The MRC hopes to promote and support local, regional, and area-specific conferences and events on melodrama. If you are interested in organizing an event, please let us know.

This year, we are beginning to develop plans for The Melodramatic World, our inaugural plenary conference, tentatively scheduled to be held in the Fall of 2018 at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. We hope to hold a three-day meeting of as many of our members as we can possibly gather, designed to promote awareness of and draw out the complementarities between the many areas and fields in which melodrama is being studied today.  The program, we hope, will include a broad array of panels highlighting current work on particular traditions, specific media, and specialized topics; a small handful of comparative panels devoted to shared issues, topics, and concerns; a set of plenary talks on the history and state of the field; and a series of moderated discussions on current questions and problems, issues of disciplinary concern, and the future of melodrama studies.  We hope to include, as well, presentations of melodrama in its many forms and modes: events might include acting demonstrations and/or workshops, staged performances, screenings, and perhaps webcasts.

We welcome suggestions by members for panels, discussion topics, and events, and the assistance of any members who would like to be involved in planning or organizing the conference.