Critical Research on Religion
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Critical Research on Religion is a peer-reviewed, international journal focusing on the development of a critical theoretical framework and its application to research on religion. It provides a common venue for those engaging in critical analysis in theology and religious studies, as well as for those who critically study religion in the other social sciences and humanities such as philosophy, sociology, anthropology, psychology, history, and literature.
A critical approach examines religious phenomena according to both their positive and negative impacts. It draws on methods including but not restricted to the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, Marxism, post-structuralism, feminism, psychoanalysis, ideological criticism, post-colonialism, ecocriticism, and queer studies.
The journal seeks to enhance an understanding of how religious institutions and religious thought may simultaneously serve as a source of domination and progressive social change. It attempts to understand the role of religion within social and political conflicts. These conflicts are often based on differences of race, class, ethnicity, region, gender, and sexual orientation – all of which are shaped by social, political, and economic inequity.
The journal encourages submissions of theoretically guided articles on current issues as well as those with historical interest using a wide range of methodologies including qualitative, quantitative, and archival. It publishes articles, review essays, book reviews, thematic issues, symposia, and interviews.
Submit your paper online at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/crreligion.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Critical Research on Religion is a peer-reviewed, international journal focusing on the development of a critical theoretical framework and its application to research on religion. It provides a common venue for those engaging in critical analysis in theology and religious studies, as well as for those who critically study religion in the other social sciences and humanities such as philosophy, sociology, anthropology, psychology, history, and literature.
A critical approach examines religious phenomena according to both their positive and negative impacts. It draws on methods including but not restricted to the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, Marxism, post-structuralism, feminism, psychoanalysis, ideological criticism, post-colonialism, ecocriticism, and queer studies.
The journal seeks to enhance an understanding of how religious institutions and religious thought may simultaneously serve as a source of domination and progressive social change. It attempts to understand the role of religion within social and political conflicts. These conflicts are often based on differences of race, class, ethnicity, region, gender, and sexual orientation – all of which are shaped by social, political, and economic inequity.
The journal encourages submissions of theoretically guided articles on current issues as well as those with historical interest using a wide range of methodologies including qualitative, quantitative, and archival. It publishes articles, review essays, book reviews, thematic issues, symposia, and interviews.
| Warren S. Goldstein | Center for Critical Research on Religion, USA |
| Roland Boer | Renmin University, China |
| Jonathan Boyarin | Cornell University, USA |
| Warren S. Goldstein | Center for Critical Research on Religion, USA |
| Bruce Worthington | University of Toronto, Canada |
| Robert M. Bosco | Centre College, USA |
| Christopher Craig Brittain | Trinity College, Toronto, ON, Canada |
| Néstor Da Costa | Insituto Universitario CLEAH, Uruguay |
| Matthew Del Nevo | Alphacrucis College, Australia |
| George J. González | Monmouth University, USA |
| Darlene Juschka | University of Regina, Canada |
| Chin Kenpa | Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan |
| Sergey Kozin | Russian Christian Academy of the Humanities, Russia |
| Lauren Langman | Loyola University, Chicago, USA |
| Vincent W. Lloyd | Syracuse University, USA |
| Kenneth G. MacKendrick | University of Manitoba, Canada |
| Andrew M. McKinnon | University of Aberdeen, UK |
| Seyed Javad Miri | Institute of Humanities and Cultural Studies, Iran |
| Jorunn Økland | University of Oslo, Norway |
| Christina Petterson | Humboldt University, Germany |
| Sarah M. Pike | California State University, Chico, USA |
| Michael Puett | Harvard University, USA |
| Jean-Pierre Reed | Southern Illinois University, USA |
| Tatiana Senyushkina | Taurida National University, Ukraine |
| Paul-Francois Tremlett | Open University, UK |
| Shuangli Zhang | Fudan University, China |
| Janet Afary | University of California, Santa Barbara, USA |
| Kevin B. Anderson | University of California, Santa Barbara, USA |
| William Arnal | University of Regina, Canada |
| David Chidester | University of Cape Town, South Africa |
| Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza | Harvard University, USA |
| Francis Fiorenza | Harvard University, USA |
| Jay Geller | Vanderbilt University, USA |
| Peter E. Gordon | Harvard University, USA |
| Marsha Hewitt | University of Toronto, Canada |
| Amy Hollywood | Harvard University, USA |
| Yang Huilin | Renmin University, China |
| Milena Kirova | University of Sofia, Bulgaria |
| Terence J. Lovat | University of Newcastle, Australia |
| Michael Löwy | Centre national de la recherche scientifique, France |
| Eduardo Mendieta | Penn State University, USA |
| Mansoor Moaddel | University of Maryland, USA |
| Adi Ophir | Tel Aviv University, Israel |
| Carsten Pallesen | University of Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Rudolf J. Siebert | Western Michigan University, USA |
| Randall G. Styers | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA |
| Kenneth Surin | Duke University, USA |
| Stefanie von Schnurbein | Humboldt University, Germany |
| Rhys Williams | Loyola University-Chicago |
| Lambert Zuidervaart | Institute for Christian Studies, Canada |
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics
This Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/crreligion to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Critical Research on Religion will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that Critical Research on Religion may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy.
