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.
The Black Scholar
For those interested in publishing articles in Black Studies that are also in conversation with modern topics such as new media studies, popular culture, and other current events connected to Black life.
Margarita Simon Guillory’s introduction of The Black Scholar’s most recent issue, titled “Black Religions in the Digital Age,” discusses the scholarly play and acts of “writing on the margins” that many of the journal’s contributors participate in. Although Guillory’s remarks focus on one issue, I found that many of the journal’s older issues also demonstrate room for scholarly play and creativity. This is not to say that the work being published in The Black Scholar should not be taken seriously. Rather, I was excited to discover that many themes of past issues, ranging from Black Women’s representations on television to reflections on the field of Black Studies, feature out-of-the-box writing that can also appeal to audiences outside of academia. Although the editor, currently Louis Chude-Sokei, tends to not write issue introductions, Chude-Sokei’s introduction to The Black Scholar’s Vol. 50, Issue 3 provides insight into the broader questions that seem to be shaping the journal’s scope over the past 5 years (and perhaps even longer.) Chude-Sokei asks readers and contributors to ponder “what does it mean for Black Studies to be alive?” This provocative question resulted in work that considers Afropessimism, cultural analyses of social media topics, posthumanism, and much more. While each issue revolves around different themes, a search for and questioning of the aliveness within topics related to Black life is prevalent in each article.
Introductions tend to be around one to three paragraphs long.
Bibliography
- “Digital Communities of Black Girlhood: New Media Technologies and Online Discourses of Empowerment” by Maryann Erigha & Ashley Crooks-Allen
- “New Genres of Being Human”: World Making through Viral Blackness” by Ashleigh Greene Wade
- “‘Wholeness Is No Trifling Matter’Black Feminist Archival Practice and The Spelman College Archives” by Holly A. Smith.
Information Useful for Submission
Issues per year: Four
Current issue: Vol. 52, Issue 3 (2022)
Word limit: 5,000 – 7,000 words maximum
Articles per year: 20 to 26
Citations per article: 40 or less
Endnotes per article: 10 or less
Style manual: Chicago Manual of Style 17th ed note only style
Abstract length: Yes, 200 words or less
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Relevant editors: Louis Chude-Sokei
SJR Impact Factor: 0.245
Submission method: At a website
Upcoming special issues: The Other Black Cinema
Online? In print and online