Jayashree Kamblé is an Associate Professor of English at LaGuardia Community College in the City University of New York. She is the author of Making Meaning in Popular Romance Fiction: An Epistemology (2014) and a Vice-President of the International Association of the Study of Popular Romance.

Eric Murphy Selinger is a Professor of English at DePaul University, Executive Editor of the Journal of Popular Romance Studies, and President of the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance. He is the author of What Is It Then Between Us? Traditions of Love in American Poetry (1998) and co-editor of New Approaches to Popular Romance Fiction (2012) and Romance Fiction and American Culture (2016).

Hsu-Ming Teo is a novelist and cultural historian at Macquarie University, Australia, where she is an Associate Professor of literature and creative writing. Her academic publications include her monograph Desert Passions: Orientalism and Romance Novels (2012), and the edited books The Popular Culture of Romantic Love in Australia (2017) and Cultural History in Australia (2003).

Introduction

Jayashree Kamblé, Eric Murphy Selinger, Hsu-Ming Teo

PART I: NATIONAL TRADITIONS

1 History of English Romance Novels, 1621-1975

jay Dixon

2 The Evolution of the American Romance Novel

Pamela Regis

3 Australian Romance Fiction

Lauren O'Mahony

PART II: SUB-GENRES

4 Gothic Romance

Angela Toscano

5 The Historical Romance

Sarah H. Ficke

6 Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy

María T. Ramos-García

7 Young Adult Romance

Amanda K. Allen

8 Inspirational Romance

Rebecca Barrett-Fox and Kristen Donnelly

9 Erotic Romance

Jodi McAlister

10 African American Romance

Julie E. Moody-Freeman

11 Explorations of the "Desert Passion Industry"

Amira Jarmakani

PART III: METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES

12 Romance in the Media

Jayashree Kamblé

13 Literary Approaches

Eric Murphy Selinger

14 Author Studies and Popular Romance Fiction

Kecia Ali

15 Social Science Reads Romance

Joanna Gregson and Jennifer Lois

16 Publishing the Romance Novel

John Markert

17 Libraries and Popular Romance Fiction

Kristin Ramsdell

PART IV: THEMES

18 Class and Wealth in Popular Romance Fiction

Amy Burge

19 Sex and Sexuality

Hannah McCann and Catherine M. Roach

20 Gender and Sexuality

Jonathan A. Allan

21 Love and Romance Novels

Hsu-Ming Teo

22 Romance and/as Religion

Eric Murphy Selinger and Laura Vivanco

23 Race, Ethnicity, and Whiteness

Erin S. Young

24 In Response to Harlequin: Global Legacy, Local Agency

Kathrina Mohd Daud