Editors: Josefine Smith, Shippensburg University, jmsmith@ship.edu; and Kathleen Kollman, Miami University, kollmak@miamioh.edu 

Overview: Based on initial research performed by Janice Radway for her groundbreaking work, Reading the Romance (U of NC Press, 1984), this collection’s co-editor Josefine Smith designed an updated version of Radway’s survey, targeting romance novel readers. After two distributions, the result was over 300 responses and a raw data set which is now shareable to interested contributors to this volume. This survey includes questions on the following topics: Romance Reading Habits, the Romance Genre, the New Adult Fiction Subgenre, and Demographics.

Contributors will be free to analyze the data through whatever relevant lenses they choose, with an eye toward exploring how mores, interests, readership, and the romance novel itself has changed and developed over the nearly forty years since Radway conducted her original research. This will be a book-length peer-reviewed volume. Contributors from all disciplines are welcome and encouraged to submit, and the editors are interested in all types of research methods and theoretical perspectives. Both affiliated and independent scholars are encouraged to submit, as are early-career researchers.

Topics of particular interest include:

• Women and gender studies research

• Reader response research

• Mixed methods research that spins off from the original survey

• Direct comparison with Radway’s original research

• Shifting cultural norms in popular fiction representation

• Genre theory research

• Romance novel readers’ engagement with feminism and gender equity.

This is not an exhaustive list. As this is an extremely interdisciplinary project, we encourage diverse and creative approaches. If you would like access to the survey as you complete your proposal, please fill out the following form: https://forms.gle/RRepktnA8LEMC6279.

Submission Details: ​

Proposals for submissions to this collection should include:

• A working title

• Contact information (email, phone, address, including preferred means of contact)

• A 350-word abstract

• A 100-word biography 

Please submit proposals via email to readingromance84@gmail.com by​ March 15, 2023. We welcome queries and questions.