For its inaugural issue (Winter 2010), the Journal of Popular Romance Studies is now considering papers on representations of romantic love in popular media, now or in the past, from anywhere in the world.

Topics addressed might include:

* Romance on the World Stage (texts in translation, Western and non-Western media, local and comparative approaches)
* Romance Across the Media: crossover texts and the relationships between romance fiction and romantic films, music, art, drama, etc.; also the paratexts and contexts of popular romance
* Romance High and Low: texts that fall between "high" and "low" culture, or that complicate the distinctions between these critical categories
* Romance Then and Now: representations of Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, Romantic, Modern, Postmodern love
* Romancing the Marketplace: romantic love in advertising, marketing, and consumer culture
* Queering the Romance: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender romance, and representations of same-sex love within predominantly heterosexual texts
* BDSM Romance and representations of romantic/erotic power exchange
* Romance communities: authors, readers, Web sites, blogs
* New Critical Approaches, such as readings informed by critical race theory, queer theory, postcolonial studies, or empirical science (e.g., the neurobiology of love)
* The Politics of Romance, and romantic love in political discourse (revolutionary, reactionary, colonial / anti-colonial, etc.)

The Journal also solicits reviews (individual and combined) of relevant scholarly works, along with interviews, pedagogical discussions, and other material of use to scholars and teachers in the field of Popular Romance Studies.

Please submit scholarly papers of no more than 10,000 words to Kymberly Hinton, 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.