Monday, May 25, 2026

Dissertation Season (and some other new publications)


Lucynka Starron has found an article from 1934 giving advice to would-be romance authors targetting the romance pulps.

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Balle, Mary, Danny Valdez, and Tori Sciara. 2026. “Adeline’s Desire: Conversation between Paranoid and Reparative Readings of Eroticism, Relationships, and Sexual Behaviours in the Dark Romance Haunting Adeline.” Porn Studies. [Abstract here.] 
 
 
Burmeister, Aurora Grace (2026). Where Love and Obsession Overlap: An Examination of Dark Romance, BookTok, and Moral Outrage. Master of Arts, Bowling Green State University.
 
Burge, Amy (2026). "A Decolonised Alpha Hero? Negotiating Masculinities in Nigerian Romance Novels."  Journal of Popular Romance Studies.
 
 
Hildebrandt, Addie. (2026). "The Ripped Bodice, Brooklyn." World Literature Today 100.3: 80. [Excerpt here.] 
 
 
Lu, Jie (2026). "Chinese Online Fiction: A New Romantic Imagination." The International Journal of Literary Humanities 24.1: 35-58. 
 
Montejo, Aurora (2026). "Guilty Pleasure or Attack on Feminism?: An Analysis of the Dark Romance Subgenre." The Odyssey: Undergraduate Arts & Humanities Academic Journal 1: 7-18.
 
Niebergall, Chelsee M. (2026). Resistance and Innovation: The Cultural Work of Popular Romance Novels. Master's Thesis, Dartmouth College.

Noriega Palmero, Jessica Alejandra. 2026. «¿Del quiosco a la revolución amorosa? Un análisis genológico y estructural de tres novelas rosas anarquistas de Federica Montseny». Literatura popular: lecturas y público en la Edad de Plata. Ed. Emilio José Ocampos Palomar and Guadalupe Nieto Caballero. Berlin: Peter Lang Verlag.  [Details for the volume at https://doi.org/10.3726/b23272. Excerpts from the article here.] 
 
Panek, Helena (2026). "Getting Her Off: Looking at Women Authors in Romance Compared to Other Fiction Genres." Honors thesis, Eastern Kentucky University. 
 
Rayburn, Allison D. (2026). An Ecology of the Monstrous: How Readers Shape and Are Shaped by Monster RomanceMaster of Arts in Professional Writing, Kennesaw State University. 
 
Sukmaningsih, Putri Ayresti and Rahayu Puji Haryanti (2026). "Marriage as a Mechanism of Power in Regency Era in Quinn’s Bridgerton the Duke and I." IDEAS: Journal on Language Teaching and Learning, Linguistics and Literature 14.1:1701-1713. 
 
Tomas, Marina (2026). "Truhelkin Plein air: feministička romansa?" Kroatologija : časopis za hrvatsku kulturu Fakulteta hrvatskih studija Sveučilišta u Zagrebu 17.1: 7-24.  
  
Vaile, Dezi (2026). They Write Themselves: Romancing the Vampire of Lighthouse Landing. Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, Liberty University. 

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Call for Papers: Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association

123rd Annual Conference (Seattle, WA) – Nov. 12-15, 2026

More details about the conference can be found here. Specifically with respect to romance, Kristin Noone has put out this call for papers to the brand-new popular romance area:

Popular romance narratives are compellingly woven into popular culture, from the success of queer hockey phenomenon Heated Rivalry to the perpetual popularity of Hallmark rom-com movies, from historical or alternate-historical romances like Julia Quinn's Bridgerton series to the rise of romantasy and authors such as Sarah J. Maas. The romance tradition is rich and complex, appearing across various forms of media and spanning the globe.

For this special session, we invite papers and presentations which explore the diversity of popular romance narratives. This year's general PAMLA conference theme is “Our Ruling Classes: Culture, Power, Conflict,” and submissions related to the distribution of power, aristocracy or inheritance, community and collective action, class or social structures (or challenges thereto), and revolutionary movements against traditional hierarchies are particularly welcome. However, we are open to all popular-romance themed proposals, regardless of how closely they adhere to the general conference theme!

Potential topics might include, for example:

-cultural memory, history, and the romance novel

-reading the romance as reparative - or investigating this concept

-heroes, anti-heroes, and masculinity

-aristocrats, billionaires, and power

-inheritance, histories, and haunting, and/or the Gothic

-representations of class, gender, race, and social structures

-romantasy, fantasy, and centering pleasure as activism

-popular romance trends, e.g. historical, queer, or dark romance

-fandom and community

-discussions of creative work in the field

-and more!

The deadline for abstracts is the 25th of May and should be submitted via the form on the website.