Southern Spaces is an open-access, multidisciplinary, digital journal that welcomes thoughtful perspectives about real and imagined places and spaces of the US South. We also invite research and commentary about the Global South. Rather than monolithic approaches to "the South," we encourage submissions that engage with historical developments and cultural expressions informed by critical regional studies. Southern Spaces is committed to publishing articles, reviews, photo and video essays that center on the place-based experiences of people and social groups that are often left out of mainstream narratives. We do not accept submissions that perpetuate or promote social inequality. While we publish many experienced writers and photographers, our journal is dedicated to supporting graduate students, early-career scholars, and activists throughout the publication process.

Southern Spaces invites submissions from scholars, photographers, journalists, and artists from a wide range of academic fields and interdisciplinary areas that engage with the US South and its global connections. Scholars working in southern studies, American Studies, African American Studies, Indigenous Studies, Latinx Studies, Caribbean Studies, and the Global South are encouraged to submit your work. Southern Spaces encourages intersectional approaches informed by women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, Queer studies, and feminist theory. We appreciate contributions from the humanities as well as the social sciences. We recognize the importance of work emerging from legal studies, public policy, and human rights, as well as research on public health, environmental justice, and medical humanities. Scholars in media studies, performance studies, musicology, and visual culture will also find Southern Spaces to be a valuable platform for exploring the cultural dimensions of transnational connections. Southern Spaces has a continuous publication schedule and accepts submissions throughout the year. The journal does not consider previously published work or simultaneous submissions.

Authors interested in submitting to Southern Spaces should complete the form below.

Publication Types

Southern Spaces publishes eight different genres of scholarship: articles, interviews, photo and media essays, videos, presentations, reviews, blog posts, and monographs. The best way to determine if your work would be a good fit for our journal is to browse the variety of work we have published.

All Southern Spaces articles and digital projects undergo a rigorous, double-anonymized peer review process, involving at least two external reviewers. Photo and media essays undergo a rigorous internal review and (depending on the content and nature of the essay and the wishes of the author) can undergo an anonymized peer review process with at least two external reviewers. All reviews, blog posts, videos, and presentations undergo a rigorous internal review process.

Articles

Articles are argument-driven, interpretive, or critical pieces that are the result of sustained scholarly engagement with a topic. We prefer that they incorporate multimedia, but they may start out resembling journal articles composed for print-based scholarly periodicals. The Southern Spaces editorial staff will work with authors to source appropriate multimedia, if needed.  Southern Spaces articles analyze and explore real and imagined places in the US South, making connections and comparisons between southern regions or locales and places in the wider world, or using textual, archival, and ethnographic data to challenge conventional ways of understanding the people, places, and cultures found in the South. All of our articles are written from the perspective of spatial critique and undergo a rigorous internal review in addition to a double-anonymized peer review process with at least two external reviewers. For more details, see the Peer Review Process section of this page.

Monographs

Longer than articles, monographs feature multimedia and digital elements and offer extensive analysis, critical interpretation, or an extended argument. Monographs undergo internal editorial staff review before they are placed into the anonymized peer review process with at least two external reviewers. Monographs emphasize a research subject and represent sustained engagement with a topic. Examples of Southern Spaces monographs include Dorothy Moye’s "Lift Every Voice and Sing: The Quilts of Gwendolyn Ann Magee" and Steve Suitts' "Segregationists, Libertarians, and the Modern ‘School Choice' Movement.”

Photo and Media Essays

Photo essays curate collections of original photography or other multimedia to perform the same kinds of critical work articles do: to analyze real and imagined places and spaces in the US South, to make connections between the South and other areas of the world, and to challenge conventional representations of the South. While primarily photographic or media-based, these photo essays should include an artist’s statement and may include additional critical writing. Photo and media essays undergo a rigorous internal review, and (depending on the content and nature of the essay and the wishes of the author) can undergo an anonymized peer review process with at least two external reviewers. There are no minimum or maximum word requirements for photo and media essay submissions.

Interviews

Interviews are video-recorded or transcribed, edited conversations with scholars, authors, artists, and other cultural producers studying aspects of space and place in the US and/or Global South. Interviews undergo internal staff review. There are no minimum or maximum word requirements for interview submissions.

Videos

Videos use visual—as opposed to textual or rhetorical—techniques to advance a critical argument or offer a narrative. The three types of videos we generally publish are:

1. Ethnographic: visual scholarship that is concerned with the analysis of culture, often using interviews and performance of particular human activity.
2. Documentary: a journalistic video that seeks to explore its content through visual evidence; and
3. Lyric: a video that engages in critique through affect, refrain, lyricism, and/or nonlinear sequencing and is primarily neither ethnographic nor documentarian.

