JPRS publishes special issues on a range of topics relating to the study of romantic love and its representations. These issues contain at least 3 articles on their shared topic, as well as an introduction by the editor(s). If you are interested in creating or editing a special issue, contact the Executive Editor (executive.editor@jprstudies.org) to begin the conversation. You can read more about special issues on our Editorial Policies page.
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Special Issue: Sarah J. Maas
Millions of adolescent and adult readers alike have been drawn to Sarah J. Maas’s YA fantasy-romance series for their representations of empowered, embattled young women, their immersive fantasy worlds, and especially their romance narratives. From the Throne of Glass (2012-18) and A Court of Thorns and Roses (2015-21) books to Crescent City (2020-24), her current series-in-progress, Maas has become wildly popular for the complex romantic and sexual relationships she portrays. The Journal of Popular Romance Studies (JPRS) seeks articles for a special issue focused on Maas’s fiction. These articles may focus on any of Maas’s works and may take a variety of disciplinary approaches.
Topics may include but are not limited to:
- Intersections of romance and politics, including connections between sexual agency and political agency in Maas’s fiction
- How Maas’s work engages with feminism and/or postfeminism
- Portrayals of or discourses on assault, trauma, and/or PTSD in Maas’s fiction and romance as trauma narrative
- Maas’s adaptation of fairy tales in her romance narratives
- Representations of sex and sexuality in Maas’s work
- Portrayals of gender in Maas’s work
- Maas’s engagement with traditional romance-genre tropes
- Renderings of adolescence and adult-youth power dynamics in romantic pairings and other relationships in Maas’s fiction
- Maas’s portrayal of LGBTQ+ or queer romantic relationships
- Class structures/dynamics and how they shape romance in Maas’s work
Please send proposals of no more than 500 words, as well as a short bio, to Sonya Sawyer Fritz at sfritz@uca.edu. The deadline for proposals is August 1, 2024.
If selected, final articles should be 5,000 to 10,000 words, including notes and bibliography, and will be due February 1, 2025. Submissions should be Microsoft Word documents, with citations, with citations conforming to the journal style guide. Do not include your name or the name of any co-authors in the submitted manuscript. Please note that all research articles submitted to this special issue of JPRS will undergo peer review via a double blind, pre-publication peer review policy. Researchers also have the option to participate in our open peer review pilot, should they be interested in a review process in which author and reviewer identity is known to all participants at all stages of peer review. All editorial policies are available on the JPRS site: www.jprstudies.org.
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Please see our Topics of Interest page for a non-exhaustive list of subjects covered by our journal, and our regular Submissions page for additional information on submitting your work.