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Dr Amy Burge

@dramyburge.bsky.social
524 followers 79 following 53 posts

Associate Professor of popular fiction. Romance specialist. Managing Editor of the Journal of Popular Romance Studies. Network Lead for Muslim Women's Popular Fiction project. She/her. Currently writing about bonkbusters with @jodimca.bsky.social

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Reposted by Dr Amy Burge
Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
This includes a quote from IASPR's own @dramyburge.bsky.social !
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Have been allocated the plush HUGE room for our talk (bonus: it is air-conditioned) #RNAConf26
Large lecture theatre
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Thrilled to be back at the #RNAConf26 and to be talking more about the incredible scholarship out there on romantic fiction! I always learn so much at RNA events, and meet the NICEST people 💕
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
@jodimca.bsky.social and I wrote a thing for @theconversation.com on the new season of Rivals! theconversation.com/rivals-seaso...
theconversation.com
Rivals season 2: Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire drama shows good sex from a woman’s point of view
Rivals prioritises the female gaze when it comes to the bonkbuster sex scenes, explaining its enduring popularity among women.
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
www.thebookseller.com/news/bolinda... Well this is interesting.
thebookseller.com
Bolinda creates ‘AI-cloned’ voice of Barbara Cartland for new audiobooks
Bolinda Audio has partnered with the Estate of Dame Barbara Cartland in an exclusive agreement to develop audiobooks from the author’s catalogue of more than 700 titles, creating a “bespoke AI-cloned”...
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
My article on masculinity for the forthcoming special issue of @jprstudies.bsky.social on African romance novels has been published online! This one has been in the works for some time - I'm so pleased it is officially out in the world :) www.jprstudies.org/2026/05/a-de...
jprstudies.org
A Decolonised Alpha Hero? Negotiating Masculinities in Nigerian Romance Novels | Journal of Popular Romance Studies
Introduction Women of all ages have always enjoyed romance. They ask for it in their movies, in their music, from their lovers and in their books. But in Africa, they have had to find it in the pages ...
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
On my way to give a talk at @northumbriauni.bsky.social and it feels entirely appropriate to be prepping next week's class on Catherine Cookson on the train!
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
Did Regency romance mad libs with my students today (from Beyond Heaving Bosoms by @smartbitches.bsky.social) so am I a cool teacher now?
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
We have been researching her works for a few years now - @jodimca.bsky.social and I wrote about the late Jilly Cooper's work and the readers who loved her for @theconversation.com doi.org/10.64628/AB....
urldefense.com
Jilly Cooper: why readers still cherish her ‘fat, fun, frothy novels’
Many of Cooper’s depictions of sex are very funny. However, there is a clear message throughout.
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 24/09/2025
Finally received a copy of this from the publisher (although ebook only, and I can't download it?!) and was reminded that @menysnoweballes.bsky.social and I wrote some SMART thoughts (probably all from Rachel tbh).
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Reposted by Dr Amy Burge
Rachel Moss @menysnoweballes.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
Hi Barbies! Pleased that @dramyburge.bsky.social & my chapter, '‘The man behind the tan’: Ken’s Trumpian Absurdity' has been published in the exciting new book The Barbie Phenomenon, Volume 1! www.routledge.com/The-Barbie-P...
media.tenor.com
a close up of a barbie doll with blonde hair
ALT: a close up of a barbie doll with blonde hair
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
This is true, we do! Thanks @lauravivanco.bsky.social
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Reposted by Dr Amy Burge
Jodi McAlister @jodimca.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Cover reveal! @dramyburge.bsky.social and I revealed the cover of our new academic book, The Bonkbuster: Women's Popular Reading in the Long 1980s, at the @iaspr.bsky.social conference today. Out January 2026! www.bloomsbury.com/uk/bonkbuste...
The cover of The Bonkbuster: Women's Popular Romance in the Long 1980s. It's pink leopard print.
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Reposted by Dr Amy Burge
Dr Jane Bonsall @janebonsall.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
I wrote a blog post about my book! Want some ramblings about fairy ladies, magical princesses, and serpent women (and how we should feel about them)? Or just curious about how reading medieval romance is like watching Star Wars?? It's all here, folks (and also a 35% discount 👀)!
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
The promotion trajectory of Wrexham AFC (3x in 3 years) is *literally* the plot of Jilly Cooper's book Tackle!, so which owner is secretly Rupert Campbell-Black: Ryan Reynolds or Rob McElhenney?
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
