Bibliography A-C

Items with the "**" have not been personally checked. This means that the details given in the entry may not be entirely accurate.

From this page you may return to the main Romance Scholarship page or go directly to

• Academics Who Write Romance
• Academic Online Essays (not published in academic journals or volumes)
• Bibliography H-O - the second part of our bibliography of academic articles and books about romance.
• Bibliography P-Z - the end of our bibliography of academic articles and books about romance.
• Bibliography of Scholarship in Languages Other than English.
• Dissertation Abstracts
• Guides to the Genre
• Romance in the Media - lists news items/features items about romance.
• Romance Resources for Academics - lists romance-related resources which may be of interest to academics.
• Writers on Romance - lists items written about the genre by romance authors but not published in academic journals or books.

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A

Adams, Lisa, and John Heath, 2007. 

Why We Read What We Read: A Delightfully Opinionated Journey Through Contemporary Bestsellers. (Naperville, Illinois: Sourcebooks) Has a chapter titled, Hopefully Ever After: Love, Romance, and Relationships.

Adkins, Denice, Linda Esser & Diane Velasquez, 2006. 

‘Relations Between Librarians and Romance Readers: A Missouri Survey’, Public Libraries, 45.4, (July/August 2006): 54-64. Whole issue available as a pdf.

Alberts, J. K., 1986. 

‘The role of couples' conversations in relationship development: A content analysis of courtship talk in Harlequin romance novels’, Communication Quarterly, 34: 127-142. **

Anderson, Rachel, 1974. 

The Purple Heart Throbs: The Sub-literature of Love (London: Hodder and Stoughton).

Andresen, Julie Tetel, 1999. 

"Postmodern Identity (Crisis): Confessions of a Linguistic Historiographer and Romance Writer." in Romantic Conventions. Ed. Anne K. Kaler and Rosemary E. Johnson-Kurek (Bowling Green, OH: Popular) pp. 173-186.

Ang, Ien, 1996. 

Living Room Wars: Rethinking Media Audiences for a Postmodern World (London & New York: Routledge). [Chapter 6 is titled 'Feminist Desire and Female Pleasure: On Janice Radway's Reading the Romance']

Aronowitz, Beverly-Lynne, 1988. 

'Women's Fiction and Popular Romance: Student Audience and Teaching Dilemma', Paper presented at the Annual National Literature Conference (3rd, Chicago, IL, October 14-15, 1988). 32 pgs. ERIC document ED298525. Abstract

Aronowitz, Beverly-Lynne, 1991. 

"The Dilemma of Teaching Women's Fiction: Is It Pop, Pulp, Porn-or Poetry?." Pennsylvania English 15.2: 1-20.

Assiter, Alison, 1988. 

‘Romance Fiction, Porn for Women?’, in Perspectives on Pornography: Sexuality in Film and Literature, ed. Gary Day & Clive Bloom (New York: St. Martin’s), pp. 101-112.**

B

Bach, Evelyn, 1997.

'Sheik fantasies: Orientalism and feminine desire in the desert romance', Hecate, 23.1: 9-40.**

Barrett, Rebecca Kaye, 2003. 

‘Higher Love: What Women Gain from Christian Romance Novels’, Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, 4. [1]

Barrett-Fox, Rebecca, 2007. 

'Hope, Faith and Toughness: An Analysis of the Christian Hero.' in Empowerment versus Oppression: Twenty First Century Views of Popular Romance Novels. ed. Sally Goade, (Newcastle, U.K.:Cambridge Scholars Pub.) pp. 93-102.

Batsleer, Janet, 1981. 

‘Pulp in the Pink’, Spare Rib, 109: 52-5. Repr. in Bob Ashley (ed.), Reading Popular Narrative: A Source Book (London: Leicester University Press, 1989), 217-22. **

Batsleer, Janet, Tony Davies, Rebecca O'Rourke and Chris Weedon, 1985. 

Rewriting English: Cultural Politics of Gender and Class (London: Methuen). There are also a couple of other editions of this book, both published by Routledge. The chapter with most relevance for this bibliography is Chapter 5, "Gender and Genre: Women's Stories," on pages 86-105. A partial preview of that chapter, in one of the Routledge editions, is available.

