Submissions
The journal of Black Women and Religious Cultures (BW&RC) welcomes submissions by Black women or about Black women of any generation and identity from any geographic area of Africa and the African Diaspora. BW&RC publishes interdisciplinary critical scholarship on Black women's intersectional realities in relation to religions and spiritualities of local, national, and transnational contexts. BW&RC encourages broad reading of sites of religion and spirituality, including connections to social issues, cultural practices and constructions, politics, law, activism, the arts, education, ritual, sacred texts, gender and gender identities, the environment, and more. BW&RC affirms use of a wide range of singular and mixed methodologies that provide rigorous analyses, rich theoretical construction, and convincing creative interpretations by or about Black women and religious cultures. Submissions (including essays and creative expressions such as poetry) that expand intellectual, canonical, and epistemological perspectives by Black women or on Black women’s realities in any historical era are welcomed. BW&RC does not consider submissions that are being reviewed elsewhere.
Statement on Plagiarism: Authors and contributors have an obligation to ensure that all work submitted as their work is in fact the original work of the author or contributor. This includes the entire manuscript; ideas, data, research, research processes, and research findings included in the manuscript; and images. Authors and contributors are further obligated to fully acknowledge any of their prior writing and the work of others which are included in the submission. Any use of AI and AI-technologies should be disclosed to BW&RC. BW&RC will identify these disclosures in the author’s work. BW&RC does not consider AI and AI-technologies as authors; authors should not list or identify AI and AI-technologies as authors or co-authors.
Formatting: Generally, manuscript lengths are 24 to 32 double-spaced pages, approximately 6,500 to 10,000 words (excluding the abstract, notes, and bibliography). Essays must include an abstract of not more than 200 words. All manuscripts undergo double-blind peer review. Authors should use full Chicago humanities citations as endnotes only. Notes should precede a fully formatted bibliography. Manuscripts must be double-spaced, left justified, using 12-point Times New Roman type, and submitted as Microsoft Word .docX files. To facilitate anonymous peer review, author names should be indicated on a separate cover page but NOT be included on any other page within the submission. The cover page should include the title of the submission, the author’s (s’) name(s), institutional affiliation(s), and any acknowledgments. The first page of the submission should include the title and the abstract. Manuscript file names should not include any element of the author’s name. As an online journal, BW&RC welcomes short videos, photographs or images, and fair use links that enhance the submission intellectually. BW&RC reserves the right to reject such additions that editors deem as inappropriate. Authors are responsible for securing permissions for publication of images that are not original work as well as permissions for other non-fair use materials.
Book Reviews: Click this link for book review guidelines. Submit your review using the form below.