The Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture Needs You!

by Lucas Johnston · Published November 9, 2017 · Updated November 10, 2017

Dear ISSRNC members and friends,

It’s been an important year for the ISSRNC and for its affiliated journal the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture (JSRNC). The ISSRNC has enjoyed an increasingly structured administrative capacity, with both new graduate students and longtime members becoming increasingly committed to its success. Its sustainability is now evident: going on its twelfth year of existence, and now an official affiliate of the International Association for the History of Religion (IAHR), it continues to grow and thrive. The Society’s affiliated journal, the JSRNC, has become the preeminent publication in our field. We consistently produce high quality content for our ISSRNC members, and for the broader scholarly community, by recruiting and retaining the best talent in our field. The JSRNC is managed by an entirely volunteer workforce who cares for, and contributes to our scholarly community in important ways.

This is where you come in: we want to continue to publish this superior product for our scholarly community, but we need human power to do so. There are at least two ways in which you can help us to fulfill our mission:

1) Help us organize a special issue of the JSRNC by recruiting scholars who are in your academic orbit, around a topic you think might appeal to our readership. Perhaps you might reach out to those with whom you participated in a panel at a recent conference (at an ISSRNC conference or elsewhere), or perhaps you already know people in your network who might help. Guidelines for our special issues are available here.

2) Volunteer to help with the journal. Our greatest current editorial needs are for book reviews coordinators and editorial assistants.

Book reviews coordinators assist the book reviews editors by soliciting book reviews directly from well-known scholars, tracking the reviews, and assisting with quality control on the reviews. The benefits include personal interactions with known scholars in the field, expanding your professional network. In addition, it makes it easy to keep abreast of the latest literature in a wide variety of relevant fields. In addition, you can learn the ways in which journals operate from the inside out, providing you with valuable experience in your own publishing endeavors.
Editorial assistants do much of the same work, except they work on article submissions, rather than on book reviews. They communicate with external peer reviewers about the quality of submitted articles, and track articles through the review process. In some cases, more advanced scholars review initial submissions themselves, assessing whether or not they are ready for peer review. Again, this is an opportunity for scholars to expand their professional networks, and to remain up-to-date with important scholarly research.

The JSRNC is wrapping up its 11^thyear of quarterly publication, and the Society is entering a new phase as its membership expands and diversifies. This is an exciting time. We hope you will join us in our mission, and in energizing our ongoing work. We look forward to your submissions, and to working with you.

Contact Lucas Johnston, Amanda Nichols or Bron Taylor for more info!