OPEN CALLS

The Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (JSAMES) is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal sponsored by Villanova University’s Center for Arab and Islamic Studies (CAIS) and published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

The JSAMES is interested in interdisciplinary scholarship that explores the unique political, social and economic formations and their historical antecedents that contribute to region-making in our contemporary age. The JSAMES is edited by Samer Abboud, PhD, Villanova University. Further journal information, including a list of editorial board members is available on the University of Pennsylvania Press website.

The JSAMES seeks to publish a range of scholarly and creative contributions through Research Articles, Forums, and our al-Maydan section.

Research Articles

We invite scholars to submit research articles that advance the JSAMES vision of encouraging interdisciplinary scholarship grounded in multi-sited and multi-lingual approaches to understanding the world. We are particularly interested in scholarship that takes the South Asian and Middle Eastern macro-region as the starting point for thinking through the world and across various geographies, languages, identities, exchanges, flows and networks that shape the lifeworlds of people in the macro-region and beyond. We encourage authors to consider how certain forms of knowledge from within the region have been marginalized or excluded from the structures of knowledge production about South Asia and the Middle East and to think expansively about what materials, sources, languages and texts they draw on in their scholarship.

Format

Research article manuscripts must be submitted via JSAMES’ Scholastica page. Please be sure to consult the Research Ethics in the Middle East and North Africa (REMENA) prior to submitting your manuscript. The JSAMES uses the 18th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, and follows shortened notes and bibliography style. For specific examples, visit our detailed Style Guidelines.

All submissions must include:

• a title
• an abstract of up to 250 words
• no more than 5 keywords
• 7000-9000 words manuscript

Articles can be submitted in .doc or .docx formats. Figures, graphs, and other images can be uploaded as attachments.

For any inquiries, please contact our Managing Editor Dina Baslan at dina.baslan@villanova.edu. All articles published by scholars based in Global South institutions will be made Open Access (OA) for JSAMES readers.

Forums

Through our Forums section, we invite scholars to develop essays in a shared publishing space that adopt inter-connectedness as method in new and generative ways. We see the Forum sections as a space for theorizing and illuminating the historical depth of contemporary transformations. Critical, multi-sited submissions that question and make visible inherited scales as an artifact of power, while also exploring new units of analysis, are highly encouraged. The Forums are conceived as spaces for interdisciplinary conversation between and among scholars around organized themes, methods, concepts, and/or languages.

This Call for Forums should be of interest to research networks, informal collaborations, and others whose shared vision for collective research is consistent with JSAMES goals for the Forums section and our overall mission.

Format

Forum submissions should include contributions from 6-8 scholars with each essay around 4,000 words. Forum organizers are invited to write a brief introduction to the forum tying the contributions to the central theme. We encourage facilitating collaborations between scholars from different parts of the world, with the expectation of the final scholarship be delivered in English. Such collaborations are especially welcome and will have a higher likelihood of being invited to submit. We are also open to dynamic collaborations between, for example, artists and scholars, or creative submissions, broadly understood.

To express interest in submitting a forum, please send Managing Editor Dina Baslan (dina.baslan@villanova.edu) the following:

• two page overview of the forum drafted by the organizer(s)
• list of the names, university affiliations, and research interests of the 6–8 contributors
• working title and 200-word abstract for each contribution
• note identifying the status of the collaboration and whether participants have already held workshops or organized conference panels together
• Realistic timeline for submission of the collection for peer review.

Your proposal will be reviewed by the editor, managing editor, and a select group of editorial board members. Forum submissions will undergo a double-blind peer review process which will determine the final publication decision.

Please send your submission inquiries to dina.baslan@villanova.edu and samer.abboud@villanova.edu.