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.
Comparative Literature Studies
For those interested in publishing articles of a comparative nature on literary history, the history of ideas, critical theory, studies between authors, and literary relations within and beyond the Western tradition.
As their web description states, “Comparative Literature Studies publishes comparative critical articles that range across the rich traditions of Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America, and that examine the literary relations between East and West, North and South. Articles may also explore movements, themes, forms, the history of ideas, relations between authors, the foundations of criticism and theory, and issues of language and translation.”
Compared to some other journals that strive to be comprehensive and yet fall short of achieving it, the CLS is successful in covering diverse regions and topics that gives an exciting wide scope view of the world of Comparative Literature. Their selection of articles covers a wide range of topics pertaining to literature, language, and literary theory; from Shakespeare to Internet Literature in China. Also, the regions covered in the journal range from Africa, Asia, and to the Americas– which is against the typical Euro-centricism often seen in the field of Comparative Literature.
The length of an article varies from the minimum 15 pages to over 45, perhaps for this reason, the number of articles appearing in each issue varies greatly. The journal publishes a number of co-authored articles, which may or may not be due to the comparative nature of articles. The journal also features papers written by graduate students that had previously won the A. Owen Aldridge prize that is given by the ACLA. In an issue of the third quarter of 2016, for example, the journal featured such a paper that won the prize back in 2014.
About Wendy Belcher
