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CALL FOR PAPERS: Film Love Matters: Romance, Love, and Sexuality in World Cinema

In 2003, David R. Shumway claimed that romantic fictional narratives, in whatever medium, instruct both readers and viewers about love, “even if they are often unaware of the lesson” (2-3). Certainly cinema plays a significant role in determining the way viewers from all over the world construct their own “real” romantic relationships, act in specific romantic and/or sexual situations, and/or emulate behaviors they have watched on the big screen.

Romantic comedies, romantic dramas and musicals (both musical comedies, and dramas) are the genres par excellence where the concepts of romance, love, and sexuality get represented, recycled, renewed, revisited, and/or subverted. However, the discourse of love is present in almost any film text, cutting across genres and calling for in-depth scholarly examination.

In search of patterns, changes, and/or subversions of this universal theme, the Journal of Popular Romance Studies (JPRS) seeks essay submissions for a special issue on Romance, Love, and Sexuality in World Cinema. Betty Kaklamanidou is guest editor.

Submissions are welcome on the following topics, although articles that examine other aspects of cinematic romance, love, and sexuality will also be considered for publication.

How are romance, love, and sexuality represented in individual films and across film genres?
How are shifting femininities and masculinities negotiated in mainstream (“popular”) films—the kind that mainly center on heterosexual romantic and/or sexual relationships? How do LGBT film romances negotiate the discourses of masculinity, femininity, and love?
Does the Hollywood cinematic paradigm on romance, love, and sexuality differ from other national cinematographies? What are the relationships between love, sex, and nationalism in global cinema?
How does the sociopolitical climate affect the love discourse in films from specific time periods?
How does film treat the HEA (Happily Ever After) and HFN (Happy for Now) conventions of closure? Why is the Happily Ever After Ending still prevalent in the contemporary Hollywood romantic comedy?
Submissions are due by January 6 2014. The issue is slated for publication in September 2014.

Published by the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance (IASPR), the peer-reviewed Journal of Popular Romance Studies is the first academic journal to focus exclusively on representations of romantic love across national and disciplinary boundaries. Our editorial board includes representatives from Comparative Literature, English, Ethnomusicology, History, Religious Studies, Sociology, African Diaspora Studies, and other fields. JPRS is available without subscription at http://jprstudies.org.

Please submit scholarly papers of no more than 10,000 words to An Goris, Managing Editor managing.editor@jprstudies.org. Longer manuscripts of particular interest will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Submissions should be Microsoft Word documents, with citations in MLA format. Please remove all identifying material (i.e., running heads with the author’s name) so that submissions can easily be sent out for anonymous peer review. Suggestions for appropriate peer reviewers are welcome.