Reviews of Peer-Reviewed Journals in the Humanities and Social Sciences

We give you the scuttlebutt on academic journals—aiding you in selecting the right journal for publication—in reviews that are sometimes snarky, sometimes lengthy, always helpful. Written by Princeton University graduate students and Wendy Laura Belcher.

Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies

For those interested in publishing articles on the problematic of difference in literary, social, political, and social texts from a combined Continental philosophy and American politics of diversity perspective.  Most articles “address the ways concepts and categories of difference—notably but not exclusively gender—operate within culture.” Articles in differences actually have much less (at least explicitly) to do with “feminist cultural studies” than the title implies. Rather than publishing continuously on what we often call “keywords” or specific “fields” in literary studies (e.g. Postcolonialism, African-American Studies, Disability Studies, etc.), this journal balances broad, theoretical articles with somewhat random, highly specific, and even obscure topics; articles tend to fall into one of these two categories (Theory or Obscure/Highly Specific), with an emphasis on the latter.

Most cited articles:

No. of cites Author Title Year Published
139 L Berlant Cruel optimism 2006
75 MA Doane The indexical and the concept of medium specificity 2007
59 T Gunning Moving away from the index: Cinema and the impression of reality 2007
58 E Bernstein The sexual politics of the “new abolitionism” 2007
34 L Abu-Lughod Seductions of the “honor crime” 2011
31 MA Doane Indexicality: Trace and Sign: Introduction 2007
29 J Benjamin Two-way streets: Recognition of difference and the intersubjective third 2006
28 K Weil A report on the animal turn 2010
27 C Mills Normative violence, vulnerability, and responsibility 2007
22 A Cavarero, E Bertolino Beyond ontology and sexual difference: an interview with the Italian feminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero 2008
17 J Butler Reply from Judith Butler to Mills and Jenkins 2007
17 K Barad On touching—The inhuman that therefore I am 2012
16 E Grosz The practice of feminist theory 2010
14 R Wanzo The era of lost (white) girls: On body and event 2008
14 EA Castelli Persecution Complexes: Identity Politics and the “War on Christians” 2007
14 P Geimer Image as trace: speculations about an undead paradigm 2007
13 E Freeman Turn the beat around: Sadomasochism, temporality, history 2008
13 EA Povinelli The woman on the other side of the wall: Archiving the otherwise in postcolonial digital archives 2011

About Wendy Belcher

Associate Professor, Princeton University, Department of Comparative Literature and the Center for African American Studies. Author of Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success. Instructor of Deep Reading Journals as Publishing Praxis.