Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, Ohio
August 4-5, 2000

The Browne Library of Bowling Green State University and the Maumee Valley Romance Writers of America co-hosted a symposium bringing together academics, librarians, romance writers, and readers to exchange ideas and critically examine various aspects of the genre.

Featured Speakers

Jayne Ann Krentz (Keynote): The author of twenty-six consecutive
New York Times besellers, jayne Ann Krentz, who also writes under
the pen names Amanda Quick and Jayne Castle, has over 23 million
of her books in print. In addition to her fiction writing, she is
the editor of, and a contributor to, the non-fiction essay collection, Dangerous
Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance (1992).

Kay Mussell is Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
at American University, where she also serves as Professor of Literature
and American Studies. She is the author of Fantasy and Reconciliation:
Contemporary Formulas of Women’s Romance Fiction (1984) and Women’s
Gothic and Romantic Fiction: A Reference Guide (1981) as well
as the editor (with Johanna Tuñon) of North American Romance Writers (1999),
a collection of essays by authors on their own work. She has also
edited two collections of articles on ethnic and regional foodways
in America.

Jennifer Crusie Smith: Among Ms Crusie’s credits are Welcome
To Temptation (2000), Crazy For You (1999), Tell
Me Lies (1998) and Anne Rice: A Critical Companion (as
Jennifer Smith, 1996). She has contributed to several anthologies
devoted to romance theory and criticism and written reviews, literary
analysis, and editorials for newspapers, magazines and journals.

Panels

History, Herstory, and Romance was chaired by Anne Kaler,
a professor at Gwynedd-Mercy College, is the chair of the Romance
Area for the national PCA/ACA conferences and the editor of Cordially
Yours, Brother Cadfael (1998), for which she received an Edgar
nomination, and Romantic Conventions (1999). Panelists were
Diane Calhoun-French (Dean of Academic Affairs, Jefferson Community
College-SW, Louisville, Kentucky); Denise Koch (1999 Golden Heart
Finalist, writing under the name Alexis Lynn); Kimberly Brown; and
Lee Tobin McClain (Director, Master of Arts in Writing Popular Fiction
Program, Seton Hill College, Greensburg, Pennsylvania).

What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? was
chaired by Julie Tetel Andresen, who is an award-winning romance
writer, professor at Duke University where she has a joint appointment
in English and Cultural Anthropology, and the founnder of the publishing
company, Madeira Books. Panelists were Leslie M. Haas and Kara Robinson
(founders and co-owners of the Internet discussion group, RRA-L);
Ann Bouricius (author of The Romance Reader’s Advisory: The Librarian’s
Guide to Love in the Stacks [2000] and three romance novels under
the name Annie Kimberlin); Sara Reys (Promotions Director for Writerspace.com);
and Susan Hopkirk (Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature, University
of Alberta).

The Many Voices of Romance was chaired by Nikoo and Jim
McGoldrick who write under the pen name, May McGoldrick: together,
they are the award-winning authors of six historical romances; their
first non-fiction book, entitled A Marriage of Minds: Collaborative
Fiction Writing was published in 2000. Panelists were Amanda
Kinard (Marketing Manager, Ingram Book Company); Gwendolyn Osborn
(Director of Public Affairs, Illinois Institute of Technology, senior
reviewer for The Romance Reader, and editor of Black Issues
Book Review); and Andrea Cawelti (Chicago Symphony Orchestra).

September 26-27, 1997

“Situating the Comedy” was an interdisciplinary, international conference sponsored by the Bowling Green Center for Popular Culture Studies, the Department of Popular Culture, and the Browne Library of Bowling Green State University. “Situating the Comedy” explored the resilience of the TV sitcom while at the same time promoting a greater humanistic and intellectual understanding of it. Panels and presentations shed light on multiple aspects of the television situation comedy, encompassing TV sitcoms in diverse international cultures as well as the United States.