We especially favor work that combines ethnographic, documentarian, and lyric techniques to produce evocative and incisive visual arguments. Depending on the content and nature of the video, we may or may not subject it to peer review (see the Peer Review Process section of this page for more details). We typically do not publish narrative or fictional films. Video submissions must include an artist statement.

Presentations

Presentations include the media associated with the public presentations of scholarly work. Such presentations include lectures, conference papers and panels, and other scholarly events of interest to the critical study of space and place.

Reviews

Reviews are critical evaluations of recently published books, film and video productions, digital projects, music, events, and other art or scholarship that relate to the study of space and place. Although we appreciate reviews that provide synopses of scholarly work, Southern Spaces reviews should also address the spatial dimensions of the work's arguments and its place in relation to existing scholarship. For more details, see the Book and Media Review Process section of this page. There are no minimum or maximum word requirements for review submissions.

Blog Posts

Blog posts are non-peer-reviewed publications that consist of topical and timely pieces of commentary and/or descriptions of websites, exhibitions, or events that we believe to be of interest to readers of Southern Spaces. Blog posts are our most informal publications, consisting of discrete, often diary-style entries. Although blog posts do not typically go through anonymized peer review, they are evaluated by Southern Spaces staff, and when appropriate, by external subject matter experts.

Formatting

File Formats

For primarily textual submissions, please submit a Microsoft Word document (.docx, .doc) or, if your piece requires complex formatting, a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. Please attach separate image, sound, and video files, even if the media should appear embedded in the text. Here is a chart of acceptable file types. For all media files, use the largest, highest quality version available.

• For text documents, we accept .doc, .docx, and .rtf file formats.
• For images, we accept .png, .tiff, and .jpg formats.
• For audio files, we prefer uncompressed audio in .wav or .aiff formats, but we also accept .mp3
• For video and film, we accept .mov, .avi, and .mp4 file formats.
• For digital projects, please submit a link to the project or contact the Managing Editor at seditor@emory.edu.

Document Formatting

Text documents should include a title, an abstract of less than two hundred words, citations in footnotes, and page numbers. Please use a legible font and double-spacing. If your article is accepted, you will be required to submit recommended resources (divided into "Text," "Web," "Audio/Video," and "Related Southern Spaces Publications") within 2 weeks of acceptance.

Style

We work from and prefer submissions formatted in accordance with the latest edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, but we also have a few house rules. Please consult our style guide.

Intellectual Property

Southern Spaces is an open-access journal, which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or their institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative definition of open access.

By submitting a piece to Southern Spaces, authors affirm that their work is original. Southern Spaces does not publish previously published work or pieces that are under consideration elsewhere. The journal does not publish work that has been falsified or misattributed in any way, including an author’s failure to cite their own work properly.

Contributors published in Southern Spaces retain the copyright of their work. At the time of publication, authors provide Southern Spaces with a non-exclusive right to publish and may also select one of the Creative Commons licenses listed below. Content is free to users. Any reproduction of original content from Southern Spaces not published under a Creative Commons license must a) give attribution to authors, b) not be used commercially, c) not be used derivatively, and d) should specify Southern Spaces as the site of original publication. If you wish to use the work commercially or derivatively, you must seek permission from the author. There is no cost to authors to submit to or publish in Southern Spaces. Published items will not be affiliated with a volume or issue but will be identified by date of publication and Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which may be found at the end of the publication.

Since 2014, authors may elect to license their work under the following Creative Commons licenses:

• Under a CC-BY (attribution) license, authors allow their work to be freely distributed, copied, and performed as long as users give credit to the original work. A CC-BY license also allows for derivative works. An author might choose this license if she wants to provide the greatest opportunity for reuse.
• Under a CC-BY-ND (attribution, no derivatives) license, authors allow their work to be freely distributed, copied, and performed as long as users give credit to the original work. Users may not make derivative works, such as those "consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship."

Peer Review Process

Our peer review process is designed to provide assurance to readers and authors that all scholarship published in Southern Spaces has attained a standard of excellence, as judged by researchers who have expert knowledge in the pertinent field. All Southern Spaces articles, as well as many photo and media essays, pass through a rigorous peer review after an internal review among editorial staff and/or editorial board members. Depending on the nature of the project, some videos are also peer-reviewed. (The overview text of videos will indicate if it has been peer-reviewed; if the overview text does not specify, then the video has not been peer-reviewed.) Reviews, blog posts, and interviews, even when solicited, undergo an internal review process and are held to the same standard of quality as our other publications. Regarding conflicts of interest, the editor will ensure an unbiased review process for submissions from themselves, other colleagues, and members of the editorial board.

