The Journal of Southern Religion: A New Volume and a Peek at the Future

Charles McCrary

As you may have seen, the Journal of Southern Religion recently released its 18th volume. Go check it out now! It includes a forum on southern religion in the Atlantic World, edited by JSR associate editor and RiAH’s own Emily Clark. The forum features three pieces—from Alexis Wells, Thomas Little, and Christopher Jones, respectively—with a response from Jon Sensbach. As Sensbach asks, “how did religions cross the Atlantic from Europe and Africa and take root in the South? How did religion transform the geographic region we call the South while connecting it to distant points around the Atlantic littoral?” If you want some answers, read the forum! Volume 18 also includes sixteen book reviews, some of which are among the first reviews for these books. Last year the JSR adopted a “rolling release” model. Rather than releasing the entire volume at one time, the journal is published a few times throughout the year. This allows us to have book reviews out earlier than many print publications.

What’s on the horizon for the JSR? Thank you for asking. We’ll have more book reviews, of course, as well as articles later this year. And, this fall we will publish another forum, this one a roundtable on “southern religion” through its dissenters, outsiders, and critics. We have five great contributors lined up, and it’s going to be awesome.

What else is in the JSR’s future? Maybe you are! The journal accepts submissions at any time. (See submission guidelines here.) The journal traditionally has published mostly history pieces, but we remain very interested in other disciplinary and methodological approaches, including political theory, critical theory, ethnography, and literary studies. If your work has something to do with “religion” and “the South” (both broadly construed, of course!), then the JSR just might be for you. Send something in and stay tuned for more releases.