International Journal of Alterity

The International Journal of Alterity (IJA) focuses on the dynamics of “otherness” and the complex intersections that exist within the broader issues of marginality and discrimination across a wide range of identities—including sex, race, ethnicity, religion, class, and gender—both historically and in a contemporary context.

IJA invites scholars from the social sciences and the humanities—and beyond—to submit (1) original papers and review articles; (2) research notes; (3) personal perspectives; (4) conference reports; and (5) book reviews that encourage critical reflection and enrich the academic and public debate on these matters. Contributions from policymakers, practitioners, and activists are also welcome.

IJA is run by an international editorial board and is peer-reviewed by a diverse group of scholars and experts from a wide range of academic disciplines. By providing a dedicated space for innovative and rigorous scholarship, the journal aims to be a leading voice on the politics of alterity and the fight against antisemitism and other forms of discrimination and exclusion.

Editor-in-Chief

Charles Asher Small, Founder and Executive Director, Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP); Research Associate, St Edmund’s College, Cambridge

Members

Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., Senior Fellow for Divinity and Interdisciplinary Studies, Duke University

Claire Finkelstein, Algernon Biddle Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy, Faculty Director, Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL), University of Pennsylvania

Joël Kotek, Institut Jonathas, University Professor Emeritus, Belgium

Judit Bokser Liwerant, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Cary Nelson, Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Professor of English Emeritus, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

David Patterson, Hillel A. Feinberg Distinguished Chair in Holocaust Studies, University of Texas at Dallas

Miriam Wagner, Executive Director of the Woolf Institute and Fellow of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge

Laurie Zoloth, Margaret E. Burton Professor of Religion and Ethics, University of Chicago

Managing Editor

Daniel Stephens

Advisory Board

Navras J. Aafreedi, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Presidency University, Kolkata, India

Mary J. Ainslie, Associate Professor, University of Nottingham Ningbo China

Samuel Feldberg, Academic Director, StandWithUs Brasil

Katherine Harbord, School of Humanities and Social Science, Liverpool John Moores University

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, Research Fellow, Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP)

Dyanne K. Martin, Assistant Professor of English and Core Studies, Wheaton College, Illinois

Manel Msalmi, Founder and President, European Association for the Defense of Minorities, Brussels

Yossi Shain, Professor (Emeritus), Georgetown University and Tel Aviv University

Lihong Song, Department of History, Tsinghua University, China

Sheree Trotter, Founder and Co-Director, Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem

Michal Vašečka, Program Director, Bratislava Policy Institute

Meng Yang, Assistant Professor, Peking University

Dalia Ziada, Senior Fellow for Research and Diplomacy, Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs

IJA practices double-blind peer review for papers, review articles, and research notes. The names of authors of articles are not divulged to peer reviewers, and the names of peer reviewers are not divulged to authors. In most cases, personal perspectives, conference reports, and book reviews are not sent out for peer review. They are commissioned by the editors and receive in-house editing.

When articles are submitted to IJA, one or more of the journal’s editors makes an initial assessment to determine whether the article will be sent out for peer review or, alternatively, returned to its author with an explanation of why it will not be considered further for publication in the journal. The editor or editors might recommend that the author make specific revisions that would put the article into a condition more suitable for it to be sent out for peer review.

If the topic and theoretical underpinning of the article are deemed suitable for the journal, and if the article meets an acceptable standard of professional scholarly writing, the editors obtain at least one peer review for every article. Most articles sent out for review by IJA will receive more than one evaluation. Since IJA is an interdisciplinary journal, the editors make a conscientious effort to obtain peer reviews from the most important relevant disciplines.

When all peer reviews have been obtained, the author receives anonymized versions of the evaluations and an editor’s cover note summarizing the evaluations, reflecting on them, and informing the author about the disposition of the article. An article could be accepted without further revision or accepted provisionally on the condition that certain specific revisions be made. The article could be rejected outright, with no recommendation for resubmission. Or the article could be rejected in its current form but the author invited to consider revising the article and resubmitting it.

An author whose article has been accepted provisionally on the recommendation that certain specific revisions are made has fifteen working days to revise and return the article.

If an author chooses to revise and resubmit a rejected article, they are requested to specify precisely what revisions have been made in response to the peer reviews and the editor’s recommendations for revision. Authors may appeal an editorial decision by writing to the editors and making a case for why the editors should reconsider their decision.

All manuscripts and other contributions must be submitted as electronic file attachments in MS Word format.

IJA follows the most recent (i.e. 18th) edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. All references should adhere to its “notes and bibliography” system, with the exception of book reviews (see below). A detailed list of CMOS sample citations is available for free here. For specific questions, please consult the relevant section of the manual. In most cases, you will have free access to the online version of the manual through your university library.

When you submit a manuscript to IJA we will take it to imply that the manuscript has not already been published or submitted elsewhere. If similar or related work has been published or submitted elsewhere, then you must provide a copy with the submitted manuscript. You may not submit your manuscript elsewhere while it is under consideration by IJA. Plagiarism, including duplicate publication of your own work (in whole or in part) without proper citation, is not tolerated.