Conference Program

Wednesday, September 24, 1997

7:00-10:00 p.m. – Screening, Film: M*A*S*H (1970)

An antiwar comedy feature film released during the height of American engagement in Vietnam, starring Elliot Gould, Donald Sutherland, and Sally Kellerman.
Courtesy of UAO Campus Film Committee

Thursday, September 25, 1997

7:30-9:30 p.m. – Screening, TV Sitcoms

Pilot episodes–Gilligan’s Island (CBS, 1964-1967), Hogan’s Heroes (CBS, 1965-1971), Martin (Fox, 1992-1997), Family Matters (ABC, 1989-1997; CBS, 1997), Boy Meets World (ABC, 1993- )
Courtesy of WTV5 (Toledo, Ohio)

Friday, September 26, 1997

9:00-10:30 a.m. – Concurrent Session #1

Title: Military Sitcoms of the 60s and 70s
Chair: Ms. Mary Kay Sanford, Riverbend Communications, Inc., Toledo, Ohio
Commentator: Jamie Farr (“Klinger” of M*A*S*H)
“Social History and the Situation Comedy: War and Militarism in M*A*S*H,” James H. Wittebols, Department of Communication Studies, Niagara University
“M*A*S*H and M*A*S*H: Radical Film Making and Liberal Television,” Ron Briley, Department of History, Sandia Preparatory School
“My War Was Funnier Than Yours; or, How Did Gomer Pyle Avoid Vietnam?: Military Sitcoms and the War in Vietnam: A Cultural Anomaly,” Stephen H. Wheeler, Department of History, Northeast State Technical Community College

9:00-10:30 a.m. – Concurrent Session #2

Title: Race, Class, and Gender in Sitcoms
Chair: Dr. Shirley A. Jackson, Department of Ethnic Studies, Bowling Green State University
“Black Women in White Sitcoms,” Brenda Fite, Department of Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University
“Race, Class, and Gender in The Cosby Show and Cosby,” Deidra D. Donmoyer and Mary E. Stairs, Department of Interpersonal Communication, Bowling Green State University
“The Effective Diva: Representations of Blackness, Gayness, and Activism in Spin City,” Michael D. Lyde, Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University

10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. – Concurrent Session #3

Chair: Dr. Richard Knecht, Department of Communications, University of Toledo
Title: The Schlemiel and the Schlimazel: Sitcoms that Break the Conventions Yet Affirm Jewish Ethnic Roots
“Portrayal of Jews in Television Sitcoms as Seen in The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Nanny,” Gene Chintala, Department of Higher Education and Student Affairs, Bowling Green State University
“All That’s New Is Old Again: Seinfeld’s Unconventional Use of Comedic Conventions,” Jennifer Germann, Department of Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University
“Bizarro Jerry: Seinfeld as the Anti-Sitcom,” Julio Rodriguez, American Culture Studies Program, Bowling Green State University

10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. – Concurrent Session #4

Title: Education and Sitcoms
Chair: Dr. Shelby Pierce, Department of Communications/Humanities, Owens Community College
“Using Television Situation Comedies to Teach Gender Communication,” Rebecca Dumlao, Department of Agricultural Journalism, University of Wisconsin, Madison
“I Will Not Mock Mrs. Dumbface: Education and the Sitcom,” Mary E. Reeves, College of Education, Northwestern State University of Louisiana

2:00-3:30 p.m. – Concurrent Session #5

Title: African American Sitcoms
Chair: Jeannie Ludlow, Department of Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University
“The Boys at the Beanerie: Poststructuralism as It Relates to Black Masculinity on Frank’s Place,” Darrell Mottley Newton, Department of Communication Arts/Cultural Studies, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater
“Angry African American Voices: The Black Situation Comedy as Mediated Cultural Violence, An Audience-Oriented Ethnography,” Robin R. Means Coleman, Department of Communication, University of Pittsburgh
“Breaking the Mold: The Representation of Black Women in Television Sitcoms,” Rachel S. Barta, Department of Special Education, Bowling Green State University

