Submission Guidelines

Environmental Humanities publishes articles, provocations, review essays, short commentary pieces, and entries in the Living Lexicon for Environmental Humanities. 

Information on these formats and on how to submit a proposal to the journal is provided below. All submissions made to the journal should be the original work of the author(s) and should not have been published or be under consideration for publication with another journal or publisher. Some exceptions may be made; please contact the editors to discuss further. All word counts are inclusive of notes and references.

General information on formats

Articles should be 5,000–9,000 words in length. As an interdisciplinary, international journal, we are particularly interested in publishing articles that are both accessible and of interest to a wide audience within the environmental humanities and beyond. Articles are rigorously peer-reviewed following standard academic double-blind procedures.

Provocations should be 5,000–9,000 words in length. This section provides a space for writing that grapples with an important topic in a passionate and insightful way. Often contributions are a little less "academic" in style and are deliberately designed to push scholarship in a particular, often uncomfortable, direction—in short, to provoke. These articles are double-blind peer-reviewed in the standard manner employed by the journal.

Review essays should be 3,000–6,000 words in length. They should offer in-depth discussion of new and/or significant texts in this emerging interdisciplinary field (ideally, 2–3 books or other substantial texts). Review essays should aim to be evaluative but also synthetic and generative, exploring emergent themes or gaps in scholarship and drawing together ideas and conversations to position them within (or in relation to) the broader environmental humanities. Environmental Humanities does not publish single book reviews. Review essays are peer-reviewed following standard academic double-blind procedures.

Commentary pieces should be 1,000–3,000 words in length. The commentary section of the journal is a space for informed discussion of key themes in the environmental humanities, especially as the field is taking shape in the published work in this journal. Contributions are expected to connect to and engage with discussions in this journal and beyond. These pieces are not peer-reviewed but are moderated by the editorial team.

Environmental Humanities in Practice articles should be 3,000–5,000 words. This section offers a peer-reviewed space for critical reflection on creative expression in environmental humanities; on artistic, civic, pedagogical and policy practices that inform and/or relate to environmental humanities; and for reflections on and with community practitioners. It acknowledges, presents, and discusses the intellectual and practical engagements with the journal’s interests beyond a narrowly conceived academy. As such, articles in this category should be written in highly accessible language. We particularly encourage submissions from practitioners beyond the academy and from collaborations between academics and other individuals and groups. These articles are double-blind peer-reviewed.

Living Lexicon for the Environmental Humanities entries should be roughly 1,000 words in length. These pieces are both scholarly and creative and include personal reflections by authors and experimental musings based on their own research. The Lexicon aims for concise, provocative prose rather than dictionary-style entries. Lexicon entries are peer-reviewed using a standard double-blind process.

Submitting all article types except Commentary

Submissions to Environmental Humanities should be made in the form of a 250-word abstract emailed to the editors at  [email protected]. Abstracts should outline the topic, approach, and conclusions of the article. In addition, review essay abstracts should list the texts to be discussed and note the broader thematic issues to be explored in the essay. All submissions should include a title and full contact details for the author(s) and should be submitted as a Word or RTF file rather than as a PDF or in the body of an email. On the basis of the submitted abstract, the editors will determine whether a full article/essay should be submitted. Turnaround for abstracts will generally be two weeks. If an article/review essay is submitted and deemed to be suitable for publication by the editorial team, it will be refereed following standard double-blind academic peer-review procedures.

Submitting a Commentary piece

Rather than submitting an abstract for a Commentary piece, the article itself should be submitted. As there is no external peer-review process for these pieces, authors do not need to remove identifying features from them. The editorial team will review all Commentary submissions and determine whether they are appropriate for publication in the journal. If so, they will provide editorial feedback. Turnaround for a reply to Commentary pieces will generally be four to six weeks. A full draft of a proposed commentary piece can be emailed to the editors at [email protected].

Submitting a special issue or section proposal

The journal is not currently accepting proposals for special issues.

Environmental Humanities frequently publishes collections of articles compiled by guest editors. These special issues or sections include anywhere from three to ten articles and might include contributions in various formats. As a general rule, the journal does not commit to publishing collections with open calls for papers. Instead, we ask guest editors to identify a concrete set of papers and to complete and return a copy of our Special Issue Proposal Form. Decisions about which special issues to publish are made by the journal's Management Committee. While we expect guest editors to play the lead role in editing these collections, two or more members of our permanent editorial team are allocated to each special issue to provide ongoing input and assistance. Special Issue Proposal Forms should be emailed to the editors at [email protected].

Formatting an initial submission

Environmental Humanities is published in English with US English spelling conventions. The journal uses The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition. Citations should take the form of footnotes, and a full bibliography should be included. Submissions should be formatted in 12-point Times New Roman, left justified, and 1.5 spaced. No indication of the author’s identity or institutional affiliation should be included (so as to facilitate standard blind peer review). Authors should also remove any references to their own work within the text and replace them with "Author" and the year of publication. Headings should be in bold on a separate line but otherwise should be formatted the same as the main text.

Formatting an accepted manuscript

Once an article is given final acceptance for publication, we ask authors to ensure that all formatting conforms to the journal's style guide.