Dissertations/Theses, a New Issue of JPRS and more!

Altamimi, Leena (2026). Desert Desires and the War on Terror: Pre- and Post-9/11 Sheikh RomancesPost-9/11 Sheikh Romances. Master of Arts/Science in Book Publishing, Portland State University.

 

Fahmy, Zulfa, Teguh Supriyanto, Agus Nuryatin, and Yusro Edy Nugroho, 

(2026). "Islamic romance novels in the Indonesian digital sphere: Between religious ornamentation and genre standardization." Diglosia: Jurnal Kajian Bahasa, Sastra, Dan Pengajarannya 9.2: 507-524. [The authors state that they used AI tools.]

 

Ficke, Sarah (2026). "Narrating Histories of Love and Violence: The Civil War and Alyssa Cole’s A Hope Divided." Journal of Popular Romance Studies 15.1.

Filbrun, Tricia (2026). "Judging a Book by Its Cover: Exploring Ethical Solutions for Marketing & Labeling Romance Novels with Illustrated Cover Art."  Honors Project. Bowling Green State University. 

Glenn, Wendy J. (2026). "Sport as Suitor: The Presence and Disruption of Romance Tropes in Young Adult Sports Fiction." Literature 6.2.

Guhr, Svenja (2026). "Between Whispers and Screams: Loudness Standard Deviation as a Proxy for Explicit Content Detection in US Romance Novels." Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Natural Language Processing for the Digital Humanities: 368–380. 

Ingram, Toni (2026). "Romantasy and the quest for cliteracy." Sex Education. Online First.

 

Jalksjö Greksa, Olivia (2026). Relational Equality in M/M and Heterosexual Romance: A Reader Response Analysis. Bachelor's Thesis, Mälardalen University.

Kjølner, Mira Pedersen (2026). Choosing The Monster: Otherness, Desire, And Masculinity In Contemporary Monster Romance. Masters Thesis, Aalborg University.

Kryha, Veronika (2026). Translation project: Game Point by Meg Jones. BA thesis, Borys Grinchenko Kyiv Metropolitan University.

 

Kvistad, Erika (2026). "Happily Ever After?/Happily Ever After! Negotiating the Gothic in Contemporary Dark Romance." Journal of Popular Romance Studies 15.1.

Monier, Mel (2026). "Reading the dark romance: exploring audience engagement with sexual power dynamics in dark romance novels." Porn Studies. Online First.

 

Moolla, F. Fiona (2026). "Love Stories and Stories About Love: Popular and Literary Romance in Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s Season of Crimson Blossoms." Journal of Popular Romance Studies.

 

Moore, Jeania Ree V. (2026). Literature of Hope: Reading Romance in the Religious Lives of Black Women. PhD thesis, Yale University. [Links to abstract, and selected quotations]

 

Myisha, Nabila and Linusia Marsih (2026). "Loving Under Power: Politics and Tradition Shaping Gay Love in Red, White & Royal Blue." Parafrase 26.1:18-24.

 

McCray, Nia (2026). The Outcome of Falling. Master’s Program in Creative Writing, University of Texas at El Paso. [Excerpt via ProQuest]

 

Pérez Belmont, Andrea (2026). Smut: Contemporary Erotic Romance as a Discourse of Female Sexuality. Bachelor's Thesis, Masaryk University. 

 

Šmídová, Monika Markéta (2026). Kissing for Dear Life in a Dead Land: English Folkloric Liminality in Queer Paranormal Historical Popular Romance. PhD, Masaryk University.

 

Tandon, Lasya (2026). "(Dis)Honourable Escapes: Reassessing Sexuality in Georgette Heyer’s Historical Romances." Journal of Popular Romance Studies 15.1. 

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.] 

 

Brenner, Naomi (2025). "Sabine vs. Aviva: Translation and Popular Fiction in Yiddish and Hebrew." Yod 25.

 

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.

