Despite its longevity and popularity amongst audiences, romantic comedy has in recent years been panned as formulaic and excessively sentimental in both academic and popular media discourse. This event will combine round-table discussions of the genre’s ‘bad reputation’ with screenings of Ernst Lubitsch’s masterpiece The Shop Around the Corner (1940) and Nora Ephron’s remake, You’ve Got Mail (1998).

Experts in rom-com studies including Professor Peter W. Evans (Queen Mary, University of London) and Dr. Deborah Jermyn (Roehampton University) will discuss the reasons for and try to get beyond such prejudices, instead considering the ‘battle-of-the-sexes’ genre’s wider relevance to such socio-cultural issues as evolving gender roles and coupling norms over the last century.

Part of Being Human, the UK’s first national festival of the humanities, led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy.

Doors open 09:30 for a 10:00 start. The event will finish at 18:00.

Refreshments will be available in our licensed café/bar.

Tickets & Pricing

£5 and £3 concessions available in advance from Eventbrite.