Belsey, Catherine, 1993. 

'Writing About Desire', The Glasgow Review, 2. [2]

Belsey, Catherine, 1994. 

Desire; Love Stories in Western Culture. (Oxford: Blackwell). Chapter 2( Reading Love Stories) touches on popular romance. Abstract.

Beidler, Peter G., 1991. 

'The Contemporary Indian Romance: A Review Essay', American Indian Culture and Research Journal , 15.4:97-125.

Bettinotti, Julia, 1998. 

'Re-imagining the Gold Rush; Prospectors, Log Cabins and Mail-Order Brides in Contemporary Western Romances.' Northern Review, No. 19(Winter 1998): 170-180.

Blake, Susan L., 2003. 

'What "Race" is the Sheik?: Rereading a Desert Romance', in Doubled Plots: Romance and History, see below, pp. 67-85. **

Bold, Rudolph, 1980. 

'Trash in the Library', Library Journal, 105.10: 1138-39.

Booth, Sandra, 1997. 

"Paradox in Popular Romances of the 1990s: The Paranormal versus Feminist Humor." Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres 3.1-2: 94-106.

Bostian, Patricia Kennedy, 2008. 

'Amanda Scott: Bringing History to Life', Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice 2.2/3.[3]

Botts, Amber, 1999. 

'Cavewoman Impulses: The Jungian Shadow Archetype in Popular Romantic Fiction', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 62-74.

Bowring, Joanna and Margaret O’Brien, 2008. 

The Art of Romance: Mills & Boon and Harlequin Cover Designs, (Munich: Prestel). [This has a short history of the companies and some descriptions of the covers and then the rest of the book consists of photos of Mills & Boon and Harlequin book covers.]

Brackett, Kim Pettigrew, 2000. 

"Facework Strategies Among Romance Fiction Readers", The Social Science Journal, 37.3: 347-60.

Breslin, Carol Ann, 1999. 

'Medieval Magic and Witchcraft in the Popular Romance Novel', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 75-85.

Brown, Fahamisha Patricia, 2008. 

'Beverly Jenkins', Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice 2.2/3.[4]

Brown, Fahamisha Patricia, 2008. 

'Anita Richmond Bunkley', Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice 2.2/3.[5]

Brunt, Rosalind., 1984. 

'Career in Love: The Romantic World of Barbara Cartland.' in Popular Fiction and Social Change. ed. Christopher Pawling , (New York: St Martin's), pp. 127-156.

Bryce, Jane, 1996. 

"'A World of Caribbean Romance' Reformulating the Legend of Love or: 'Can a Caress Be Culturally Specific?'." in Framing the Word: Gender and Genre in Caribbean Women's Writing. Ed. Joan Anim-Addo (London: Whiting and Birch), pp. 108-127.

Burley, Stephanie, 1999. 

"Shadows and Silhouettes: The Racial Politics of Category Romance." Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres 5.13-14: 324-343.

Burley, Stephanie, 2003. 

'What's a Nice Girl like You Doing in a Book like This?: Homoerotic Reading and Popular Romance', in Doubled Plots: Romance and History, see below, pp. 127-46. **

Burnett, Ann, & Rhea Reinhardt Beto, 2000. 

‘Reading Romance Novels: An Application of Parasocial Relationship Theory’, North Dakota Journal of Speech & Theatre, 13. [6]

C

Cadogan, Mary, 1994. 

And Then Their Hearts Stood Still: An Exuberant Look at Romantic Fiction Past and Present (London: Macmillan).

Calhoun-French, Diane M. 2000. 

"Of Love and Death: Murder and Mayhem Meet the Romance." Clues: A Journal of Detection, 21.1: 1-16.

Calhoun-French, Diane M., 1999. 

'Time-Travel and Related Phenomena in Contemporary Popular Romance Fiction', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 100-12.

Capelle, Annick, 1996. 

'Harlequin Romances in Western Europe: The Cultural Interactions of Romantic Literature', in European Readings of American Popular Culture, ed. John Dean & Jean-Paul Gabilliet (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press), pp. 91-100. **

Castagna, JoAnn and Robin Radespiel, 1990. 

