LIBERAL ARTS ARE THE ARTS THAT LIBERATE!
Register NowOften when people hear “Romance,” they think of passionate love stories or steamy novel covers. By using the concept of “Romance” and exploring its role in literature, relationships, and societal change, this conference will engage in the intersection of community and romance. In literary studies, the concept of Romance goes beyond the popular understanding—referring to a deep appreciation for beauty, emotion, and idealism encompassing and extending interpersonal relationships. The broader understanding of Romance includes a passionate engagement with art, nature, ideas, and the human experience. Our conference will reconstruct understanding of romance—emphasizing the power to inspire adventure, foster idealism, and even save the world. We will engage the communal aspects of romance and its impact on pedagogy and criticism, and how it will revitalize the study of literature and language. Together, we’ll explore how compassion for humanity and beauty can reshape our academic and personal landscapes.
Our presenters explore diverse manifestations of romance and community in literature and academia. Felix Da Costa Gomez examines how the creative writing workshop can be transformed through a phenomenological lens, reimagining these spaces as sites of communal growth and romantic engagement with craft. Kenneth Brown's passionate call for change demonstrates how the English degree itself can be a revolutionary act of love, proposing methods for queering, decolonizing, and democratizing literary studies. In our Romantic Presentation Session, Sean Feeney investigates Victorian Adventure Fiction, exploring how these texts foster idealistic visions of exploration and human potential, while Ava Pusztai delves into John Keats's profound meditations on love and mortality, revealing how Romantic poetry creates intimate connections across centuries. Together, these papers showcase how romance—whether through pedagogical innovation, institutional transformation, adventure narratives, or lyric poetry—has the power to build and sustain meaningful communities.
Dialogue cannot exist, however, in the absence of a profound love for the world and for people … Love is at the same time the foundation of dialogue and dialogue itself.
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world.
Dr. Robert Boschman
Chair of the English Department
Meg Braem
TBA
Felix Da Costa Gomez
Deterritorializing the Creative Writing Workshop: A Phenomenological Study on the Writing Workshop
Kenneth Brown
HOW THE ENGLISH DEGREE WILL SAVE THE WORLD: Queering, Decolonizing and Democratizing Literary Studies
Sean Feeney
Beyond the Lost Gate: A Look at Colonial Adventure Fiction from Within
Ava Pusztai
Representations of Love and Mortality in the Writing of John Keats
Chair of the English Department
Welcome Address
Chair of the Department of English, Languages, and Cultures at MRU, Dr. Boschman specializes in Environmental Humanities and Place Studies. He is the author of multiple books including White Coal City: A Memoir of Place and Family and is the 2021 winner of the Mount Royal University Research and Scholarship Award.
Keynote Speaker
Keynote Address
Meg Braem is an award-winning playwright whose work has been presented at major theatres across Canada. Her plays have won the Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama and the Alberta Playwriting Competition, with Blood: A Scientific Romance receiving a Governor General’s Literary Award nomination for Drama.
Presenter
Romantic Presentation Session
An English Honours Student at MRU, Séan focuses on critical theory, editing, and creative writing. His academic interests span multicultural literature and nineteenth-century studies, deconstructing tropes within genre, and has aspirations toward a career in English education at secondary level while pursuing personal writing projects.
Presenter
Community Paper Session
A fourth-year English Honours student at MRU, Felix specializes in Critical Theory and Creative Writing. He indepdently published a poetry book titled I’m Just Waiting for Something to Happen and currently serves as Vice President of Publishing for Write Club, spearheading their second anthology. He is currently working on a Western novel trilogy.
Presenter
Community Paper Session
A Queer Métis writer and scholar from Winnipeg, Kenneth is completing his English Honours at MRU while serving as Founder and President of the Write Club, a creative collective for young adults on campus. He has indepedently published several chapbooks, and his work explores the hopeful future of digital literature and Indigenous narrative sovereignty.
Presenter
Romantic Presentation Session
A fourth-year English Honours student with a minor in Philosophy at MRU, Ava specializes in Romantic and Gothic literature, with particular focus on John Keats. Her academic excellence earned her an arts scholarship, and she aims to pursue a career in editing while continuing her research into representations of love and death in Romantic poetry.
Room 3001
EA Building, 3rd Floor
4825 Mt Royal Gate SW,
Calgary, AB T3E 6K6