 

Eskelsen, Ilse (2026). “I Know He Would Do Anything if I Asked”: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Female Power Fantasy, and the YA Romance. Undergraduate Dissertation, Brigham Young University.

 

Hildebrandt, Addie. (2026). "The Ripped Bodice, Brooklyn." World Literature Today 100.3: 80. [Excerpt here.] 

 

Horan, Molly (2026). “Thanks For Listening: A Novel” And “Asexuality in Young Adult Literature: How Ace/Aro YA Challenges Amatonormativity and Expands Possibilities.” PhD, Bath Spa University. 

 

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 Romance. Master 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. 

New Publications: Autism, Book Selling, Dark Romance, Ethnicity, Happiness, History, Readers

Bogaert, Anthony F.,  Jessie E. Hernder and , Jessica R. Johnson (2026). "Who “Feels Sexy” in the Google Books Corpus? Text-Mining Evidence for Gender Differences in Object of Desire Self-Consciousness." Archives of Sexual Behavior. [Abstract here.]

Datta, Sreepurna (2026). "Around the world on Amazon: Locating diasporic Indian romance novels published by Harlequin Mills & Boon." Literature, Critique, and Empire Today.

Deane,  Katie (2026). "Dark romance: an introduction." Porn Studies.

Eimannsberger, Angelina (2026). "The Romance Shop Around the Corner: How Women Readers Created a New Kind of Independent Bookstore." The New Americanist 4.1-2.  [Abstract here.] 

Grant, Ania (2025). Evolution, Feminism, and Romantic Fiction: From Mr. Darcy to Mr. Big London: Routledge. [Abstract here.]

Handley-Cousins, Sarah (2026). "Love Is a Battlefield: Civil War Memory in Modern Romance Novels." They Are Dead and Yet They Live: Civil War Memories in a Polarized America. Ed. John M. Kinder and Jennifer M. Murray. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 152-169. [Excerpt here.]

Majidi, Nikki (2026) "Fast Fiction": Booktok, Artificial Intelligence, and the Profit-driven Reinvention of the Romance Genre. Undergraduate Dissertation, California State University, Long Beach.

 

Miller, Jessica (2026). ""I Shall Be Very Happy, Indeed": The Meanings of Happiness in Bridgerton" Bridgerton and Philosophy: Dukes, Debutantes, and Deep Questions . Ed. Jessica Miller. Wiley. [This article is free online. The remained of the volume is not. I have more details about that volume here. It won't be available until March.]

 

Musiał-Pudełko, Aleksandra (2026) "'You and Me and History': Queer Romance and Liberal Fantasy in Casey McQuiston's Red, White & Royal Blue." Erotic Discourses in History, Culture and the Arts. Ed. Aleksandra Musiał-Pudełko, Nina Augustynowicz, Agnieszka Podruczna. New York: Routledge. [Abstract here.]

 

Niebergall, Chelsee M. (2026) "Constructing Hybrid Identities: Cultural Negotiation and Belonging in Uzma Jalaluddin's Ayesha at Last," CLAMANTIS: The MALS Journal: Vol. 17: No. 2, Article 16.

 

Parnell, Claire (2025). "The Politics of Algorithmic Hyper(in)visibility: BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and Erotic Romance Fiction on Amazon." Érudit 16.2: 1–28.

 

Segura Candado, Leyre (2025). Love Beyond Conventions: Contemporary Romance and the Representation of Non-Normative Bodies. Undergraduate Dissertation, Universidad de Zaragoza.

 

Smith, Evelyn (2025). Correlations Between Parasocial Tendencies and Self-Esteem Among Romance Readers. Honors thesis, Columbus State University.

 

Vargová, Veronika (2025). "‘What will you do with yourself when you grasp that your mind is only different, not deranged?’: Madness and Neurodivergent Heroes in Historical Romance Novels." The Journal of Historical Fictions 6.1:45-66.

 

Vargová, Veronika (2025). Happily Ever After, Differently: Reimagining Autism and Intimacy in Popular Romance Novels. PhD, Masaryk University.