'Making Rape Romantic: A Study of Rosemary Rogers' "Steve and Ginny" Novels', in Women and Violence in Literature: An Essay Collection, ed. Katherine Anne Ackley (New York : Garland). **

Cawelti, John G. 1976. 

Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

Chappel, Deborah K., 1997. 

'La Vyrle Spencer and the Anti-Essentialist Argument.' Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres 3.1-2:107-120

Charles, Helen, 1995. 

'(Not) Compromising: Inter-Skin Colour Relations', in Romance Revisited , ed. Jackie Stacey and Lynne Pearce (New York: New York UP), pp. 197-209. [The author says that she looks at 'inter-skin colour relations in the television programme Taboo (1993) along with Barbara Burford's novella, The Threshing Floor (1986) and Ann Allen Shockley's The Mistress and the Slave Girl (1987)'.]

Chelton, Mary K., 1991. 

'Unrestricted Body Parts and Predictable Bliss: The Audience Appeal of Formula Romances.' Library Journal 116.12: 44-49.

Chen, Eva Y.I., 2007. 

'Forms of Pleasure in the Reading of Popular Romance:Psychic and Cultural Dimensions.' in Empowerment versus Oppression: Twenty First Century Views of Popular Romance Novels. ed. Sally Goade, (Newcastle, U.K.:Cambridge Scholars Pub.) pp. 30-41.

Chopra, Radhika, 1995. 

'Wanted Men: Imaging the Hero in Popular Romantic Fiction' in Perspectives on Women: Canada and India, ed. Aparna Basu (Bombay: Allied Publishers). **

Chopra, Radhika, 1998. 

"Whose Face Do I See?: Anonymity and Authorship in Popular Romances." Indian Journal of Gender Studies 5.2: 185-200. **

Christian-Smith, Linda K., 1987. 

'Gender, Popular Culture, and Curriculum - Adolescent Romance Novels as Gender Text', Curriculum Inquiry, 17.4:365-406.

Christian-Smith, Linda K., 1990. 

Becoming a Woman Through Romance (New York; London: Routledge).

Clancy, Kim, 1992. 

"Tania Modleski, Loving with a Vengeance: Mass-Produced Fantasies for Women." in Reading into Cultural Studies. Ed. Martin Barker and Anne Beezer, (London: Routledge) pp. 119-133.

Clark, Beverly Lyon; Bernier, Karen Gennari; Henneberry-Nassau, Michelle; Jenks, Lauren Beth; Moorman, Angie J.; Rhoades, Marah Bianca, 1996. 

'Reading Romance, Reading Ourselves', The Centennial Review, 40.2: 359-84.

Clawson, Laura, 2005. 

'Cowboys and Schoolteachers: Gender in Romance Novels, Secular and Christian', Sociological Perspectives, 48.4: 461-79. AbstractPDF

Cockin, Katharine, 2007. 

"Chicks and Lads in Contemporary Fiction." Anglistik und Englischunterricht, issue on Teaching Contemporary British Fiction, 69: 107-123. Index page only, as pdf.

Coddington, Lynn, 1997. 

"Wavering between Worlds: Feminist Influences in the Romance Genre." Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres 3.1-2: 58-77.

Cohn, Jan, 1977. 

'The Romances of Mary Roberts Rinehart: Some Problems in the Study of Popular Culture', Journal of Popular Culture, 11.3: 581-590.

Cohn, Jan, 1988. 

Romance and the Erotics of Property: Mass-Market Fiction for Women (Durham and London: Duke UP). Contents page and excerpts

Coles, Claire D., and M. Johnna Shamp, 1984. 

“Some Sexual, Personality, and Demographic Characteristics of Women Readers of Erotic Romances.” Archives of Sexual Behavior 13.3: 187-209.

Coward, Rosalind, 1984. 

'An Overwhelming Desire', in Female Desire: Women’s Sexuality Today (London: Paladin Grafton Books), pp. 187-196. [This is the chapter which focuses on the romance.]

