Godzilla Minus One Meets Past Lives: Romantic Histories and Historic Romances

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Friday, December 19, 2025 | 6pm to 7pm

25 West 43rd Street, Room 1000
between 5th & 6th Avenues, Manhattan

Prof. Jayashree Kamblé will present on her essay in CUNY FORUM Volume 11:1, focusing on love and gender roles in the recent globally successful films Godzilla Minus One and Past Lives. Prof. Kamblé delves into how Godzilla unexpectedly challenges traditional cinematic depictions of romance and gender, offering fresh perspectives on themes of identity and geocultural representation. Both films show how popular culture can shape our understanding of history, belonging, and societal dynamics. She also goes beyond the article to invite connections between the philosophy of romance in Past Lives and its Korean-Canadian-American director Celine Song’s 2025 movie, Materialists.

Author Bio

Jayashree Kamblé is Professor of English at LaGuardia Community College/CUNY. Prof. Kamblé is the author of Making Meaning in Popular Romance Fiction: An Epistemology (2014) and co-editor of the Routledge Research Companion to Popular Romance Fiction (2021). She serves as the President of the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance. After completing her second book, Creating Identity: The Popular Romance Heroine's Journey to Selfhood and Self-Presentation (Indiana University Press, 2023), she is now working on a history of BIPOC romance, with the research supported by an American Council of Learned Societies/Mellon fellowship and CUNY Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies grant.