Authors are not required to disclose the use of assistive AI tools (e.g. for improving readability or language) but must review all AI-assisted content prior to submission to ensure its accuracy and integrity. IJA discourages the use of generative AI in the writing process. Any other use of this technology, for example for generating or interpreting research data, must be disclosed and properly cited. Authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for all AI-generated content, which must undergo rigorous human review to avoid factual inaccuracies, bias, plagiarism, and copyright infringement.

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check that their manuscript complies with these guidelines and with the specific guidelines outlined below. Submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines may be returned to authors.

IJA generally publishes articles of 5,000–10,000 words, including notes. Research notes and personal perspectives should be 2,000–5,000 words in length. Longer submissions are welcome but please contact the editors to discuss this prior to submitting your manuscript.

Articles should feature a title page that includes your name and institutional affiliation. They should also be accompanied by a 150-word abstract of the article, a 75-word biographical note, and your full contact information (e-mail, mailing address, and telephone number).

Aside from its title page, your article should not contain any biographical or identifying information, such as your name, institutional affiliation, or references to previous publications (e.g. “see my chapter …”). This is to ensure the anonymity of the peer review process.

To submit an article, or ask a question about the submission process, please send a message to [email protected].

Submission Guidelines for Book Reviews

IJA generally publishes book reviews of approximately 2,500–4,500 words. Book reviews do not include footnotes or endnotes.

Quotations from the book being reviewed should be followed by the page number in brackets. For example: Jackson notes in Chapter III that in this instance “correlation does not equal causation.” (185)

In lieu of footnotes or endnotes, references to other publications should be formatted parenthetically as follows: (see, for example, Hannah Johnson, Blood Libel: The Ritual Murder Accusation at the Limit of Jewish History [University of Michigan Press, 2012]).

Bibliographic information about the book(s) reviewed should be presented as follows at the head of the review: Hirsh, David. Contemporary Left Antisemitism. Routledge, 2017. 176 pages. £16.99.

Include your name and institutional affiliation at the end of the review.

To submit a review, or ask a question about the submission process, please send a message to [email protected].

General Style Guidelines

–    Text should be single-spaced and in a 12-point font.

–    Spelling and punctuation should follow US style.

–    All formatting (bold, italic, paragraphs, headings, etc.) should be applied manually: do NOT use MS Word’s “Styles” function.

–    All headings and sub-headings within the article should be marked clearly and formatted consistently.

–    Footnotes (or endnotes) should always be inserted using MS Word’s “insert footnote” function.

–    Where available, references should include the relevant URL.

–    All illustrations, figures, and tables should be placed within the text at the appropriate point rather than at the end.

–    Quotations and “scare quotes” should both be indicated with double (not single) quotation marks.

–    Block quotations, which do not take quotation marks, should be indented evenly.

–    Spell “antisemitism,” “antisemite,” “antizionism,” and “antizionist” without a hyphen, except when the original spelling in a quote or in a publication title contains a hyphen.

–    Dates should be formatted in month/day/year style, e.g. January 1, 2024.

For more detailed guidance, the publisher’s style sheet is available here.

Transliteration

IJA asks that you use the Encyclopedia Judaica system for transliterating Hebrew. In any event, please make sure that a single transliteration system is used uniformly in your manuscript.

Permissions

Permissions, for print and digital content, including images, are to be acquired by the author. IJA is happy to provide any necessary documentation required to arrange for permissions. If you need to quote extensively from other works or wish to include other copyrighted material, you should seek permission (in writing) from the copyright holder. In most cases this will be the publisher of the original work; the author or originator of the original material should be asked for permission as well. Authors are responsible for taking care of reproduction fees, if any.

Images

Line art (e.g. line drawings, maps, and diagrams) should be submitted either in TIFF format with a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi or in EPS format. Photographs should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi and should be submitted in TIFF or JPEG format.

Include a list of captions to illustrations, diagrams, maps, etc. Numbers should clearly indicate to which photograph each caption belongs. Credit and permissions information should be included in the captions.

Copyediting and Proofreading

Once you receive your copyedited manuscript, you will have ten working days to review and return your article. You will also have ten working days to review and return your proofs.

If you have any questions about submitting or revising any part of your manuscript, please contact [email protected].

IJA is committed to providing unrestricted access to high-quality scholarship without financial barriers. We are therefore pleased to inform our contributors and readers that authors will not be not charged article processing fees (APCs) for the submission or publication of their articles.

IJA publishes open access articles under the terms of Creative Commons Licenses. Our standard license, the CC BY-NC, allows readers to excerpt and share your work for non-commercial purposes (such as a lecture or blog-post) so long as you are properly cited. Other licenses either forbid any derivatives being made of your work (e.g. CC BY-NC-ND) or allow substantive changes and commercial reuse (e.g. CC BY). We are happy to help you select the license that is most appropriate for your article and meets the requirements of your institution or funding agency.