Crane, Lynda L., 1994. 

'Romance Novel Readers: in Search of Feminist Change?', Women's Studies, 23.3: 257-69.

Crawford, Mary, 1994. 

'Rethinking the Romance: Teaching the Content and Function of Gender Stereotypes in the Psychology of Women Course', Teaching of Psychology, 21: 151-153. Fragment of Article **

Creed, Barbara, 1984. 

'The Woman's Romance as Sexual Fantasy: Mills & Boon', in All Her Labours II: Embroidering the framework, ed. Margaret Allen, Jean Blackburn, Carol Johnson, Margaret King and Alison Mackinnon (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger). **

Creed, Barbara, 2003. 

Media Matrix: Sexing the New Reality (Crows Nest, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin). review here Contents page and excerpts [contains a chapter on Mills & Boon romances, titled 'Mills & Boon dot com: The beast in the bedroom']

Crusie, Jennifer, 1997. 

‘Romancing Reality: The Power of Romance Fiction to Reinforce and Re-Vision the Real’, [7], first published in Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres, 3.1-2: 81-93.

Crusie Smith, Jennifer, 1999. 

'This Is Not Your Mother's Cinderella: The Romance Novel as Feminist Fairy Tale', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 51-61. [8]

Curthoys, Ann, and John Docker, 1990. 

'Popular Romance in the Postmodern Age. And an Unknown Australian Author', Continuum: The Australian Journal of Media & Culture, 4.1.[9]

D

Daly, Brenda O. 1989. 

'Laughing WITH, or Laughing AT the Young-Adult Romance', The English Journal, 78.6: 50-60.

Dandridge, Rita B., 2003. 

'The Race, Gender, Romance Connection: A Black Feminist Reading of African American Women's Historical Romances', in Doubled Plots: Romance and History, see below, pp. 185-???. **

Dandridge, Rita B., 2004. 

Black Women's Activism: Reading African American Women's Historical Romances, African-American Literature and Culture, 5 (New York: Peter Lang). Index and extracts

Darbyshire, Peter, 2000. 

‘Romancing the World: Harlequin Romances, the Capitalist Dream, and the Conquest of Europe and Asia’, Studies in Popular Culture 23.1 [10]

Darbyshire, Peter, 2002. 

‘The Politics of Love: Harlequin Romances and the Christian Right’, Journal of Popular Culture (Popular Culture Center, Bowling Green State Univ., OH) (35:4) [Spring 2002]: 75-87.

Davis, Sara N., 

'Values and the Romance Novel: Journeys of the Reader', in Education, Arts and Morality: Creative Journeys, ed. Doris B. Wallace (no publication details available here), pp. 45-62. Excerpt** [This paper "examines the ways in which reader responses are constructed in dialogue with cultural discourses. These provide the context when students read romance novels. Readers enter the process with many negative evaluations of romance novels which conflict with other prevalent discourses valuing romance for women."]

Diekman, A. B., McDonald, M., & Gardner, W. L., 2000. 

'Love Means Never Having To Be Careful: The Relationship Between Reading Romance Novels and Safe Sex Behavior', Psychology of Women Quarterly, 24.2: 179 - 188. Abstract **

Dillon, George L., 2007. 

'The Genres Speak; Using Large Corpora to Profile Generic Registers.' Journal of Literary Semantics, 36.2: 159-187. Part II looks at romance fiction. Abstract available via this page

Dixon, jay, 1999. 

The Romance Fiction of Mills & Boon 1909-1990s (London: UCL Press). Contents page and excerpt

Doubled Plots: Romance and History, 2003. 

eds. Susan Strehle and Mary Paniccia Carden (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi).

Douglas, Ann, 1980. 

'Soft-Porn Culture: Punishing the Liberated Woman.' The New Republic Vol.183, No.9 （August 30, 1980): 25-29.

Doyle, Marsha Vanderford, 1985. 

"The Rhetoric of Romance: A Fantasy Theme Analysis of Barbara Cartland Novels." Southern Speech Communication Journal 51: 24-48.

Dubino, Jeanne. 1993. 

