Article Submissions

Proposals and articles are welcome for the journal of听Religion and the Arts. Articles, normally 5,000 to 10,000 words, are refereed and should be designed for a diverse audience.

We invite:

  1. scholars to develop essays on the religious frontiers of their fields,
  2. creative artists to formulate the issues which influence their work,
  3. specialists in religion and the arts to develop the principles of their approaches, especially where these illuminate works of art in some detail.

We also welcome proposals for review essays and other ways of assessing the field of religion and the arts.

Manuscripts should follow听the MLA Style Manual.听

Individual authors are responsible for obtaining reproduction rights for all images to be published. Prior to publication, authors must provide written permission for reproducing each image or proof of public domain. Authors are responsible for all reproduction right fees.

Figures should be submitted as digital files (either TIFF or jpg) by e-mail or on a CD. The resolution must be at least 300 dpi and the width at least 5 x 5 in.

听

How to Submit

Religion and the Arts听has recently implemented Editorial Manager (EM), an online submission and peer review tracking system used worldwide by over 3,000 journals. This means that from now on all articles for the journal should be submitted online. You will be directed to register as an author; once you do so EM will provide you with instructions for how to format and upload your submission.听

For now, we will also continue to accept submissions sent by mail or email to the addresses listed below:

James Najarian, Editor
Religion and the Arts
Boston College, Carney Hall 446
140 Commonwealth Ave.听
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3806

We also accept electronic submissions to听relarts@bc.edu

Editorial Policy

Religion and the Arts听is a journal which promotes the development of discourses for exploring the religious dimensions of the verbal, visual and performing arts.

Religion and the Arts听publishes:

  • interpretations that develop new approaches to the religious and spiritual aspects of works of art,
  • discussions of the role of religion in cultural studies,
  • critical overviews of the state of scholarship in particular areas,
  • discussions of the theoretical relationship between religious discourse and other scholarly discourses,
  • reviews, interviews, comment, debate, and surveys of recent developments.

Religion and the Arts听seeks to explore religious experience and expression in the verbal, visual and performing arts, in the context of contemporary theory and culture. While there exists a rich and varied scholarship on the religious dimension in the arts,听Religion and the Arts听encourages the development of new religious critical discourses, in order to explore neglected dimensions of works of art, and open up new possibilities for the field.

Religion and the Arts听is an interdisciplinary publication where interpretations of old and new works can appear. We look for explorations of new terrain as well as summaries and critiques of existing scholarship.

We seek discussion of modern artistic works which explore religious insights, and look for new ways of talking about traditional religious experiences in the arts.

We are interested in the relation of spirituality to daily life, politics, gender concerns, and developmental issues, as these are explored in works of art.

We encourage articles sensitive to modern explorations of heterogeneity and pluralism, material culture and sign systems, power relationships, and issues of exploitation and unmindfulness.

Literary critical discourse in our time has had a powerful influence on critical discourse in the visual and performing arts, as well as on philosophy, theology, and many other fields. We hope to encounter the current discourse in creative and cooperative ways. At the same time,听Religion and the Arts听believes that all those working on the critical frontiers of each of the arts can make important contributions to the development of religious criticism.

Book Review Guidelines

  1. Submission: Please submit your review as an attachment to a covering email sent to judith.bookbinder@bc.edu.
  2. Content: Describe the content of the work in brisk, summary fashion; avoid a plodding chapter-by-chapter pr茅cis or excessive detail. Above all, evaluate the work critically, judging its strengths and its shortcomings; at least "60%" of the review should be devoted to evaluation, and the ideal is to include most of the description within the evaluation.
  3. Tone: Our policy is to maintain a courteous tone, even when expressing differences of opinion or pointing out errors of fact.
  4. Format: Double-space all text.听 Begin typing 8 double spaces from the top of the first page.听 Brief mentions and book reviews should begin with the bibliographical heading for the work reviewed, skip two double spaces, and then begin flush left with the body of the review.听 Review essays of multiple works should begin with a centered title in capital letters, skip two double spaces and then give the reviewer鈥檚 name centered in capital letters, skip a single double space and give the reviewer鈥檚 institutional affiliation centered and underlined.听 Following this, skip two double spaces and then list the bibliographical headings for each work being reviewed, in alphabetical order by author鈥檚 surname, with a single double space between each entry.听 Then skip two double spaces, type a centered asterisk, skip two double spaces, and begin the body of the review flush left.听 (Copies will be provided upon request of brief mentions, book reviews or review essays to guide reviewers.)
  5. Heading: Please use the following two examples as guides.

    Taylor, Mark C.听听After God.听 Religion and Postmodernism Series, eds. Mark C. Taylor and Thomas A. Carlson.听听听 Chicago IL and London:听 University of Chicago Press, 2007.听 Pp. xviii + 464 + 27 illustrations + 13 tables.听 $35.00 cloth.

    Whalen-Bridge, John, and Gary Storhoff, eds.听 The Emergence of Buddhist American Literature.听 Foreword Maxine Hong Kingston.听 Afterword Charles Johnson.听 SUNY Series in Buddhism and American Culture, eds. John Whalen-Bridge and Gary Storhoff.听 Albany NY:听 State University of New York Press, 2009.听 Pp. xi + 255.听 $80.00 cloth.

  6. Citations: If you are writing a brief mention or a book review and cite directly from the book, do not give a page reference.听 If you are writing a review essay, do indicate the page cited in parenthesis in the text.听 Please also provide a list of works cited at the end of review essays, excluding the works being reviewed.
  7. Length: Our word limit is 400 words for a brief notice, 500-1400 words for a standard review of a single book, and 3000-5000 words for a review essay of more than one book.
  8. Conclusion: For brief mentions and book reviews, at bottom left of the review, type your institution and its location; at bottom right your name.听 For review essays, provide your name followed by your institutional affiliation after the title of the review essay at the start of the piece as noted above.
  9. Deadline: Try to submit reviews within six months of receiving the book(s) you are reviewing. For the sake of authors, publishers, and readers, we wish to publish reviews as early as possible. If you cannot review a book within a reasonable time, please return it to us.
  10. Editing: Copy may be edited for length, clarity, style, or tone.
  11. Requests: We accept requests to review forthcoming books. If you suggest a book for review, please supply data about the author, title, publisher, and year.

We are deeply indebted to our reviewers. Thank you for your generous assistance.

Back To Top