I never truly thought of romance as anything more than a standard genre of both literature and movies. Sara showed me otherwise. This rose cafe was much different than others I have attended, and I liked the that. The reason I felt it was different is Sara made it more discussion based than simply explaining her topic then Q/A. Sara truly was able to guide the Cafe to explain what she does, while incorporating our thoughts and questions to heighten her topic.
To me, romance in literature/films was always about person A wanting to get the attention of person Band then to live a happy life together. With her insight, Sara was able to open up brand new doors for me. She explained how there are many types of romance and how they all branch off from earlier ideas set by others. For example, while she looks at romance from a classical perspective, we were able to go off of that notion and talk about romance in a modern day sense. We talked about what romance is in this day and time compared to our thoughts on what it was years ago.
This Cafe really made me want to start “reading for fun” like I did when I was younger. If that was Sara’s goal then it worked because I am now doing so
That’s interesting. I also had that same perception of romance – person A and person B living happily ever after. I guess it’s easy to forget that this very perception and others stem from classical ideas, that what we read and see in media are deeply rooted in classical ideologies. This makes me want to read for fun too. Sounds like it was a great discussion.
Your post made me wish I attended this cafe! I find that cafe are usually more lecture like than the intimate discussion you described. Though the lecture format allows me to somewhat check out, I also don’t get as much out of it. It’s nice to know the cafe inspired you to read for pleasure once again. I know I could use some motivation there.