Submissions

Religious Theory is the weekly/bi-weekly online publishing site for The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (JCRT).

JCRT is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to both disciplinary and interdisciplinary scholarship of a cutting-edge nature that deals broadly with the phenomenon of religious and cultural theory.  Subfields include, but are not limited to, philosophical and cultural theory, theological studies, postcolonial and globalization theory, religious studies, literary theory, cultural studies, ethnic, area, and gender studies, communications, semiotics, and linguistics.

JCRT is free of charge, and is published three times a year (Winter, Spring and Fall). Starting in 2018 it will be published four times a year. Religious Theory is published on a regular weekly-bi-weekly basis depending on the availablity

Current institutional sponsors are the University of Denver, University of Central Arkansas, and York College of Pennsylvania. For more information about institutional sponsorship, contact the Senior Editor Carl Raschke.

If you have an article you would like to consider for publication, you need to submit a 500-word abstract of the article along with a curriculum vitae.  For information about the status of your submission, please contact Dianna Able.

All articles must rigorously fit the mission of the JCRT (See Submissions Policy below).  No term papers, religious advocacy pieces, unsolicited book reviews or opinion pieces, etc. will be considered.

Any redistribution or archiving of materials published in this journal is strictly prohibited. Copyright for individual contributions are held by the author(s). Rights and permission to reproduce must be obtained by the author(s) and must acknowledge original publication in this journal.

The journal is listed in various databases.

A Note on Open Source Publishing

The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory was established in 1999 as one of the true, early pioneers in electronic, open source publishing, and has been committed to that mission ever since.

Because of the ongoing commercialization of the internet during that same period, many once easily accessible print journals have increasingly been locked up behind high-priced, electronic subscription paywalls by international publishing conglomerates who have at the same time managed to corner the market on citation access and convince some university administrators that these kinds of publications are therefore more “credible” and “prestigious”, when in fact the opposite often the case.  In addition, academic reputations are made by readers becoming widely familiar with published material, not by corporate publishers demanding exorbitant fees for simple access to one’s scholarly contributions.

As a non-profit entity, we at the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory believe that this unholy alliance between profit-oriented, commercial publishers, university administrators, and (by extension) tenure and promotion committees is unconscionable, and we do, and continue to, resist this invidious “neoliberal” trend in academic publishing.  We also invite our authors to resist it as well, and we are more than happy to provide letters of support to faculty to assure them that their submissions have been thoroughly peer-reviewed and chosen for their genuine quality.

Submissions and Publication Policy 

Articles may be of any length.   Please submit documents in MS Word format. Authors should include a brief (3-4 line) biography, contact information, and endnote citations in Documentation One (Chicago Manual of Style) format.

The JCRT invites proposals for book reviews.  Book reviews are no longer published in the regular journal, however, but solely in blog format on the weekly/biweekly e-supplement to the journal entitled Religious Theory.

If you are interested in reviewing a book, please see  the following links:

https://jcrt.org/religioustheory/submissions-2/

https://jcrt.org/religioustheory/books-for-review-2/

JCRT will not review books that are over a year old.

The journal is listed in various databases, including the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), EBSCO, and the Serials Solutions e-journal AMS database.

All manuscripts submitted, or revised, for publication must be in Microsoft Word format.  The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory uses the Chicago Manual of Style for all published reviews and articles. The basic elements of the CMoS can be found at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/717/01/.

All notes must be footnotes.  Citations should follow CMS.  Bibliographies or lists of references should not be used unless absolutely necessary. Citations in footnoting should be written so as to be sufficient.

All articles or reviews must have the title, first and last name of the author, and institutional affiliation at the top of the article – flush left.

Do not in the body of the text give acknowledgements. Do so in a footnote.

All paragraphs must have a blank space between them and start flush left without indentation. Paragraph numeration is no longer necessary for the JCRT.

Once the article is accepted for publication, it is the author’s responsibility to resubmit the review or article using the standard journal style within twenty days after notification of acceptance. . At that time the author must also submit a brief biographical sketch of themselves two or three sentences in length.

Timing and Format For Publishing

All articles and reviews, including unsolicited pieces, are published initially (after receiving approval from reviewers) with a quick turnaround on the blog site Religious Theory.  The exception are those articles solicited through calls for special issues.  Such a policy allows immediate and much wider visibility for authors as well as improved feedback.  Articles published in this format will be published as is once they are submitted and approved, although authors will be allowed to corrected typos or grammatical problems, and they will be vetted in advance by the journal’s copy editors as well.

At the same time, select weekly, online articles (not including reviews) will be republished in PDF format within one of the quarterly issues of the journal within 18 months after appearing in Religious Theory starting with the Winter issue (2017-18).  These articles will undergo a second peer review.