Submit to Literature/Film Quarterly
Overview
Literature/Film Quarterly is an academic journal devoted to the study of adaptation. Founded in 1973 by Thomas Erskine and James Welsh, the journal has for forty years now been a forum for this subject. We have a history of publishing both established scholars and new critical voices, and we welcome contributions from both. We are a peer-reviewed, internationally distributed, quarterly publication.
Editorial History and Approaches to Adaptation Studies
In the past four decades, the field of adaptation studies has undergone several different modes and emphases, and the essays published at our journal over that history reflect a range of approaches. We have published, for example, essays that fall squarely within the tradition of “fidelity studies,” particularly in our earlier years but even in our most recent issues, and we have equally published essays that call for an end to such approaches, ones that emphasize intertextuality or that speak to entirely different concerns altogether. We do not currently promote any one attitude towards the way adaptation studies should be practiced; instead, we try to rely on our writers to set the direction of our discourse. Because, however, we rely on them in this way, it is imperative that writers who publish in our journal be aware of the long-running discussions and debates within adaptation studies, even if an individual essay is not designed to address such concerns in an explicit manner.
A Note on Engaging with Scholarly Discourse
Especially with case studies, but equally with more large-scale kinds of inquiries, writers need to think carefully about how their own work engages with and adds to a larger subject of scholarly interest. One of the chief reasons essays do not make it past the initial vetting phase is that they have not yet identified a larger body of concerns to which they wish to respond. Make sure your work reflects this consideration.
Potential Subject Matter for Essays
Given the relative openness of our current editorial policies, the potential subjects of submitted essays have a large range of topics, and as with any academic journal, being familiar with our publication prior to submission is essential. We thus strongly recommend you examine one of our more recent issues to gain a sense of the kind of writing that tends to be published in our pages.
Possible subjects for our articles have a considerable range but in general should fall within adaptation studies. Such subjects would include, but are not limited to, the following:
· case studies of individual adaptations, whether addressed through “fidelity” rubrics, intertextuality, industrial history, ideological context, audience reception, political economy, or some other concern altogether (or quite possibly a combination of these concerns)
· discussions of multiple adaptations along the same lines
· broadly conceived intertextual projects tracing ideas across multiple media and addressing concerns pertinent to adaptation studies
· reflections on adaptation theory or the field of adaptation studies as a whole
· historical or archival projects related to adaptation, or studies of adaptation as an industry
· the pedagogy of adaptation studies
· critical-biographical studies of screenwriters, directors, or other personnel as they relate to adaptation studies
· interviews with such figures as they relate to adaptation studies (please see subheading “Interviews” below)
· responses to any articles and reviews published in Literature/Film Quarterly
· any other project that speaks to adaptation studies in some way
A Note on the Subject of Film and History
Our journal has in the past very often served as a forum for the study of film and history; given the close ties between that body of interests and adaptation studies (some would say, in fact, they are one in the same), we continue to see writers in our pages engage with those issues. Some of these submissions, however, may be better directed to other journals that serve those interests more directly (we can suggest some of them, should you be interested). In any case, writers whose work falls within film and history should take care to address the ways their work equally is of interest to adaptation studies.
Length, Format, and Submission Procedures
Articles should ordinarily be between 5,000 to 6,500 words, though occasionally we will run longer pieces if we feel the extended length is warranted and it would not put undue strain on publishing our current backlog of accepted essays in a timely manner. We do not consider simultaneous submissions. The New MLA Style must be followed for documenting sources and listing them in Works Cited.
Please send a copy of your manuscript and cover sheet as separate documents in Microsoft Word format to litfilmquart@salisbury.edu.
Should you have an interview in mind, you may contact us with an initial query email (litfilmquart@salisbury.edu), and we will let you know if we believe your interview might be of interest to our readers. From there, once you have conducted the interview, you will be responsible for transcribing and editing it—and possibly condensing it, in the case of longer conversations—before submitting for evaluation. Interviews normally run about 5,000 words, though we will consider shorter interviews and, in some exceptional cases, longer ones.
Please bear in mind that our initial interest in an interview does not guarantee publication in our journal once the interview has been conducted, as it will still need to be evaluated; this is equally true of any interviews you may have already conducted before you contact us about our interest in them. In both cases, should we decide not to publish, you may feel free to submit your interview elsewhere, but the interview should not be under consideration anywhere else while it is under review or after acceptance. As with book reviews and essays, we do not consider simultaneous submissions. If you are unfamiliar with our past interviews, we recommend you consult either one of our back issues containing an interview or the collection Conversations with Directors: An Anthology of Interviews from Literature/Film Quarterly (Scarecrow, 2008) for a sense of the range of approaches various interviewers have taken over the years.
Images
We have a separate image use policy which we will provide you should your essay be accepted for publication. Please feel free, however, to supply images with a first submission. Images may be saved to CD or flash drive or emailed as attachments to our journal email address.
Copyright
It is a condition of publication that authors assign copyright of their articles to Literature/Film Quarterly at Salisbury University. This enables us to ensure full copyright protection and to disseminate the articles, and of course the Journal, to the widest possible readership in print and electronic formats as appropriate. Articles published by this journal do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its editors and are not the legal responsibility of Literature/Film Quarterly.
Further Information
For further queries about specific articles or reviews, please contact us at litfilmquart@salisbury.edu.