Today was @alcs.co.uk payment day! Always a delightful surprise, and a reminder authors should be paid for their work. A less delightful surprise this week was finding out that 8 things I've published, including the monograph based on my PhD research, have been used by Meta to train their AI.
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 20/12/2024
There I was, minding my own business, reading my Jackie Collins (technically work as @jodimca.bsky.social would attest) when I was asked about what I was reading for Read This podcast! Always delighted to talk about bonkbusters (I'm on at 7:20). open.spotify.com/episode/31Er...
Screenshot of the transcript of the episode
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Mine and @jodimca.bsky.social's piece on the Rivals TV show for @uk.theconversation.com has been picked up by RNZ! www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...
rnz.co.nz
Rivals: the highs and lows of adapting a 1980s 'bonkbuster' for a 21st-century TV audience
The bonkbuster receded into the background of popular culture in the 21st century. So why is it having a cultural moment in 2024?
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Today is a reading day at the State Library of Victoria 📖
Two books on a desk, Faludi Backlash and Wolf, Fire with Fire
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Reposted by Dr Amy Burge
Jodi McAlister @jodimca.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
This is tomorrow!! @dramyburge.bsky.social and I will be presenting our keynote on bonkbusters first up, from 10:15-11:15am. If you're in Melbourne, come along and let us tell you about some truly bonkers books.
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
Couldn't find her handle before but this article partly looks at @brijbautista.bsky.social's novel You, Me, U.S. (2019)
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
Now that it's fully open access, happy to share this article of mine that was recently published in Literature, Critique, and Empire Today (formerly Journal of Commonwealth Literature) on marriage migration in romance novels by Helen Hoang and Brigitte Bautista! journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
I had an absolutely wonderful time at Edith Cowan Uni in Perth talking all things Love Studies with Madalena Grobbelar, Elizabeth Reid Boyd and Debra Dudek! Dream collaboration team - and there is TONS of exciting research coming out of the ECU network.
Two heart shaped cookies that read "love studies" and "love @ecu"
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Reposted by Dr Amy Burge
Jodi McAlister @jodimca.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
ICYMI, Melbourne! @dramyburge.bsky.social and I are psyched to be giving this keynote to talk all about the books and readers of Jackie Collins, Jilly Cooper, Shirley Conran and Judith Krantz.
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Reposted by Dr Amy Burge
Javaria Farooqui @javariafarooqui.bsky.social · 12/11/2024
Hi everyone! Happily resharing that my little book will be out in the world on 28th November. It is about the anglophone romance reading fandom in Pakistan, book history, & some bits of postcolonialism. #AcademicChatter #AcademicSky #Romancelandia www.bloomsbury.com/uk/romance-f...
bloomsbury.com
Romance Fandom in 21st-Century Pakistan
Romance Fandom in 21st-century Pakistan offers the first major study of English-speaking romance fandom in South Asia, providing a new reader-centric model that…
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 22/10/2024
Had THE BEST time chatting about Rivals and mine and @jodimca.bsky.social's research on Ireland AM this morning! This is my in-the-office-before-8.15am face 😂
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 18/10/2024
For anyone else watching the Disney+ adaptation of Jilly Cooper's Rivals, released today, @jodimca.bsky.social and I wrote a piece for @uk.theconversation.com! theconversation.com/rivals-the-h...
theconversation.com
Rivals: the highs and lows of adapting a 1980s ‘bonkbuster’ for a 21st-century TV audience
Even those unfamiliar with the genre will no doubt enjoy the adaption of Jilly Cooper’s frothy novel. But how will the TV version approach the less savoury attitudes that were prevalent in the 1980s?
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 09/10/2024
I learned enough on my last trip to Australia to understand what this film is about (and also why it should have been released on the 21st December) youtu.be/K_Fwe9Q6NB0?...
youtu.be
How To Make Gravy | Official Trailer | BINGE
YouTube video by BINGE
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Reposted by Dr Amy Burge
Jodi McAlister @jodimca.bsky.social · 03/10/2024
Hey Australian scholars! Do you have some thoughts on nostalgia and popular fiction? Deakin's having a symposium on November 21! @dramyburge.bsky.social & I are delighted to be the keynotes, presenting some of our work on bonkbusters. Full CFP link here (goes to a PDF): bit.ly/3ZidjRJ
Flyer text:

CFP: Nostalgia and Popular Culture Symposium 

"Nostalgia is always complicated - complicated in what it looks like, how it works, upon whom it works, and even who works on it." Sean Scanlan (2004, p.3)

Cohosted by Deakin's Reading Writing Futures and the Reading & Screening the Fantastique Research Network, this one-day symposium will facilitate robust discussions on the role of nostalgia in the production and reception of popular cultures.

