Literature, Critique, and Empire Today
Literature, Critique and Empire Today (formerly the Journal of Commonwealth Literature) is internationally recognized as the leading critical and bibliographic forum in the field of postcolonial and global literatures. It provides an essential, peer-reviewed reference tool for scholars, researchers, and libraries.
Three of the four issues each year are dedicated to the latest scholarship on all aspects of postcolonial literary studies. We welcome a wide range of critical and theoretical submissions on Anglophone and non-Anglophone literatures that have been shaped by the continuing legacies of the British Empire. The fourth issue provides a comprehensive bibliography of publications in the field. Read more about the Bibliography issue here.
We welcome articles, as well as proposals for special issues and symposia, on established and emerging areas in the field, including but by no means limited to: Indigenous studies, settler colonialisms and their contexts, postcolonial book and translation studies, postcolonial geographies, postcolonial health humanities, postcolonial environmental studies, refugee and diaspora studies, decolonizing methodologies, and the field’s intersections with gender, sexuality, religion, class, and caste. We also welcome interventions that think critically about innovating and reforming the field still widely known as “postcolonial” literary studies to address its reach, its critical foothold on contemporary realities, and its limitations.
Literature, Critique, and Empire Today was founded in 1966 as the Journal of Commonwealth Literature. The reason for the title change is provided here.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
All issues of Literature, Critique and Empire Today (formerly the Journal of Commonwealth Literature) are available to browse online.
Now in its sixth decade, Literature, Critique, and Empire Today (formerly the Journal of Commonwealth Literature) is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal. Internationally recognized as the leading critical and bibliographic forum in the field of postcolonial literatures, the journal publishes work on the following areas of research:
- theories and strategies of anticolonial resistance
- race and racialization
- postcolonial publishing studies
- postcolonial geographies
- Indigenous studies
- settler colonialisms
- postcolonial health humanities
- postcolonial environmental studies
- comparative postcolonial studies
- refugee and diaspora studies
- decolonizing methodologies
- neoliberalism in the Global South
- postcolonial genre and popular fictions
- languages and translation
- the field’s intersections with gender, sexuality, religion, class, and caste
The journal is committed to publishing scholarship on literatures written in non-European languages in postcolonial contexts. While the journal’s key focus is on literary studies, broadly understood - poetry, life writing, short fiction, creative non-fiction, drama, and the novel - we also publish critical work on film, performance, and other visual media.
We welcome proposals for special issues or symposia on any of the above. We also publish scholarly interviews with key figures in the field. As the fourth issue of each year is a comprehensive bibliography of publications in the field, the journal does not publish book reviews.
All peer review is double anonymized and submissions are always reviewed by two referees.
| Rehana Ahmed | Queen Mary University of London, UK |
| Nadia Atia | Queen Mary University of London, UK |
| Shital Pravinchandra | Queen Mary, University of London, UK |
| Lucinda Newns | Bishop Grosseteste University, UK |
| Diana Mudura | University of York, UK |
| Elleke Boehmer | University of Oxford, UK |
| Laurence Breiner | Boston University, USA |
| Claire Chambers | University of York, UK |
| Ralph Crane | University of Tasmania, Australia |
| Corinne Fowler | University of Leicester, UK |
| Rachael Gilmour | Queen Mary University of London, UK |
| Shane Graham | Utah State University, USA |
| Faye Hammill | University of Glasgow, UK |
| Caroline Herbert | Leeds Beckett University, UK |
| Hugh Hodges | Trent University, Ontario, Canada |
| Coral Ann Howells | University of Reading, UK |
| Graham Huggan | University of Leeds, UK |
| Michelle Kelly | University of Oxford, UK |
| Malashri Lal | University of Delhi, India |
| Dr Nukhbah Langah | Forman Christian College University, Pakistan |
| Arini Loader | Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand |
| Gail Low | University of Dundee, UK |
| John McLeod | University of Leeds, UK |
| Lindsey Moore | Lancaster University, UK |
| Peter Morey | University of Birmingham , UK |
| Stephen Morton | University of Southampton, UK |
| Pablo Mukherjee | Warwick University, UK |
| Stephanie Newell | Yale University, USA |
| Brendon Nicholls | University of Leeds, UK |
| James Ogude | University of Pretoria, South Africa |
| Ranka Primorac | University of Southampton, UK |
| Gillian Roberts | University of Nottingham, UK |
| Minoli Salgado | Sussex University, UK |
| Dennis Walder | The Open University, UK |
| Susan Watkins | Leeds Metropolitan University, UK |
| Marike Beyers (South Africa) | Amazwi South African Museum of Literature, Grahamstown, South Africa |
| Victoria V. Chang (the Caribbean) | The University of West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago |
| Joel Deshaye (Canada) | Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada |
| Laura French (Australia) | University of Western Australia, Australia |
| Catherine Gillard (Australia) | University of Western Australia, Australia |
| Lynne Grant (South Africa) | Amazwi South African Museum of Literature, Grahamstown, South Africa |
| Nathan Hobby (Australia) | University of Western Australia, Australia |
| Van Ikin (Australia) | University of Western Australia, Australia |
| Kirstine Moffat (Aotearoa New Zealand) | University of Waikato, New Zealand |
| Mafruha Mohua (Bangladesh) | University of London, UK |
| Mahruba T. Mowtushi (Bangladesh) | BRAC University, Bangladesh |
| Grace Musila (East and Central Africa) | University of Stellenbosch, South Africa |
| Payal Nagpal (India) | University of Delhi, India |
| Shyamala A Narayan (India) | Jamia Millia Islamia, India |
| S. Walter Perera (Sri Lanka) | University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka |
| Muneeza Shamsie (Pakistan) | "A" Street, Defense Housing Project, Karachi, Pakistan |
| Ismail S. Talib (Malaysia and Singapore) | National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore |
| John Uwa (West Africa) | University of Lagos, Nigeria |
Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Literature, Critique, and Empire Today (formerly Journal of Commonwealth Literature)
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.
- Article Types
- Editorial Policies
2.1 Peer Review Policy
2.2 Authorship - Publishing Policies
3.1 Publication Ethics
3.1.1 Plagiarism - How to Submit your Manuscript
- Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement
5.1 Sage Choice and Open Access - Declaration of Conflicting Interests Policy
- Other Conventions
- Acknowledgements
8.1 Funding Acknowledgements - Permissions
- Manuscript Style
10.1 File Types
10.2 Journal Style
10.3 Reference Style
10.4 Manuscript Preparation
10.4.1 Keywords and Abstracts: Helping Readers Your Article Online
10.4.2 Corresponding Author Contact Details
10.4.3 Guidelines for Submitting Artwork, Figures and Other Graphics
10.4.4 Guidelines for Submitting Supplemental Files
10.4.5 English Language Editing Services - After Acceptance
11.1 Proofs
11.2 E-Prints
11.3 Sage Production
11.4 Online First Publication - Further Information
Literature, Critique, and Empire Today (formerly the Journal of Commonwealth Literature) is internationally recognized as the leading critical and bibliographic forum in the field of postcolonial and global literatures. It provides an essential, peer-reviewed reference tool for scholars, researchers, and libraries.
Three of the four issues each year are dedicated to the latest scholarship on all aspects of postcolonial literary studies. We welcome a wide range of critical and theoretical submissions on Anglophone and non-Anglophone literatures that have been shaped by the continuing legacies of the British Empire. The fourth issue provides a comprehensive, very popular, and widely-read bibliography of publications in the field.
Articles submitted should be 7,000–7,500 words in length.
Literature, Critique, and Empire Today has discontinued its 'Books Received' section and does not carry book reviews. However, the annual Bibliography issue of the Journal includes discussion of critical and creative texts, published in the previous year, from the following regions: Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, East and Central Africa, India, Malaysia and Singapore, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and West Africa. If you would like a book related to one or more of these regions to be included in the listings of the Bibliography issue and to be considered for a brief review within the introduction for a particular region, please contact the bibliography editor, Dr Lucinda Newns, to put you in touch with the author of the appropriate section of the Bibliography. Read more about the Bibliography issue here.
Literature, Critique, and Empire Today operates a double anonymized peer review process in nearly all cases, such that the reviewer's name is withheld from the author and the author's name from the reviewer.
The only exceptions are in the cases of:
- interviews, which will not necessarily be anonymous because of the conversational format, and often go to one reader because they tend to represent a straightforward decision;
2) symposia, which may go to one reader, because the guest editor(s) of the symposium act as the second reader (of course that cannot be anonymous); - in complex cases, where the two reviewers do not agree, some articles are sent to a third reader.
All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, and an editorial decision is usually reached within 2 months of submission, although authors are told to expect a decision within 3-4 months in their acknowledgement email.
If you are asked to provide the names of a peer who could be called upon to review your manuscript, please note that 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 journal’s editors are not obliged to invite 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 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 see our guidelines on prior publication and note that Literature, Critique, and Empire Today 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.
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.
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
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Literature, Critique, and Empire Today 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.
