Focus and Scope

The Journal of Transcultural Studies is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal committed to promoting the knowledge and research of transculturality. Initiated in 2010, it is published by the Heidelberg Center for Transcultural Studies (HCTS) at Heidelberg University and hosted by Heidelberg University Publishing (heiUP).

The Journal of Transcultural Studies aims to function as a forum for research on cultural, social, and regional formations that have been constituted and transformed through extensive contacts with other regions and cultures. While we view spatial mobility and circulation as a central dimension of transcultural processes, the latter are not synonymous with or reducible to the former. Research on transcultural perspectives is confronted with two major challenges: to uncover the dynamics of the multiple ways in which difference is negotiated and to find a conceptual language that can describe the transactions built into relationships across frontiers and as they unfold in local contexts. The journal welcomes contributions that investigate such processes from different disciplinary positions and reflect on methods of transcultural research.

As an e-journal, The Journal of Transcultural Studies provides contributors with a number of advantages not available in traditional printed form, such as the possibility to include a variety of media content for an enriched textual experience, and quick discoverability and wide, global access through Open Access publishing. The Journal of Transcultural Studies does not limit word count and accepts a range of literary forms, from scholarly investigations with extensive documentation to scholarly articles, enhanced podcasts, English translations of scholarly works, review essays, and source materials. While contributions are written in English, vernacular scripts are added if necessary.

Peer Review Process

All original submissions are first assessed by the editors to gauge their principal suitability for our journal. All selected submissions then undergo a rigorous double-blind peer review to assure the quality of our publications. We aim to receive two reviews for each selected submission. The criteria of the review include:

• Factual relevance and timeliness of the topic
• Originality of the approach
• Reflection of transcultural research
• Transparency of the procedures, methods, and results (if applicable)
• Traceability of results (if applicable)
• Structural coherence and logical progression within the work

We ask our reviewers to furnish us with their review within four weeks. The reviewers are selected based on recommendations from our Editorial Board members and/or from our extensive pool of reviewers.

Publication Frequency

All original submissions undergo a rigorous double-blind peer review by one external and one internal reviewer. After a submission is accepted for publication, it will be carefully copy-edited and prepared for print. There are two volumes per year, one in June and one in December. The submission deadline for a year's first volume is March 1st, and September 1st  for the second.

Open Access Policy

The Journal of Transcultural Studies is an open-access gold e-journal. We do not charge any author processing fees (APC) or article submission fees. All content is published under a Creative Commons licence (CC-BY-NC). See also the "Copyright Notice" under Guidelines for Submissions.

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The Journal of Transcultural Studies strives to ensure the quality of its publications. It maintains high standards of ethical behaviors that must be followed by all parties involved in the act of publishing. This includes the author, the journal editor, the peer-reviewers, and the publisher. Our publication ethics and malpractice statement derives, in part, from COPE's Code of Conduct for Publishers and has been tailored to meet the scope of The Journal of Transcultural Studies’s needs and aims. For more information please refer to the journal's Ethical Guidelines. 

General Guidelines

This journal uses Open Journal Systems 3, which is open source journal management and publishing software developed, supported, and freely distributed by the Public Knowledge Project under the GNU General Public License.

Equal publishing opportunity

Submissions are chosen based on their intellectual merit, not on the basis of the author’s race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnicity, citizenship, or political philosophy.

Confidentiality

The editors and editorial staff will not disclose information related to a submitted manuscript to anyone outside the peer-review process. Only reviewers, editorial advisors, and the publisher will have access to the information and may communicate with each other, as deemed appropriate.

Publisher’s Duties

The publication of submitted manuscripts requires the approval of the editors. The editors follow the policies set forth by the journal’s editorial board and is constrained in their decisions by any legal requirements that may be in effect regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.

Reviewers’ Duties

Reviewers assist the editors in determining the submission’s relevance and suitability for the journal. They may also help the editors in improving the quality of the paper, if accepted.  They are expected to meet and review the submission in a manner and timeframe that ensures the highest quality. All submitted manuscripts are dealt with by reviewers in strict confidentiality, according to those standards established above in the general guidelines section. The reviewers are required to treat each submission objectively; personal opinions about the author are irrelevant to the process and considered inappropriate. All reviewers must explicitly detail and express their views with clear argumentation. They should carefully review manuscripts for plagiarism or for poorly cited materials.

Author’s Duties

Authors should submit original work with a clear discussion of its significance and contribution to the field of transculturality. Data and evidence should be accurately cited and properly represented. Fraudulent or intentionally inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and will not be tolerated, resulting in the immediate denial of the manuscript’s publication. In general, the author should not submit work that has appeared in other publications. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently is considered unethical and will not be accepted. If the author finds a significant error in the published work, the author is obliged to notify the journal’s editors and work with the editorial staff in rectifying the problem.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

Firstly, authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CCBY) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. Secondly, authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. Thirdly, authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

The journal publishes texts in US English with vernacular scripts in the original and transcription included wherever appropriate. 

Submissions should follow the most recent issue of The Chicago Manual of Style, be sent as MS-Word files, coded in UTF8, and formatted according to the Author Style Guide. Referencing also adheres to the guidelines of The Chicago Manual of Style and be given either in Humanities or Author-Date style.

We ask that digital resources be submitted separately to the text document during the uploading process. Please note that authors are responsible for obtaining copyright-clearance on all reproduced materials.

Gold Open Access Policy

The Journal of Transcultural Studies provides immediate open access to all published content.