Arts & Humanities

Tales as old as time...yet we still love them

Megan Maneval — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 18:30:45 +0000

Tales as old as time...yet we still love them Megan Maneval Thu, 04/10/2025 - 12:30

Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine

Taking in a movie this weekend? With yet another Snow White adaptation currently in theaters, �� scholar Suzanne Magnanini reflects on the enduring appeal of fairy tales.

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Reina Callier fighting to keep Latin classes alive through video storytelling

Megan Maneval — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 16:22:20 +0000

Reina Callier fighting to keep Latin classes alive through video storytelling Megan Maneval Tue, 04/08/2025 - 10:22

Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine

For one teaching assistant professor of Classics, learning Latin “is like lifting weights for your brain“ and a field people love.

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It’s a bird...it’s a plane! It’s another superhero film

Elizabeth Lock — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 20:19:28 +0000

It’s a bird...it’s a plane! It’s another superhero film Elizabeth Lock Mon, 02/24/2025 - 13:19

Following a blockbuster opening weekend for “Captain America: Brave New World,” ��’s Benjamin Robertson reflects on the appeal of superhero franchises and why they dominate studio release schedules.

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How ardently we admire and love ‘Pride and Prejudice’

Megan Maneval — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 13:13:25 +0000

How ardently we admire and love ‘Pride and Prejudice’ Megan Maneval Mon, 02/17/2025 - 06:13

Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine

Are Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy the greatest love story? ��’s Grace Rexroth weighs in.

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What’s your breakup song? This researcher wants to know

Daniel William Strain — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 22:29:34 +0000

What’s your breakup song? This researcher wants to know Daniel William… Tue, 02/11/2025 - 15:29

Daniel Strain

“All Too Well” by Taylor Swift. “Story of My Life” by One Direction. “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac.

Certain songs are cursed

Listen to a few of the breakup songs that survey respondents shared with Anthony Pinter, plus one of his own favorites.

"All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor's Version)" by Taylor Swift (2021)

"It Never Entered My Mind" by the Miles Davis Quintet (1959)

"Ivy" by Frank Ocean (2016)

"Tether" by CHVRCHES (2013)

"What Death Leaves Behind" by Los Campesinos! (2013)

Anthony Pinter, an information scientist at ��, wants to know: What is your breakup song?

“Everyone has a song,” said Pinter, assistant teaching professor in the ATLAS Institute. “I could play it for you right now, and it would take you back to a particular time in your life.”

Pinter is ��’s guru of breakups. He studies our modern digital identities, including how people manage their social media accounts after a breakup. Do they choose, for example, to delete all the photos of their ex from their Instagram? Or do they keep a few to commemorate that time in their lives?

Now, the researcher has released a survey inviting anyone to share their own breakup songs, and the memories and emotions they evoke. Pinter named the project Certain Songs are Cursed, a reference to a 2011 EP by the punk band Johnny Foreigner.

Share your breakup song

He isn’t trying to resolve, once and for all, what the ultimate breakup song is, although he hopes to have people vote at some point. Instead, he wants to explore how peoples’ life experiences and memories can become bound together with music.

So far, Pinter’s survey has revealed that breakup songs can come in many different flavors. Entries include a lot of obvious culprits. (Think “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood). But they also include ones that are less clear cut. One survey respondent, for example, listed “Alive with the Glory of Love” by pop-punk icons Say Anything—a song that follows the experiences of the lead singer’s grandparents during the Holocaust.

Ultimately, Pinter hopes his findings will inform new strategies that apps like Spotify or Apple Music could employ to help listeners navigate the tough months and years after a breakup—giving people more flexibility to decide what they listen to and when.

He sees the project as an exploration of what might be one of the most universal human experiences: heartbreak.

“In many ways, breakup songs are comforting,” Pinter said. “People may make playlists like that because they can find solace in the fact that someone else has had those same experiences.”

Seeing the end

For Pinter, the project came about, in part, because of his own, long-lasting love affair—in this case with the British emo band Los Campesinos! The group's songs capture themes of sadness and loss, often through the metaphor of soccer.

“You could listen to my music with me, and you’d think, ‘Wow, this person might not be OK,’” Pinter said. “I just love that music. It’s so important to me.”

He isn’t alone in that deep, emotional attachments to music. He noted that people often connect certain songs to important times in their lives—prompting powerful, sometimes even contradictory, emotions.

Currently, Pinter’s breakup song playlist on Spotify, which he created from responses to his survey, includes more than 170 entries. Surprising no one, perhaps, Taylor Swift earns the most spots on the list. But it also includes songs from R&B (“Ivy” by Frank Ocean), jazz (“It Never Entered My Mind” by the Miles Davis Quintet) and the indie scene (“Francis Forever” by Mitski).