2:00-3:30 p.m. – Concurrent Session #6

Title: Cartoons, Fantasy and Sitcoms
Chair: Alison M. Scott, Browne Library, Bowling Green State University
“Unidentified Sitcom-like Objects: Saturday Morning, Krofft, and the Strange Case of Sigmund and the Sea Monsters,” Michael G. Robinson, American Culture Studies Program, Bowling Green State University
“Dexter’s Laboratory: Dexter–Pint-sized Cartoon Kid, Mad Scientists, Beset Brother, and His Comic Conventions,” Kristin Ladnier, American Culture Studies Program, Bowling Green State University
“Lacan avec Beavis & Butthead,” Brent Adkins, Department of Philosophy, Loyola University, Chicago

4:00-5:30 p.m. – Concurrent Session #7

Title: International TV Sitcoms
Chair: Vida Penezic, Department of Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University
“From Britcom to Sitcom: Norman Lear and the Processes of Transnational Communication,” Jeffrey S. Miller, Department of American Studies, Michigan State University
“The Sitcom in Africa,” Klevor Abo, American Culture Studies Program, Bowling Green State University

4:00-5:30 p.m. – Concurrent Session #8

Title: Women in Sitcoms
Chair: Christopher D. Geist, Department of Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University
“TV Misogyny: Sitcom Sexism: Reviewing the Status of Women Characters in Situational Comedy,” Mary hricko, Department of English, Kent State University, Geauga Campus
“From Family Affair to Life’s Work: The Representation of the (M)other in the Situation Comedy,” Romi Stepovich, Department of Film & Television, Critical Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
“The Screaming Mimis: A New Female Character,” Rachel Berens, Department of Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University

7:00-8:15 p.m. – Plenary Address

Dr. Mary Beth Haralovich, Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Media, University of Arizona-Tucson
Introduction of Speaker: Dr. Ray B. Browne, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University
Title of Address: “Honey, I’m Home!: Class and Ethnicity in 1950’s Domestic Family Comedies”

8:30-10 p.m. – Panel Discussion, Northwest Ohio Broadcast and Cable Television General Managers and Promotions Directors

Title: The Organization and Operation of Television in America at the Local and National Levels
Moderator: Marlene Harris-Taylor, WBGU-TV Channel 27, Public Affairs Host/Producer
Panelists: Nancy S. Duwve, General Manager, WTV5
Patrick Fitzgerald, General Manager, WBGU-TV Channel 27
Ellen Jackson, Promotions and Marketing Director, Buckeye CableSystem
Matt Laws, Director of Marketing and Promotion, WUPW Fox 36
Bruce A. Opperman, General manager, WLIO-35 Lima TV
Larry Scudder, General Manager, Wood CableComm
Bill Sheehan, Creative Services Director, WUPW Fox 36
Mel Stebbins, General Manager, WTOL-TV Toledo 11

Saturday, September 27, 1997

9:00-10:15 a.m. – Concurrent Session #9

Title: Undergraduate Student Responses to Family Matters and Living Single
Chair: Angela M. S. Nelson, Department of Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University
Kara Obermyer, Creative Writing/Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University
Lakeesha Harper, Psychology, Bowling Green State University

9:00-10:15 a.m. – Concurrent Session #10

Title: British TV Sitcoms
Chair: Alison M. Scott, Browne Library, Bowling Green State University
“Fawlty? What’s Wrong with Him?: Sources of Humor in Fawlty Towers,” Cynthia Perantoni, Department of English, Youngstown State University

10:30-11:45 a.m. – Concurrent Session #11

Title: Undergraduate Student Responses to Family Matters and Martin
Chair: Angela M. S. Nelson, Department of Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University
Sarah Williams, Undecided, Bowling Green State University
Michael Brewster, Political Science/Aerotechnology, Bowling Green State University
Liz Delzani, Actuarial Science, Bowling Green State University
Rashawn Williams, Telecommunications, Bowling Green State University
Tiffany Terrell, Interpersonal Communications, Bowling Green State University
Karin Lockwood, Elementary Education, Bowling Green State University
Carrie Cain, Communications, Bowling Green State University

