Submission Guidelines
Comparative Literature welcomes essays that explore intersections among national literatures, global literary trends, and cultural history and theory. Our editors and editorial board welcome a broad range of critical approaches and are strongly committed to presenting the work of scholars breaking new ground in the field.
Manuscripts must not exceed 12,000 words (including notes), and include an additional 200 word abstract. We typically do not publish brief articles (fewer than 7,000 words) or notes, nor do we consider unsolicited reviews or review essays. Our journal has a blind submissions policy, and we ask that you please remove your name, affiliations and any other identifying information, throughout the manuscript. We limit our review to one submission per author every 24 months.
Submit essays through our Scholar One site. Our editorial office is closed from June 15 to September 15, so all submissions received during the summer will be reviewed when our office reopens in mid-September.
Our review process for submissions involves both an initial screening by our in-house editorial team and, for essays that pass the initial screening, evaluation by at least two expert readers. Your essay must not be submitted elsewhere until a decision has been reached by the journal's editorial board.
General Formatting:
• The essay should be formatted as a Word document.
• Use 12 pt. Times Roman font throughout (including notes).
• Double space throughout (including notes and block quotations).
• Set 1” margins on all sides of each page.
• Put page numbers in the upper right-hand corner of each page. Do not include any other material, such as a header or footer.
• Type all footnotes as endnotes (they will appear as footnotes in the published journal) and arrange the essay in the following order: Text, Endnotes, References, Figure Captions (if any).
• Follow US conventions for punctuation and spelling throughout.
Authors revising accepted submissions should conform to the more detailed style guide posted below. Please feel free to address any additional correspondence concerning submissions, editorial procedures, books for review to our editor, Michael Allan, and any queries about production or journal exchanges to our production editor, Leslie Rutberg. Both can be reached at cljournal@uoregon.edu.
Special Issues:
Comparative Literature is committed to remaining a venue for the unsolicited publication of peer-reviewed articles, which means we publish no more than one special issue per year. If you would like to be considered as a guest editor, please provide the following details in your proposal: a general overview of your issue, including a title and description (roughly 500 words); the title and abstract for each committed article (roughly 250 words each); and a short biography for each committed author (roughly 250 words each). The word count for the completed special issue should be between 60,000 and 75,000 words, which is typically no more than six essays. Proposals are reviewed once a year and must be submitted to cljournal@uoregon.edu by May 15.
Forms for authors of accepted manuscripts:
• Style guide
• Guidelines for keywords
• Publication agreement
• Permissions instructions
• Permissions form letter