4. How to Submit your Manuscript
Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you carefully read and adhere to all the guidelines and instructions to authors provided below. Manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
All new submissions should be made online at the Literature, Critique, and Empire Today Sage Track site: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/lcet
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 and persistent 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 our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account 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. Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement
Before publication Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor's Publishing Agreement. For more information please visit our Frequently Asked Questions on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
5.1 Sage Choice and Open Access
If you or your funder wish your article to be freely available online to non subscribers immediately upon publication (gold open access), you can opt for it to be included in Sage Choice, subject to payment of a publication fee. The manuscript submission and peer review procedure is unchanged. On acceptance of your article, you will be asked to let Sage know directly if you are choosing Sage Choice. To check journal eligibility and the publication fee, please visit Sage Choice. For more information on open access options and compliance at Sage, including self author archiving deposits (green open access) visit Sage Publishing Policies on our Journal Author Gateway.
6. Declaration of Conflicting Interests
Within your Journal Contributor's Publishing Agreement you will be required to make a certification with respect to a declaration of conflicting interests. Literature, Critique, and Empire Today does not require a declaration of conflicting interests but recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
None applicable.
Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.
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, writing assistance, or a department chair who provided only general support. Authors should disclose whether they had any writing assistance and identify the entity that paid for this assistance.
To comply with the guidance for Research Funders, Authors and Publishers issued by the Research Information Network (RIN), Literature, Critique, and Empire Today additionally requires all Authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit Funding Acknowledgement on the Sage Journal Author Gateway for funding acknowledgement guidelines.
Authors are responsible for obtaining 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 visit our Frequently Asked Questions on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
Only electronic files conforming to the journal's guidelines will be accepted. Preferred formats for the text and tables of your manuscript are Word DOC, RTF, XLS. LaTeX files are also accepted. Please also refer to additional guideline on submitting artwork and supplemental files below.
Literature, Critique, and Empire Today conforms to the Sage house style. Click here to review guidelines on Sage UK House Style.
Literature, Critique, and Empire Today has moved to the Sage Harvard reference style. Click here to review the guidelines on Sage Harvard to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
If you use EndNote to manage references, download the Sage Harvard output style by following this link and save to the appropriate folder (normally for Windows C:\Program Files\EndNote\Styles and for Mac OS X Harddrive:Applications:EndNote:Styles). Once you've done this, open EndNote and choose 'Select Another Style...' from the dropdown menu in the menu bar; locate and choose this new style from the following screen.
The text should be double-spaced throughout and with a minimum of 3cm for left and right hand margins and 5cm at head and foot. Text should be standard 10 or 12 point.
10.4.1 Keywords and Abstracts: Helping Readers Your Article Online
The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article online through online search engines such as Google. Please refer to the information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords by visiting Sage's Journal Author Gateway Guidelines on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
10.4.2 Corresponding Author Contact Details
Provide full contact details for the corresponding author including email, mailing address and telephone numbers. Academic affiliations are required for all co-authors. These details should be presented separately to the main text of the article to facilitate anonymous peer review.
10.4.3 Guidelines for Submitting 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.
10.4.4 Guidelines for Submitting Supplemental Files
This journal is able to host approved supplemental materials online, alongside the full-text of articles. Supplemental files will be subjected to peer-review alongside the article. For more information please refer to Sage's Guidelines for Authors on Supplemental Files.
10.4.5 English Language Editing Services
Non-English speaking authors who would like to refine their use of language in their manuscripts might consider using a professional editing service. Visit English Language Editing Services for further information.
We will email a PDF of the proofs to the corresponding author.
Sage provides authors with access to a PDF of their final article. For further information please visit http://www.sagepub.co.uk/authors/journal/reprint.sp.
At Sage we place an extremely strong emphasis on the highest production standards possible. We attach high importance to our quality service levels in copy-editing, typesetting, printing, and online publication (http://online.sagepub.com/). We also seek to uphold excellent author relations throughout the publication process.
We value your feedback to ensure we continue to improve our author service levels. On publication all corresponding authors will receive a brief survey questionnaire on your experience of publishing in Literature, Critique, and Empire Today with Sage.
A large number of Sage journals benefit from OnlineFirst, a feature offered through Sage's electronic journal platform, Sage Journals Online. It allows final revision articles (completed articles in queue for assignment to an upcoming issue) to be hosted online prior to their inclusion in a final print and online journal issue which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. For more information please visit our OnlineFirst Fact Sheet.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the Manuscript Submission process should be sent to the Editorial Office as follows: jcl_sagepub@candmdigitals.com