To capture the complex emotions that music elicits, Pinter often talks about first dance songs—the ones that happy newlyweds play when they take their first dance as a married couple. At first, they may inspire joyful emotions. But after a divorce, hearing your first dance song can be devastating.

Not all breakup songs, however, prompt unhappy memories.

Pinter spoke to one survey respondent who played the song “Tether” by CHVRCHES non-stop after a traumatic breakup. The synth-pop song, which seemingly describes the end of a relationship, rises to a crescendo with the lead singer repeating the lyrics: “I’m feeling capable of seeing the end.”

“A couple years later, when he was talking to us, he said, ‘If I’m by myself driving and that song comes on, I’ll roll down the windows and crank it,’” Pinter said. “For that individual, it represented a moment of catharsis.”

We will flower again

Those complex emotions can make opening Spotify a minefield for people after a breakup, he added.

Beyond the story

Our arts and humanities impact by the numbers:

40-plus Grammy awards and nominations earned by �� faculty and alumni
2,500 exhibitions across the globe have featured art from art and art history faculty
10 ��-affiliated Pulitzer Prize winners

Follow �� on LinkedIn

Spotify decides what music to play for you based on a series of algorithms.

“We can now point to the Spotify algorithm and say, ‘Why did you play this? You should know better,’” he said. “We can assign blame to a thing in a way we couldn’t if you’re just out at a bar, and someone puts a song on the jukebox.”

But preventing those kinds of auditory gut punches isn’t always easy. Spotify has a “mute” function that allows users to banish songs from their playlists. That doesn’t account for more complex relationships with music—say, people who want to hear a particular song, but only when they’re home alone and in a safe mental space.

Pinter noted that music apps could take some cues from social media platforms that have tried to provide users with more flexibility, albeit imperfectly. When users change their relationship status on Facebook, for example, they can choose to “take a break”—temporarily hiding posts from their exes while the emotions are still raw.

His own vote for the ultimate breakup song might go to “What Death Leaves Behind” by Los Campesinos! The song’s lyrics are a bittersweet ode to losing a relationship, but feeling hopeful about moving on and being happy again. (“We will flower again/I have surely seen it”).

“I think as I’ve gotten older on and settled into what feels like a stable relationship that my approach to breakup songs has shifted,” Pinter said. "I recognize that those past relationships have informed who I have become as a partner (and person, for that matter), and it is occasionally nice to be transported back to those moments as a reminder that I have grown because of them.”

A new project from �� information scientist Anthony Pinter explores what may be among the most universal human experiences: heartbreak.

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No, it’s not Darwinism if you get hurt while doing something dumb

Elizabeth Lock — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 22:24:20 +0000

No, it’s not Darwinism if you get hurt while doing something dumb Elizabeth Lock Tue, 02/11/2025 - 15:24

In honor of Darwin Day Feb. 12, �� evolutionary biologist Daniel Medeiros explains what we get right and wrong about Darwinism.

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What is ‘romantasy,’ and why can’t readers get enough?

Daniel William Strain — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 18:31:30 +0000

What is ‘romantasy,’ and why can’t readers get enough? Daniel William… Mon, 02/10/2025 - 11:31

Daniel Strain , Nicholas Goda

This Valentine’s Day, love is in the air—and so are magic, flaming arrows, fairies, dragons and more.

Christine Larson. (Credit: Jimena Peck)

Last month, "Onyx Storm," the third book in Rebecca Yarros’ Empyrean series, took the publishing industry by, well, storm. The book follows a dragon rider named Violet and her family, friends, lovers and exes at Basgiath War College. It sold 2.7 million copies in its first week on bookshelves, a 20-year record for literature marketed toward adults.

“Onyx Storm” is the latest success story for the fast-rising genre of fiction dubbed “romantasy.” These books blend the conventions of fantasy novels with those of romance. Think sorcerers, mythical creatures and raging battles mixed with heaping doses of sex. Other heavy hitters in the genre include Sarah J. Maas. Her “A Court of Thorns and Roses” (or ACOTAR, to fans) novels dive into the adventures of Feyre Archeron in the faerie lands of Prythian.

Christine Larson, assistant professor of journalism at ��, follows trends in the romance industry closely. Her 2024 book “Love in the Time of Self-Publishing” traces the 40-year history of Romancelandia, a tight-knit community of romance writers.

Larson weighs in what makes romantasy books so appealing, how TikTok played a role in their popularity, and why you may want to reevaluate those steamy sex scenes.

Is the rise of romantasy a new phenomenon?

Everyone talks about romantasy as if it's new. But the fantasy or paranormal sub-genres in romance have been around for decades. We can look at “Twilight.” We can look as far back as the “Dragonriders of Pern” series by Anne McCaffrey in the 1960s. Those books combined adventure and strong women who find their equal and their happily ever after.

