The first election of Donald Trump sparked a series of "Rogue" romance anthologies that framed love as resistance, and the romance genre as progressive and inclusive. Looking back after a decade, how has the genre registered and responded to ongoing political contexts--in the United States and elsewhere--of political radicalization, xenophobia, natalism, revived eugenicist policies, the demonization of "gender ideology" and affirmative action, the redefinition and constriction of citizenship, transphobia, etc.?
Following conversations initiated at the IASPR 2025 Conference held in Mexico City, this edited collection seeks to address both the progressive and conservative aspects of the genre: its progressive and utopian side and also its embrace of conservative and reactionary trends, both in the texts themselves and in the publishing, distribution, and readership aspects of the romance genre world.
We welcome proposals that address these issues in North America, although we are especially keen to include submissions that challenge the cultural hegemony of the “Global North” from within and beyond its geographical borders.
- The political economy of publishing
- Censorship of (and in) popular romance
- Translational practices as political acts
- Counternarratives that challenge US master narratives (meritocracy, manifest destiny, American Dream, exceptionalism)
- Power and authoritarian masculinities and hegemonic femininities
- Neoliberalism and hetero/homo normativity
- Conspiracies and reactionaries
- Imagining the future in dark times
- Representations of politicians and government
- Biopolitics and corporeal politics
- Geopolitics, nationalism and patriotism
- Unequal couples: class, precarity and poverty
- Reader and author resistance (and compliance)
- Whiteness and racialisation
- Violence, social order and criminalization
- Defending BIPOC histories and archives
- Anticipatory obedience and civil disobedience
Please submit 250-word abstracts and a brief professional bio note to Nattie Golubov, ngolubov@unam.mx, Eric Selinger ESELINGE@depaul.edu and Charlotte Ireland, c.ireland@bham.ac.uk, by August 18, 2025.
The collection will be published by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in collaboration with the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance.