“The Cinderella Complex: Romance Fiction, Patriarchy, and Capitalism.” Journal of Popular Culture, 27.3: 103-118.

Dudovitz, Resa L., 1990. 

The Myth of Superwoman: Women's Bestsellers in France and the United States. (New York: Routledge). Chapter 4 is 'The boundary between the romance and the bestseller: Harlequins, historical novels and family.'

E

Ebert, Teresa L., 1988. 

'The Romance of Patriarchy: Ideology, Subjectivity, and Postmodern Feminist Cultural Theory', Cultural Critique, 10: 19-57.

Edmondson, Belinda, 2007.

'The Black romance.' " Women's Studies Quarterly 35.1/2: 191-211.

Eike, Ann M., 1986. 

‘An Investigation of the Market for Paperback Romance Novels’, Journal of Cultural Economics, 10:1: 25-36.

Ehnenn, Jill, 1998. 

'Desperately Seeking Susan Among the Trash: Reinscription, Subversion and Visibility in the Lesbian Romance Novel', Atlantis, special issue on "Sexualities and Feminisms", 23.1: 120-127. Abstract

Emrys, A. B., 1994. 

"Magic Regencies: How Fantasy Forms a Hybrid." Popular Culture Review 5.1: 85-93.

Engler, Sandra, 2005. 

"A Career's Wonderful, but Love is More Wonderful Still" : Femininity and Masculinity in the Fiction of Mills & Boon. Tübingen: Francke.

Esquibel, Catrióna Rueda, 1992. 

"A Duel of Wits and the Lesbian Romance Novel: Or, Verbal Intercourse in Fictional Regency England." in New Perspectives on Women and Comedy. Ed. Regina Barreca, (Philadelphia, PA: Gordon and Breach) pp. 123-133.

F

Faura, Salvador, Shelley Godsland, and Nickianne Moody, 2004. 

"The Romance Novel, or, the Generalisimo's Control of the Popular Imagination." in Reading the Popular in Contemporary Spanish Texts. pp. 46-58. (Newark, DE: U of Delaware P.)(About Corin Tellado, Spanish romance novelist) [Excerpt here.]

Felski, Rita, 1990. 

'Kitsch, Romance Fiction And Male Paranoia: Stephen King meets the Frankfurt School', Continuum: The Australian Journal of Media & Culture, 4.1.[11]

Flesch, Juliet, 1996. 

'A Labour of Love? Compiling a Bibliography of Twentieth Century Australian Romance Novels', APLIS, 9.3-4: 170-78.

Flesch, Juliet, 1997. 

'Not just housewives and old maids', Collection Building, 16.3: 119-124. [Describes the content of The Romance Fiction Collection in the University of Melbourne Library, 'the reasons for its establishment and some special aspects of its housing and bibliographical control. Also suggests some of the uses to which it may be put'.] Abstract

Flesch, Juliet, 2004. 

From Australia With Love: A History of Modern Australian Popular Romance Novels (Fremantle, W.A.: Curtin University Books).

Fletcher, Lisa, 2003. 

"Historical Romance, Gender and Heterosexuality: John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman and A.S. Byatt's Possession." Journal of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies 7.1-2: 26-42. PDF

Fletcher, Lisa, 2004. 

‘“Mere Costumery”? Georgette Heyer’s Cross-Dressing Novels,’ in Masquerades: Disguise in English Literature from the Middle Ages to the Present, Eds. Pilar Sánchez Calle and Jesús López-Paláez Casellas, (Gdansk: University of Gdansk Press), pp. 196-212.

Fletcher, Lisa, 2008. 

Historical Romance Fiction and Heterosexuality: Heterosexuality and Performativity, (Ashgate).[12]. [Fletcher examines "the connections between popular “classics” by [...] Georgette Heyer, a selection of mass market historical romances published between 1980 and 2005," John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman and A.S. Byatt’s Possession.]

Foster, Guy Mark, 2007. 

'How Dare a Black Woman Make Love to a White Man! Black Women Novelists and the Taboo of Interracial Desire.' in Empowerment versus Oppression: Twenty First Century Views of Popular Romance Novels. ed. Sally Goade, (Newcastle, U.K.:Cambridge Scholars Pub.) pp. 103-128.