10:30-11:45 a.m. – Concurrent Session #12

Title: Sitcoms in New Settings
Chair: Douglas Ferguson, Department of Telecommunications, Bowling Green State University
“sit.com: The Presence of Situation Comedies on the World Wide Web,” David Sedman, Department of Communication Arts, Southern Methodist University
“My Favorite Martian: Trapped in a World He Never Made,” Randall Clark, Department of Communications, Pfeiffer University

1:30-2:45 p.m. – Concurrent Session #13 – Community Suite

Title: Self-Reflexivity and Cultural Reality in 50s Sitcoms
Chair: Mary Beth Haralovich, Department of Media, University of Arizona, Tucson
“From Burns & Benny to Garry & Larry: A Discussion of the History and Development of the Show-within-a-Show and the Self-Reflexive Sitcom,” Rebecca Zisch, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, Ohio
“Redeeming the Beaver: Leave It to Beaver as Cultural Reality,” Michael B. Kassel, Department of History, Michigan State University

1:30-2:45 p.m. – Concurrent Session #14

Title: Age, Gender, and Sitcoms
Chair: Nancy S. Duwve, General Manager, WTV5
“X Marks What’s Not: The Media Culture’s Perpetuation of Stereotypes of Generation X in Sitcoms,” Kriss Ferluga, American Culture Studies Program, Bowling Green State University
“Little Big Men: The Little Man in Contemporary Situation Comedy,” Brent Malin, Department of Communication Studies, University of Iowa
“Television Portrayals of Aging on Golden Girls,” Debbie Owens, Department of Journalism, Bowling Green State University

3:30-4:45 p.m. – Concurrent Session #15

Title: American Ethnic Sitcoms
Chair: Michael T. Martin, Department of Ethnic Studies, Bowling Green State University
“Sorry About the Margaret Cho Show!: Reality, Ideology, and Television in the Case of All-American Girl,” Hsiu-chen Lin, Department of Theatre and Drama, Northwestern University
“Pasta, Passion, Power: Italian Ethnicity and the Sitcom,” Charles Coletta, American Culture Studies Program, Bowling Green State University
“Black Sitcoms of the 1990s: Friend or Foe?” Tina M. Harris, Department of Interpersonal Communication, Bowling Green State University

3:30-4:45 p.m. – Concurrent Session #16

Title: Postmodernism and Sitcoms
Chair: Christopher D. Geist, Department of Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University
“Postmodern Power Plays: Analyzing the Mixed Signals on Home Improvement,” Barbara Knop Karman, Department of English, Youngstown State University “’Whaddya Say, Cosmo? Everything, My Man!’: A Freudo-Rousseauean Perspective on Seinfeld’s Kramer,” Liam Harte, Department of Philosophy, Loyola University, Chicago
“A Semiotic Analysis of the Humor in Sitcoms: ‘Chuckles Bites the Dust’ Episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” Salvatore Attardo, Department of English, Youngstown State University

5:00-6:15 p.m. – Concurrent Session #17

Title: Sitcom Producers
Chair: Jeannie Ludlow, Department of Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University
“From Studio to Production Mill: The Amazing Recycling Career of Tom Miller,” Leigh Kennicott, Department of Theatre and Dance, University of Colorado
“Bunker Mentalities: The Sitcom in the 70s,” Josh Ozersky, Department of History, University of Notre Dame

5:00-6:15 p.m. – Concurrent Session #18

Title: Fantasy Sitcoms
Chair: Vida Penezic, Department of Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University
“’Love’: A Bewitched Resolution,” Todd Stigliano, Department of English, Youngstown State University

8:00-9:15 p.m. – Keynote Address

Mr. Jamie Farr, “Corporal Max Klinger” of the television series M*A*S*H (ABC, 1972-1983)

