On the 11^th of October the Centre for the History of the Book was delighted to welcome Dr Beth Driscoll from Melbourne University to discuss her ongoing work with genre fictions. Driscoll helpfully delineated the definition of a genre world and how it was inspired by the art world model that Howard S. Becker devised in 1982. This model worked well for popular fiction genres and was adopted by scholars as an exciting new way to analyse and investigate these types of literature. Driscoll emphasised how the research into these genre worlds provides great insight into the cultural importance of the genres, and how they interact with the different layers of society. Continue reading →