Retrospective
Webinar: Dark Romance – Books we Can’t (and Mustn’t) Ignore
As a subgenre of ‘Young Adult’, ‘Dark Romance’ has been flooding the book market for some time now. Why is it so popular with young people? What is it about these books that holds such a fascination, particularly for young women, and what risks do they pose?
Ulrike Schrimpf, a writer, literary critic and literary scholar, has been researching these issues for several years now. She explained the ‘dark romance’ genre to the group of just under 50 participants from Brandenburg’s public libraries, gave examples and reported on the findings of the case studies she has carried out over the past few years. She raised awareness of the role models conveyed by these novels and discussed with the participants the extent to which trigger warnings and age ratings are useful for the appropriate classification of the works, and how they themselves can address the topic in their libraries.
Many thanks to Daniela Wittke for the informative and engaging webinar, to the staff from the public libraries for their active participation, and to the Friedrich-Bödecker-Kreis for their, as always, successful collaboration with the State Resource Centre.