9:30-11:00 p.m. – Screenings

TV series M*A*S*H–First episode to feature Jamie Farr as “Klinger”
TV Sitcoms: Pilot Episodes–Designing women (CBS, 1986-1993), A Different World (NBC, 1987-1993), Murphy Brown (CBS, 1988- )
Color Adjustment
The Brady Bunch Movie

Presenters at the ReReading the Romance conference

Saturday, June 21, 1997

Sponsored by The Maumee Valley Chapter of
The Romance Writers of America
and The Browne Library

In 1996 the Romance Writers of America decided to place their organizational archives at the internationally famous Browne Library. ReReading the Romance was a one-day symposium, bringing writers and scholars together to celebrate this landmark event in romance scholarship.

Speakers: Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Keynote Speaker, “The Power of Love: The Romance Novel at the Millennium; or, How the Ladies Had the Last Laugh”

Love has powered the career of Susan Elizabeth Phillips, multi-award winning author of ten romances. Her novels, published in fourteen languages, consistingly hit the New York Times, Publishers Weekly and USA Today best seller lists. It Had to Be You, her seventh book, was voted Favorite Book of the Year by the membership of the Romance Writers of America, and garnered four other prestigious awards. Many of her other books have been named Best Romance of the Year or have received Reviewers’ Choice Awards. Susan also contributed to Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance, which received the PCA/ACA Women’s Caucus Susan Koppelman Award for Excellence in Feminist Studies of Popular Culture and American Culture. She delivered the keynote speech at the Romance Writers of America national conference in New Orleans in 1991.

After graduating from Ohio University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in theater, Susan did postgraduate work at the University of Iowa. She taught high school for six years in the Columbus, Ohio, public school system. She now lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and two sons.

Jennifer Crusie Smith, Luncheon Speaker, “Re-Visioning the Myth: How Romance Writers Adapt Myth and Fairy Tale”

Sizzle, a Stolen Moments novella, won the Silhouette Short Reads Contest, launching Jennifer Crusie Smith’s first sale in 1992. Jennifer began writer romances as part of her research for her doctoral dissertation and has since written nine category novels for Harlequin and Bantam. Getting Rid of Bradley won the Romance Writers of America Rita Award for Best Short Contemporary Romance and Anyone But You was named one of the Best Books of 1996 by the Library Journal. Jennifer’s academic publications range from “This Is Not Your Mother’s Cinderella,” an essay on fairy tales in romance fiction, in the forthcoming Scholars on Romance, and “Romancing Reality” in the journal Paradoxa to a book of literary criticism, Anne Rice: A Critical Companion.

With a bachelor’s degree in art education from Bowling Green State University and a master’s degree in both professional writing and women’s literature from Wright State University, Jennifer is currently in the Ph.D. program and completing her MFA in fiction at the Ohio State University. She is exploring the use of humor in 20th century western women’s popular literature for her dissertation. Her main ambitions in life are to graduate from college and learn how to plot, not necessarily in that order.

Alison Scott & Cathie Linz, Closing Speakers, “Romance in the Stacks”

What do pulp art, Sherlock Holmes and Virginia Woolf have in common? Alison has published on these diverse topics. After working in rare book libraries in Illinois, New York and Massachusetts, Alison came to Bowling Green State University in 1993 to head the Browne Library. She received her Ph.D. in American Studies from Boston University in 1995.

“Light, lively, and sexy . . . ” is the way Library Journal describes Cathie Linz’s books. Since leaving her career in a university law library, she has had more than thirty romances published in nearly twenty languages. Romantic Times has given Cathie its prestigious Storyteller of the Year Award. In 1995 Cathie received the Romance Writers of America’s highest service award–the National Service Award–for her work in educating others about the romance genre. Her first trilogy for Silhouette Desire, Three Weddings and a Gift, debuted last fall with Michael’s Baby, Seducing Hunter, and Abbey and the Cowboy, her thirtieth novel. Cathie lives in the Chicago area with her family.

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