Spanning disciplines, forms and genres, this event aims to think beyond clear-cut conceptions of nostalgia and towards more nuanced understandings of it as simultaneously limiting, comforting, provocative and powerful in the context of popular culture.

Please submit a 250-word abstract for 20-minute papers or panels and a 100-word bio-note to r.fetherston@deakin.edu.au by Friday 11 October 2024.
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 30/07/2024
It's behind a paywall, but I was quoted in a piece on Colleen Hoover in the Irish Sunday Independent's Life magazine this weekend! www.independent.ie/entertainmen...
independent.ie
The CoHo boom: How Colleen Hoover’s trauma-filled novels became such a global phenomenon
A young woman sits on her couch, an open book in her hands, its partially obscured pastel pink cover immediately recognisable as Colleen Hoover’s global sensation It Ends with Us (IEWU). While a mourn...
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 16/07/2024
Great article! If you're collecting info on more ethical academic journals, the independent Journal of Popular Romance Studies @jprstudies.bsky.social (for which I am the current managing editor) has been open access with no fees since 2009 and is indexed in Scopus/Scimago. www.jprstudies.org
jprstudies.org
Journal of Popular Romance Studies
The Journal of Popular Romance Studies is an interdisciplinary journal exploring popular romance media and other instances of romantic love in global culture.
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Reposted by Dr Amy Burge
Jodi McAlister @jodimca.bsky.social · 13/07/2024
If you're in Australia - there's a big piece on the 50th anniversary of Mills & Boon publishing here in the latest print issue of the Australian Women's Weekly (feat. quite a lot of comments from me). #Romancelandia
A double magazine page spread. On the left, the headline says Romance For The Ages. There are three classic Mills & Book covers scattered amid the text.
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 11/07/2024
I'm working on a summer project with the Romance Research Group on romance publishing in the UK, and the shift in paratext since 2016 is FASCINATING. For example, this Tessa Bailey novel was first published in 2017 with a photorealistic clinch cover in line with mass-market romances at the time.
cover of Tessa Bailey, Too Beautiful to Break. A Caucasian couple embrace in front of a sunset.
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 03/07/2024
Lol apparently the photo of a naked woman doll is adult content (it's not explicit).
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 03/07/2024
At Sex, Sensation, Scandal conference learning from Molly-Kate Britton about Alma Mahler's boyfriend Oskar who made a LIFE-SIZED DOLL of her after she married someone else in 1915. He took the doll out with him, introduced it as Alma, and eventually TIED IT TO A TREE AND DOUSED IT IN WINE WTF.
A life-sized model of a naked woman, in 3 poses. Lying down, sitting in a chair, cross-legged and facing the camera.
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 02/07/2024
The inimitable @profromance.bsky.social of IASPR at Sex, Sensation, Scandal conference, currently discussing the (very recent) history of Black British romance.
Woman with brown hair standing and talking
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 19/06/2024
What do bonkbusters have to do with the Conservative Party, you ask? Me and @jodimca.bsky.social ponder this question in our piece for The Conversation - just in time for the UK General Election!
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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 03/05/2024
A week later, still dreaming of the post-workshop lunch.
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Journal of Popular Romance Studies @jprstudies.bsky.social · 16/01/2024
JPRS is starting the year with 3 short pieces from @emselinger.bsky.social, @amandaallenphd.bsky.social, and @dramyburge.bsky.social about romantic works and pedagogies that are important to them. Stay tuned for more about this new series + how to get involved! www.jprstudies.org/volume-13-no...
jprstudies.org
Volume 13: Notes and Queries – Journal of Popular Romance Studies
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Reposted by Dr Amy Burge
Evan @evansmithhist.bsky.social · 16/01/2024
Every. time.
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