Why do you think they’ve become so popular?

Romantasy has really taken off for two reasons: One reason is that Sarah Maas and Rebecca Yarros are amazingly good writers who tell a great story. The second is because people are feeling unsettled right now. Women, especially, are often feeling powerless, and the heroines in these books have power. They gain power, and they find love interests who are their equals. That’s important to women right now—to imagine a different world.

How did social media play a role in the emergence of romantasy?

Romantasy has been promoted in a huge way by TikTok, or, specifically, by the sub-segment of TikTok known as BookTok. Romance has been the most popular genre of fiction since the 1980s. With the rise of BookTok, younger readers dispelled myths about older romances. A lot of people thought romance was Fabio and a scantily clad woman bursting out of her bodice, and that it was very old fashioned. But, in fact, romance has come a long way. It has all these different sub-genres now.

Where did all these types of romance come from?

The evolution of new sub-genres in romance rose because of self-publishing beginning around the launch of the Amazon Kindle in 2007. There were many stories that could never be told, could never get published in traditional romance publishing, including stories about Black protagonists, Latina protagonists, LGBTQ+ protagonists, and even these fantasy stories.

Romance writers are super smart, and they said, "I don't need a publisher. I can self-publish." These books took off, and, eventually, romance publishers had to change, as well.

Romance has come a long way, but a lot of readers still turn up their noses at these books. Are romantasy books subject to those same biases?

Romance is the most disparaged, dismissed, mocked genre in the history of literature, but women's literature has always been denigrated by the literary community. It’s not only romance. Fantasy has also been a sort of stepchild of the science fiction world that was associated with women writers. It’s also thought less of in the literary world.

Beyond the story

Our arts and humanities impact by the numbers:

40-plus Grammy awards and nominations earned by �� faculty and alumni
2,500 exhibitions across the globe have featured art from art and art history faculty
10 ��-affiliated Pulitzer Prize winners

Follow �� on LinkedIn

One of the central, and perhaps most controversial, aspects of these books are their sex scenes, which get, um, a little explicit. What roles do these scenes play in the books?

Anyone who is shocked by the sex scenes in romantasy has not read romance. Romance comes in, shall we say, a variety of spiciness levels—from zero (like Amish romance, which is very sweet) all the way up to four chili peppers (like “50 Shades of Gray”).

The portrayal of sex in romantasy, and all romance, celebrates women's pleasure. That's why it's controversial. Many societies throughout history have feared or suppressed women's sexual pleasure, and romance is a space where that doesn't happen.

Say fantasy isn’t my genre. What other sub-genres of romance should I try?

If you have a favorite genre, there is a romance sub-genre for you. If you like spy fiction, there's romantic suspense. If you like sci-fi, there's sci-fi romance. There's sci-fi paranormal romance. Romance writers are women of words. They write because they love to read, and they're fantastic at world building in any genre.

�� Today regularly publishes Q&As with our faculty members weighing in on news topics through the lens of their scholarly expertise and research/creative work. The responses here reflect the knowledge and interpretations of the expert and should not be considered the university position on the issue. All publication content is subject to edits for clarity, brevity and university style guidelines.

Fairies and dragons and love! Oh my! An expert on romance fiction digs into one of the publishing industry's hottest trends.

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Where is today’s cool hand Luke?

Megan Maneval — Fri, 31 Jan 2025 14:17:54 +0000

Where is today’s cool hand Luke? Megan Maneval Fri, 01/31/2025 - 07:17

Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine

In honor of what would have been Paul Newman’s 100th birthday, �� film historian Clark Farmer considers whether there still are movie stars.

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Meeting a little princess in the secret garden

Megan Maneval — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 20:36:31 +0000

Meeting a little princess in the secret garden Megan Maneval Tue, 01/07/2025 - 13:36

Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine

�� Associate Professor Emily Harrington examines the enduring power of stories we read in childhood and what we can learn from them as adults.

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Exploring the ‘musical audacity’ of funk

Megan Maneval — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 15:03:46 +0000

Exploring the ‘musical audacity’ of funk Megan Maneval Fri, 12/13/2024 - 08:03

Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine

In a newly published book, �� Professor Reiland Rabaka delves into the culture and sound of music’s “best-kept secret”

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Arts & Humanities

Tales as old as time...yet we still love them

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What is ‘romantasy,’ and why can’t readers get enough?

Is the rise of romantasy a new phenomenon?

Why do you think they’ve become so popular?

How did social media play a role in the emergence of romantasy?

Where did all these types of romance come from?

Romance has come a long way, but a lot of readers still turn up their noses at these books. Are romantasy books subject to those same biases?

One of the central, and perhaps most controversial, aspects of these books are their sex scenes, which get, um, a little explicit. What roles do these scenes play in the books?

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