Steps in the Peer Review Process

After an author submits a piece, two members of the Southern Spaces editorial staff review it and determine whether it is an appropriate fit for the journal. The editorial staff, in consultation with the managing editor and senior editor, may recommend rejection, revision, or proceeding directly to peer review. If an author receives a request for revision and chooses to revise and resubmit the submitted work, editorial staff members will reassess the revised piece to determine whether the author has addressed the reviewers' concerns.

If the editorial staff and senior editor determine that a submission is ready for peer review, the piece then proceeds to double-anonymized review by two scholars with expertise in fields relevant to the submitted work. Names of reviewers will not be released to authors, nor will reviewers know the identities of authors whose work they review. Reviewers are asked to evaluate the submission critically with respect to conformance to the journal's scope. Other factors considered include an examination of the work's significance, methods, academic rigor, responsiveness to the latest literature and debates, conclusions, references, and overall presentation. If revisions are called for, authors may review shared comments and have the option of resubmitting or withdrawing their submission from consideration. If an author chooses to resubmit, the senior editor and managing editor will reassess the piece in consultation with its peer reviewers to determine whether it has addressed the reviewers' concerns.

After a piece has been accepted for publication, the senior editor will complete line edits in consultation with the author to reach a layout-ready version of the work. At this stage, the editorial staff will also ask authors to verify the permissions status of any author-submitted media. Authors are responsible for acquiring the rights to use any media they have submitted. The editorial staff will then lay out and copyedit the article. Authors will have the opportunity to review the final version of the laid-out piece prior to publication.

The managing editor of Southern Spaces will keep all authors informed as to the status of their submissions throughout the process. Published items will not be affiliated with a volume or issue but will be identified by date of publication and Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which may be found at the end of the publication.

Book and Media Review Process

Southern Spaces publishes reviews of recent books, films, digital projects, photography, recordings, exhibits, events, and other forms of art and scholarship that relate to the study of space and place in the US South and its global connections. Southern Spaces publications foreground spatial analyses and make connections and comparisons between southern regions or locales and places in the wider world. Reviews should critically explicate and evaluate the work’s key arguments and contributions, drawing on the material to challenge conventional ways of understanding the people, places, and cultures throughout the South. Reviews should also assess the work’s significance to space and place, situating the material under consideration within relevant historiographies or artistic/aesthetic traditions.

Reviews published in Southern Spaces are typically 1000–2000 words in length, but we also consider longer review essays. If your review is accepted, you will be required to submit recommended resources (divided into "Text," "Web," "Audio/Video," and "Related Southern Spaces Publications") within 2 weeks of acceptance. We also encourage authors to suggest media to illustrate the review (e.g., audio or video clips, photographs, maps, or other figures). Reviews should conform to the Chicago Manual of Style’s notes and bibliography system. All citations of the work reviewed should feature the relevant page number(s).

Southern Spaces solicits reviews of specific texts, but we also welcome unsolicited submissions from new and seasoned scholars with expertise and interest in the following areas of inquiry: geography, southern studies, regional studies, women's, gender, and sexuality studies, public health, African American, Indigenous, and American Studies, spatial theory, and digital scholarship.

If you would like to suggest material for review or have any review-related questions, please contact the review editor at seditor@emory.edu

Internal Review Process

Due to our online and open-access format, reviews reach a large and diverse audience and remain archived on our website in perpetuity. Reviews undergo a thorough internal evaluation process and are held to the same quality standards as our peer-reviewed material. Please note that the solicitation of a review does not guarantee its acceptance for publication.

Book and media review submissions are assessed by staff members as well as managing and senior editors. Upon evaluation, some reviews will be accepted for publication, others will merit opportunities for revision and resubmission, and some will be deemed unsuitable for the journal. Once a review is accepted for publication, authors sign off on a final layout copy. The managing editor of Southern Spaces will keep all authors informed as to the status of their submissions throughout the process. Published items will not be affiliated with a volume or issue but will be identified by date of publication and Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which may be found at the end of the publication.

For questions or additional information about the journal and peer reviewed submissions, please contact:

Contact

Angelica Johnson, Managing Editor
seditor@emory.edu
Southern Spaces
Robert W. Woodruff Library
Emory University
540 Asbury Circle
Atlanta, Georgia 30322-2870

For questions or additional information about book and media reviews, please contact:

Review Editor
seditor@emory.edu
Southern Spaces
Robert W. Woodruff Library
Emory University
540 Asbury Circle
Atlanta, Georgia 30322-2870