Social Distancing and Regency Romances

Up until this project, my understanding of research projects were that they were totally static things. You came into a project with an idea, and you moved through the project with that idea, and it might grow and mature, but ultimately when you came to the end of it, the idea would still be the one you started with. This is most likely because this is the longest I’ve ever worked on one research topic before. I’ve never been allowed to give my ideas room to grow and change. This week is the halfway point of this fellowship, and my project is now totally different from when it started. Initially, I was planning on doing a comprehensive history of the enemies to lovers trope, start to finish. Now, after a Zoom call with Assistant Professor Jamison Kantor (which occurred after hearing him speak at a Pride and Prejudice webinar the first week of this fellowship), my topic is totally different. Now I’m focusing on the idea of social distancing and romance. I think this idea is super cool, especially considering how it will never be as timely as it is right now, in this summer of 2020 when social distancing is pretty much the only option for us. Plus, the ways that you can read the idea of a socially distanced romance are so varied! You could come at it from the perspective of the regency romance, and the strict social rules that governed any and all interactions at the time, or you could take it to the modern day and make it about online dating! This idea is continuing to grow and change even now, and I’m having such a wonderful time seeing how this topic is its own living and breathing thing, growing outward and upward.

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