Political Theology Journal Open House and FAQ

Interested in publishing in the journal Political Theology? We will host an open house for prospective authors who wish to consider the avenues of publication with the journal. The Open House will be February 1 at noon Eastern via Zoom.

We encourage graduate students to senior scholars to join and meet with members of the Political Theology editorial collective. Political Theology supports an interdisciplinary approach to politics and religion via our aims and scopes, and foster a wide range of scholarly approaches within our academic community.

We have included regular FAQs about the journal’s processes and types of publication routes (not just peer reviewed articles!) below. To register for the Open House, click here.

Any questions? Contact Jacques Linder, Managing Editor, at jacques.linder@villanova.edu.

1. How does Political Theology conduct its peer review process? 

After an article is submitted to the Political Theology article submission portal, it will be vetted by one member of the Editorial Collective and the Managing Editor. The assigned editor will send your submission out for a double blind peer review. After the reviewers return their feedback and your editor reviews it, you will receive an email with a report and a decision. If it is a revise decision, you will have about four months (as an initial deadline, but we understand if things come up) to revise your manuscript and resubmit it to the portal. 

Depending on the decision returned from the reviewers, your revised manuscript could be returned to reviewers for their review. In other cases, your editor might make the final call on your revised manuscript. Then, it is off to publication! 

2. Who will see my article before publication? What are your metrics for publication? 

In the peer review process, two editors will vet your article, and two reviewers will provide feedback. Sometimes, editors might ask an additional reviewer to provide feedback in certain cases. 

The journal averages 45k views and downloads per year. 

3. When should I expect to hear back?

According to our recent metrics, you should hear back at least 50 days with a first decision. If it is sent out for peer review, you can expect to hear back with your peer review reports in about 215 days. Though, we are taking steps to get back to authors at a quicker rate.

4. The feedback I received seems to conflict, how can I incorporate both perspectives? 

Peer reviewers can sometimes write feedback that is hard to reconcile with each other. We encourage authors to consider the feedback that best suits their needs and argument and incorporate that. In your response to reviewers, you can explain your authorial choices to respond to one set of peer reviewer feedback more than the other. 

5. A traditional article might not be the best project I want to pursue right now, how else can I get involved with the journal?

The journal has many avenues to pursue publication. Along with the usual peer-reviewed article, we publish book reviews and special projects.

Book Reviews between 800 and 1,000 words are welcome for publication in the journal. Books that discuss political theology in a variety of (inter-)disciplinary ways are welcome. Generally, readers appreciate reviews that are about two-thirds or so descriptive and perhaps one-third analytical and evaluative.  If a book has a strong central thesis, readers are interested in the reviewer’s synthesis and critique of this.  These are only suggestions and you are invited to act on your best professional judgment. 

To propose a book to review, please contact the Book Review Editors that corresponds closest to your book’s topic(s):

Joshua Mauldin (joshua.mauldin@ctinquiry.org) Interests: Christian theology and ethics, law and religion, and political theology in China

Jean-Michel Landry (jeanmichel.landry@carleton.ca) Interests: secularism, ethics, law, sectarianism, literature, political theory, subject formation, the family, the Middle East, North America.

Yael Almog (yael.almog@durham.ac.uk) Interests: Jewish theology; literature and theology; modern political theory; feminist and queer theory

Wonchul Shin (wonchul.shin@villanova.edu) Interests: Christian theology and ethics, theory of violence, social movement theory, ethnographic research, Asian/Asian American studies, migration studies, and global studies

Special Projects include a range of possibilities: review essays, thematic discussions, round robin discussions on books, or interviews. They are usually shorter, 2500-3000 words, and do not go through a full peer review process. Often they attempt to bridge print and online mediums – for example, some special projects include shorter versions (1500 words) for The Brink (found on this website). 

Types of content include:

• Review essays of over 2000 words focus on the themes and ideas between a set of topical books or an author’s corpus. 
• Thematic Roundtables invite 3-6 scholars, activists, or community leaders together to discuss to the same set of questions around a topic
• Round Robin discussions welcome 2-4 authors who have written on similar topics in conversation with each other to interrogate the assumptions, contributions, and methods that each author brings to a field. 

Interviews involve conversations between someone who studies political theology and another person who is adjacent to the field and may have written a recent book of interest to the readers of Political Theology. Interviews intend to expand the conversation within political theology to welcome challenges and insights from the “field-adjacent” scholar. To propose a special project, email the special project editors: Milinda Banerjee (mb419@st-andrews.ac.uk), Méadhbh McIvor (meadhbh.mcivor@manchester.ac.uk), Benjamin Davis (benjamin.davis.1@slu.edu) and Matthew Elia (matthew.elia@slu.edu).

6. Who is the audience for Political Theology? 

Political Theology has historically appealed to scholars in Christian and Jewish theology, ethics, and continental philosophy of religion. However, in recent years, it has expanded to include anthropologists, ethnographers, literary scholars, legal scholars, feminist scholars, Indigenous studies scholars, Black studies scholars, scholars of Islam, and critical theorists. Depending on which conversation you’re speaking to, your paper might be reviewed by someone not in theology or religious studies. We see this as an opportunity to reach across disciplinary boundaries and place our authors in the position to benefit from two distinct voices. 

7. Is there a methodological preference for journal submissions? 

The journal welcomes papers from any methodical background. We appreciate a messy collaboration. However, we request that authors clearly explain within their article how they understand their method. Whether you understand political theology as the broad relationship between politics and religion or a narrow genealogy of secularized theological concepts, we would love to know that as we read your work. 

8. My article has been accepted! How long does the publication process take? 

Once an article, book review, or special project is accepted, it will usually be around a year to a year and a half to appear “in print” which means it will have an assigned volume and issue number. However, thanks to Taylor and Francis’s “early access” program, your article will be visible and citable as soon your return your prints to the publisher. That gets your article on your C.V. sooner than ever before!