wildly: "For Thy Great Tent Have Mercy On My Little Tent"

Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 4d

@orkneylibrary.bsky.social I just saw this post from @metoffice.gov.uk and wondered if your photos of the dark sky would be starting soon.

Met Office - weather and climate @metoffice.gov.uk · 4d

Noticing the nights drawing in? 🌙

October brings a big shift with most of the UK losing over 2 hours of daylight this month!

Do you enjoy the cosy evenings or miss the longer days?

Map of the UK showing daylight lost during October by region. Northern areas like Lerwick lose about 2 hours 40 minutes, Stornoway 2 hours 30 minutes, Aberdeen 2 hours 20 minutes, Glasgow and Newcastle 2 hours 10 minutes, Manchester and Birmingham 2 hours, and southern areas such as London and Plymouth about 1 hour 50 minutes. Background uses colour bands to indicate daylight loss.

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 4d

Depends what it is that's being published (textbooks will earn you more, I think), but in my experience, you're lucky to earn anything at all (and I had to save one publisher about £500 over 20 years ago by getting my spouse to do the typesetting).

Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 6d

Just saw the OP because it was reposted by @zackpolanski.bsky.social , and maybe you're already a member of the Scottish Green Party, but if not, since your profile says Dundee (Scotland) I was wondering if maybe you should join the @scottishgreens.org as well?

Scottish Greens - For People. For Planet.

Scottish Greens - For People. For Planet. - For People. For Planet.

greens.scot

Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 7d

The full thing's here:

A Message From Dr. Jane Goodall | Famous Last Words | Netflix

YouTube video by Netflix

www.youtube.com

Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 7d

This is for the UK Government, but also I thought it was worth sharing the photo of the extremely cute hedgehog (since there's no alt-text, the hedgehog is partially curled up, but facing the camera with a speech bubble saying "Can you help" as it looks out with bright black eyes + shiny nose)

38 Degrees @38degrees.bsky.social · 7d

It only takes a moment to help save our hedgehogs 🦔

Now officially listed as near threatened, our hedgehog numbers have crashed by at least 30% in just ten years 💔

But there’s a simple way to help: hedgehog highways. This just means a small hole in a fence or wall to let them roam more safely.

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 8d

Agreeing with you, with a quote from page 22 of Hsu-Ming Teo's ""Bertrice teaches you about history, and you don't even mind!": History and Revisionist Historiography in Bertrice Small's The Kadin" books.google.co.uk/books?id=OSA...

This chapter explores the uses of history and the challenge to historiography latent in a particular bodice ripper: Bertrice Small's The Kadin. Among the nine Orientalist historical romances published in 1978, Bertrice Small's The Kadin stands out for its meticulous historical research into the reigns of the Ottoman sultans Bajazet II (1481-1512), Selim I (1512-20), and Suleiman I (the Magnificent, 1520-1566). The Kadin blends historical fact with invention to achieve a romance. The narrative serves as an example of a feminist revisionist historiography of the Ottoman empire (albeit one that is still essentially Orientalist) which places women's domestic, familial, romantic, and sexual experiences, actions, and relationships at the centre of historical narratives of power, statehood, and empire. As the final section of this chapter will demonstrate, such revisionist historiography was - and remains - of considerable interest to general readers, and not simply to historians.

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