CALL FOR PAPERS
'NEW AGE' STUDIES: RECONFIGURING THE FIELD
A special issue of Culture and Religion scheduled for May 2003
After an explosion of (largely) Euro-American publishing on 'New Age
Religion' and the 'New Age Movement' in the 1990s - including several
pioneering collections and monographs - it's time to take stock of the
general field of 'New Age studies' and map out fresh agendas for
fruitful categories, methods, theories and case studies in relation to
this dynamic and heterogenous field of popular and 'alternative'
religious, spiritual and healing practices. Culture and Religion, the
new international interdisciplinary journal (est.2000) published by
Routledge and edited at the University of Stirling, Scotland, UK,
welcomes article submissions blending new theoretical agendas with
innovative case studies for a special edition on 'New Age studies' to be
edited by Dr. Steven Sutcliffe, co-editor of 'Beyond New Age: Exploring
Alternative Spirituality' (2000) and author of 'Children of the New Age:
A History of Spiritual Practice' (forthcoming 2002).
The dominant discourse has favoured sociological representations of a
'New Age Movement' and has focused largely on ideas and beliefs. What
have been less forthcoming are detailed and contextualised ethnographic
case studies, fine-grained historical and genealogical analyses and
sustained consideration of the relationship between popular publishing
and practitioners' use of texts. With a few notable exceptions, the
academic 'canon' on New Age has under-explored the application of
contemporary theory - particularly relating to queer, gender, social
class and ethnicity issues - and so submissions seeking to apply these
and other theoretical innovations to particular case studies are
welcomed. In all cases submissions should address questions of
definition and demarcation with regard to the term or idiom 'New Age'.
Detailed terminology and category analyses in the tradition of the
history of religions that can reclaim, replace or subsume the taxon 'New
Age' are also welcomed.
Deadline for submissions is November 1st 2002; the special edition of between 6 to 8 papers is scheduled to appear as Culture and Religion vol.4 no.1 in May 2003.
Culture and Religion: Notes for Contributors
Culture and Religion encourages article submissions on theory, methodology, and detailed case studies in the academic study of religion and culture, particularly those which seek to re-examine and develop critical perspectives in this area.
Articles for the 'New Age' Studies issue should be sent to the Guest Editor:
Steven Sutcliffe
Culture and Religion
Dept of Religious Studies
University of Stirling
Stirling, Scotland FK9 4LA
UK Tel: +44 (0)1786 466 240
Fax: +44 (0)1786 466 233
Email: steve.sutcliffe@stir.ac.uk
Manuscripts should be between 5,000-8,000 words in length. All submitted articles must be original and not be under consideration by any other journal. Articles are sent to two anonymous referees for comment before a decision is made on publication. The follow guidelines should be conformed to when preparing an article for submission to Culture and Religion. Articles which are not submitted in the correct format will be returned to the author for modification before being read.
Authors should submit three copies of double-spaced, single-sided typescript on A4 paper with margins on all four sides of at least one inch (2.5cm). The type should be of sufficient quality for photocopying.
All pages should be numbered.
A title sheet should be attached which includes the title of the paper,
the author’s name(s), and the author’s current address. The manuscript
itself should contain the title of the paper, but not the author’s name.
An abstract of 100-150 words should be included on a separate sheet,
along with a short note of biographical details. Once an editorial decision has been made to proceed with publication,
the author will need to supply the manuscript in electronic form
(preferably formatted), for example on disk or by email.
Sub-titles should be typed in lower case and begin from the margin. The
first line of paragraphs should be indented by approximately 0.25 inch
(0.6cm). Tables and figures should be kept as simple as possible and put
on a separate sheet(s), with captions and tables typed out. The
approximate position of tables and figures should be indicated in the
text (e.g. ‘Table 1 about here’).
Numbers up to ten should be written in words, except for measurements. Abbreviations should be written without full stops (USA, FBI). Quotations within the text should be enclosed within single quotations marks, but quotes within quotes should be enclosed in double quotation marks. Long quotations of more than forty words should be typed in an indented paragraph, single-spaced, and without quotation marks. In general UK English spellings and formatting should be used (e.g. words should end with -ise and not -ize, centre not center, etc.).
All references should be indicated within the text, giving the author’s name, the date of publication, and the page reference: e.g. Clifford (1997:22). If a footnote is necessary, it should not be used for citation, and all footnotes should be typed together on a separate sheet - clearly numbered - at the end of the text, before the bibliography.
The style of the bibliography should be as follows:
For books:
Clifford, James. 1997. Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late
Twentieth Century. Cambridge, Massacheusetts and London: Harvard
University Press.
For articles in books:
Gupta, Akhil and James Ferguson. 1997. ‘Beyond “Culture”: Space,
Identity, and the Politics of Difference’, in Culture, Power, Place:
Explorations in Critical Anthropology, ed. A. Gupta and J. Ferguson.
London: Duke University Press.
For articles in journals:
O’Connor, J. 1989. ‘Rereading, Reconceiving and Reconstructing
Traditions: Feminist Research in Religion’, Women’s Studies, 19
(1):101-23
