Last week I worked out that I was being too intense and trying too hard and that I’d burn out. Today after a four day weekend, I’m feeling relaxed but alert.
Today’s chore is to review all the research proposal material to submit it for ethics approval. The ethics approval process is very long. I would have given up on it I think if not for my supervisor Tony knowing what was to go where. Thanks Tony! I want to ask some romance readers and writers questions but I have to do the same process as if I was going to take tissue samples from them and combine their DNA with animals. Sigh!
But now that it is close to being done, I’m feeling quite good about it all. I would like a year of researching books and academic articles before formulating my questions but alas I have to think them up now. At present I’m hunting for some definitions of strong, female heroine in relation to popular romance. If you see one please give me a hoy! I’ll need this to do my introductory seminar but it would also be useful for the questionnaires.
When I’ve tidied up the above papers…quite a few of them, I need to start working on a paper to be included in a conference. I don’t get to present this paper as there are too many other people wanting too and well I’m just starting out so I’m at the bottom end of the pecking order. It is fantastic though that there is so much romance scholarship that there is an oversupply of presenters. However, I can write the paper so it can be peer reviewed etc. I wrote an extract in February. Now I have to get my head back into that space and write the bloody paper.
Meanwhile reading lots of articles etc which make ideas percolate all the time and sends my mind into hyperspace and back again so rapidly I spin on the spot.
Me, mother of swords, Queen of food
so I’m just doing the day in the life of a PhD candidate thing because that’s what I do these days.
PS We just blitz-watched Game of Throne season five. Nooo. Not Jon Snow!
Donna Maree Hanson, Author and PhD Candidate 
“At present I’m hunting for some definitions of strong, female heroine in relation to popular romance.”
I can’t think of any but I have a vague recollection of reading discussions online about this and one of the points brought up was that some definitions of “strength” are perhaps themselves sexist given that they define “strength” in terms of attributes which have traditionally been coded masculine e.g. being able to shoot people or holding down a well-paid job.
In historicals written by contemporary authors, ideas about “strength” which take “masculine” types of strength as the standard, this might lead to heroines looking “weaker” because their circumstances ensure that they can’t demonstrate “agency” in the same way a paranormal vampire-slayer or a contemporary lawyer heroine can. One solution adopted by authors is to make the historical heroine “feisty”, which can translate into her doing the opposite of what the hero tells her to do, even if that puts her in danger or mean she insists on anachronistic standards (e.g. a medieval heroine who’s pregnant with the hero’s baby but won’t marry him unless he says he’s fallen in love with her) and therefore might just make some readers consider her “too-stupid-to-live”. Another is to make her exceptional which, in turn, can have the downside of making her look special at the expense of other women, who are portrayed as insipid, vacant, obsessed with husband-hunting etc.
[These ideas about “strength” can also affect the assessments modern readers make of the heroines written by classical authors such as Austen. Why is Elizabeth (Pride and Prejudice) preferred to Fanny (Mansfield Park)? Fanny tends to be described by modern readers as insipid/drippy but to be fair to her, she’s under a much larger burden of obligation, her health is not as good and still she manages to do what she sees is her duty and keeps doing what she thinks is morally correct. Elizabeth, on the other hand, speaks her mind boldly but ultimately has to admit that she was completely wrong in her initial assessments of both Wickham and Darcy.]
I started a Twitter conversation today to see what people thought. I had a number of traits in mind but wanted to make sure I was being comprehensive. It was interesting what people said. One comment was that the traits of the hero are the same regardless of gender, smart, strong, compassionate.
I agree that for straight, realist contemporary romance the idea of agency and heroine are difficult to pin down. A kick ass vampire slayer is much easier to define. What makes an every day woman a heroine? I like your discussion of Austen heroines. Lizzy is bucking the norm- not giving in to marry just for comfort and is holding out for love. I believe a much more radical idea then than today. Fanny is interesting. She holds to her beliefs. She also doesn’t give in to pressure regarding marriage, even though it looks like she’s biting the hand that fed her. Emma is able to be resistant because economically she is set up. She doesn’t have to marry. Knightly is her equal economically and socially, though maybe not intellectually. Anne Elliot also did not marry after giving up Wentworth, even though she was proposed to by Charles. Elinor on the otherhand is the heroine because she keeps her head, is loyal and honorable and doesn’t give into bitterness when she thinks Edward is lost to her. Catherine Morland perhaps is the one that sticks out. Possible because Northangar Abbey was a satire on the gothic romance. I have noticed in modern historical romances that some heroines are really acting outside the norm of what would have been expected at the time, a sort of modern revision of what it was like in the male dominated world of the past. Such an interesting topic!
“Smart” would rule out protagonists such as Jesse in Pamela Morsi’s “Simple Jess” (should add that he’s not a heroine).
Yes. Clearly not a universal trait.