Fox, Pamela, 1994. 

'The "Revolt of the Gentle": Romance and the Politics of Resistance in Working-Class Women's Writing', NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, 27.2: 140-160.

Fowler, Bridget, 1991. 

The Alienated Reader: Women and Popular Romantic Literature in the Twentieth Century (Brighton: Harvester Wheatsheaf). **

Franco, Jean, 1986. 

"The Incorporation of Women: A Comparison of North American and Mexican Popular Narrative." in Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture. Ed. Tania Modleski, (Bloomington: Indiana UP), pp. 119-138. [Especially Harlequin Romances; treatment of women; compared to photonovel. Franco says that "While there is an obvious risk in laying too much emphasis on a single example, I am now going to do precisely that" and chooses to take as a specific example of a Harlequin romance Moonwitch [sic] by Ann Mather [sic]."]

Franco, Jean, 2004. 

"Plotting Women: Popular Narratives for Women in the United States and in Latin America." in The Latin American Cultural Studies Reader. Eds. Ana Del Sarto, Alicia Ríos, and Abril Trigo, (Durham, NC: Duke UP) pp. 183-202.

Frantz, Sarah S. G., 2002. 

"'Expressing' Herself: The Romance Novel and the Feminine Will to Power," in Scorned Literature: Essays on the History and Criticism of Popular Mass-Produced Fiction in America. Eds. Lydia Cushman Schurman and Deidre Johnson. (Connecticut: Greenwood Press) pp. 17-36.

Frantz, Sarah S. G., 2008. 

'Suzanne Brockmann', Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice 2.2/3.[13]

Frenier, Mariam Darce, 1988. 

Good-bye Heathcliff: Changing Heroes, Heroines, Roles, and Values in Women’s Category Romances, Contributions in Women’s Studies, no. 94. (New York: Greenwood Press). Contents page and excerpts

Frolund, Tina, 2007.

Genrefied Classics: A Guide to Reading Interests in Classic Literature. (Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited) Has a section on Romance Literature. [According to the abstract, "By identifying the genre characteristics of more than 400 classic fiction works, and organizing titles according to those features, it helps readers find the types of books they enjoy; and it helps you promote classics to teen (and adult!) readers."]

G

Gagne-Hawes, Genevieve. 2006. 

"Anatomy of a Romance: Questioning genre conventions in the novels of Nora Roberts." Modern Mask 1.2.[14]

Ganguly, Keya. 1991. 

'Alien(ated) Readers: Harlequin Romances and the Politics of Popular Culture', Communication, 12: 129-50. **

Gill, Rosalind and Elena Herdieckerhoff. 2006. 

“Rewriting the Romance: New Femininities in Chick Lit?” Feminist Media Studies 6.4 (2006): 487-504.[15] Rpt. in LSE Research Online. 2007. LSE Lib., London School of Economics and Political Science. <http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/2514>.

Goade, Sally, 2007. 

'Introduction' pp. 1-11 and 'Understanding the Pleasure: An Undergraduate Romance Reading Community.' pp. 206-230 in Empowerment versus Oppression: Twenty First Century Views of Popular Romance Novels. (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing). Edited by Goade. [pdf of table of contents, introduction and first chapter here]

Goodwin, Sarah Webster, 1997. 

"Romance and Change: Teaching the Romance to Undergraduates.", Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres 3.1-2: 233-241. **

Greer, Germaine, 1971. 

The Female Eunuch (London: Paladin). [First published in 1970, there is a chapter on romance (pages 171-189in this edition) in which she critiques Georgette Heyer's Regency Buck, Barbara Cartland's The Wings of Love and Lucy Walker's The Loving Heart.]

Grescoe, Paul, 1996. 

The Merchants of Venus: Inside Harlequin and the Empire of Romance (Vancouver: Raincoast).

Griswold, Wendy, and Misty Bastian, 1987. 

“Continuities and Reconstructions in Cross-cultural Literary Transmission: The Case of the Nigerian Romance Novel.” Poetics 16.3-4: 327-351. Abstract