Kanz Journal Submission Guidelines


Submission Criteria

Criteria for Submission to, and Potential Publication on, the Kanz popular academic journal website:

  1. We will consider for publication papers of 800 to 5,000 words. Papers may be written in English, Turkish, Arabic, or Russian and should partially or completely align with the following main goals:
    1. To examine diversity-in-unity and unity-in-diversity within faith traditions in general, and within the Islamic faith tradition in particular;
    2. To fathom the enduring wisdom of foundational sacred texts, rituals, and symbols;
    3. To be open to learning from the religious Other and to underscore the importance of spirituality as grounded in one’s particular faith tradition(s);
    4. To synthesize the approaches of modern religious studies and traditional religious disciplines, such that they may interest not only academics, but also all those who wonder about the relevance of religious traditions today. 
  2. Submissions that fall within the above guidelines will be considered for publication, provided they also meet the following criteria. They should
    1. draw on at least some current literary, historical, phenomenological, comparative, and theoretical methods of scholarly inquiry;
    2. wherever possible, minimize the use of technical terms, be accessible to less informed readers, and refrain, whenever possible, from using complicated phrases, sentences, or unusual idioms; 
    3. adopt an inclusive attitude toward the religious Other, or support other positions on demonstrable and well-articulated grounds;
    4. be informed, at least to some extent, by scholarship in modern religious studies and/or traditional religious disciplines, but also be comprehensible to a wide range of readers, lay and professional, religious and non-religious;
    5. acknowledge, implicitly or explicitly, the multiplicity of understandings and interpretations existing within different faith traditions of humanity;
    6. avoid turning a commitment to certain belief propositions, or features of one’s identity, into a source of conflict and division;
    7. show an awareness of the significance of the historical and cultural contexts in which the authors find themselves, as well as the significance of historical and cultural contexts when it comes to understanding and practicing one’s faith tradition; 
    8. include endnotes on all the works cited (Chicago, full citation), including page numbers, e.g.:
      1. Colin Turner, Islam Without Allah?: the Rise of Religious Externalism in Safavid Iran (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2000), 161-169;
    9. italicize Arabic or other non-English words; indicate quoted material; generally follow the spelling of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, i.e., U.S. English (abbreviations may be used, following the first use of the full form of name/title);
    10. transliterate foreign words in Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Urdu, etc., based on the ALA-LC Romanization Tables: Transliteration Schemes for Non-Roman Scripts, which is approved by the Library of Congress and the American Library Association (to consult their transliteration charts, visit https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html).

The Review Process for Submissions 

  1. Once an article is submitted, our editorial team (reviewers) will review it and determine whether the paper satisfies the abovementioned criteria. Our journal conducts its own, “in-house” review of the incoming papers in close coordination with the academic personnel of RGS. If all the reviewers deem the article to be satisfactory but in need of some revision, their recommendation(s) will be communicated to the author(s). If one, or some, reviewers deem the article to be satisfactory but in need of revision, the evaluation will be communicated to the journal’s managing editorial team – Dr. Albert Frolov, Beyza Nur Ugur, and Dr. Zuleyha Mary Fikret – who will decide whether the feedback should be forwarded to the author for revision and resubmission. In all cases, when the reviewers deem it appropriate to reject an article, they shall inform the author(s) of their decision and may provide a brief note on the reasons behind it.
  2. If no member of the editorial team offers feedback, four weeks after the team has received the article the project managers will conduct the review. In so doing, they shall consult at least one practicing and well-versed representative of the faith tradition(s) or philosophical school(s) within which, or about which, the article was written. 

Contents

All contributions should include the following material:

  1. A suggested title.
  2. Name(s), title, and institutional affiliation of the author(s).
  3. An abstract: No more than 200 words. 
  4. Length: Articles should have a minimum of 800 words and should not exceed 5,000 words (including footnotes). Kanz reserves the right to cut articles for length, in line with layout requirements. 
  5. Contact details: Authors willing to be contacted by Kanz readers should provide an e-mail address and/or Twitter tag for inclusion with their published material.
  6. Submission: Authors are encouraged to submit their manuscripts in Microsoft Word with standard macros, or the equivalent. Authors are asked to refrain from submitting material as PDF documents.
  7. Figures, illustrations, photographs, tables, and other scanned documents should be submitted in TIFF or JPEG format.
  8. The editors reserve the right to abridge or modify the contributions of authors in the interest of clarity of presentation, and to make linguistic and stylistic changes if necessary. These changes may be made without consulting the contributors. However, Kanz will send the final version of the document to the author for final approval prior to publication.

Submission Details

Articles should be sent to the Managing Editor, Dr. Albert Frolov at [email protected]

  1. Reprints: Kanz will hold all rights to published material.
  2. Copyright: Kanz asks for a letter of transfer of copyright from its authors. Upon acceptance of a paper for publication, the author will be sent a copy of this letter to be signed and returned to Kanz. 
    The fact that the author(s) submit work for publication is taken as an implied transfer of copyright. This transfer enables the publisher to protect the copyrighted material for the authors but does not interfere with the author's proprietary rights. Copyright of submissions remains with Kanz as long as the piece is not returned to the author.