If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.
If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal
- What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper - Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests
2.5 Research Data - Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Supplemental material
4.4 Reference style
4.5 English language editing services - Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions - On acceptance and publication
6.1 Sage Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article - Further information
Before submitting your manuscript to Critical Research on Religion, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
Critical Research on Religion encourages submissions of theoretically guided articles on current issues as well as those with historical interest using a wide range of methodologies including qualitative, quantitative, and archival. It publishes articles, review essays, book reviews, thematic issues, symposia, and interviews.
- Articles;
- Review Articles;
- Book Reviews;
- Thematic Issues;
- Symposia;
- Interviews.
Full papers are generally restricted to a maximum of 8,000 words. Please view the Critical Research on Religion style guide when preparing your manuscript for submission.
If you are submitting a book review please see the following book review guidelines.
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
Critical Research on Religion operates a strictly anonymous peer review process in which the reviewer’s name is withheld from the author and, the author’s name from the reviewer. Please ensure that you have read the manuscript submission guidelines before submitting your manuscript. Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Critical Research on Religion will be accepted for review. We aim for each manuscript that is accepted for peer review to receive three reviews but in any event, each manuscript is reviewed by at least two referees. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible.
As part of the submission process you will be asked to provide the names of peers who could be called upon to review your manuscript. Recommended reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Please be aware of any conflicts of interest when recommending reviewers. Examples of conflicts of interest include (but are not limited to) the below:
- The reviewer should have no prior knowledge of your submission,
- The reviewer should not have recently collaborated with any of the authors,
- Reviewer nominees from the same institution as any of the authors are not permitted.
Please note that the Editors are not obliged to invite/reject any recommended/opposed reviewers to assess your manuscript.
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
2.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.
2.3.2 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance.
It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.
Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.
2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests
Critical Research on Religion encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations here
The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.
Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:
- share your research data in a relevant public data repository
- include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
- cite this data in your research
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.
3.1.1 Plagiarism
Critical Research on Religion and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway.
3.3 Open access and author archiving
Critical Research on Religion offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
Please only use Word to format your manuscript. Sage has a Word template and guidelines to help you format and structure your article, with useful general advice and Word tips. For book reviews please use the following book review guidelines.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.
Critical Research on Religion adheres to the Chicago Manual of Style. Please ensure that your paper adheres to the author/date referencing system (chapter 15).
4.5 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
Critical Research on Religion is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/crreligion to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
Please note that you may only submit one article at a time for review in Critical Research on Religion. If you have an article currently in review with the journal, the editors reserve the right to reject further submissions until such time as the original paper has completed the review process
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique andpersistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.
The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in ouronline peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCIDaccount and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.
6. On acceptance and publication
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Critical Research on Religion editorial office as follows:
Warren S. Goldstein
Critical Research on Religion
goldstein@criticaltheoryofreligion.org.