The Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (JJRS) is a peer-reviewed, academic journal specializing in the publication of research on the study of Japanese religions. The study of Japanese religions is conceived broadly to include scholarship focusing on religion in Japan, Japanese religion(s) outside of Japan, or issues in the field of Religious Studies relevant to Japan. The journal aims for a multidisciplinary approach to the study of religion in Japan, and submissions are welcomed from scholars in all fields of the humanities and social sciences. Manuscripts that meet these criteria and conform to the required scholarly conventions outlined in this style guide will be evaluated for publication.

Manuscript Submission Guidelines

Please contact us and provide the details of your manuscript before submission. If the manuscript meets the parameters of the journal, the editor will instruct you to submit it by email. If the files are too large to send as email attachments, manuscripts or accompanying materials can be sent via file-sharing software such as Dropbox, WeTransfer, etc. Hard copies of manuscripts are not accepted, and only complete manuscripts will be considered. Editors will not comment on preliminary or rough drafts, nor will they provide advice regarding outlines or proposals. Prospective authors are asked to read the style guide carefully before submitting manuscripts to the JJRS.

criteria for publication

Manuscripts and supplementary materials are evaluated and considered for publication based on the following criteria:

The topic and contents of the manuscript must concern Japanese religions or religion in Japan.
The manuscript meets scholarly standards regarding the use of primary sources and secondary scholarship as determined by the editors, editorial board, and anonymous reviewer.
The manuscript includes an original argument that advances the study of religion as it pertains to Japan.
The manuscript is not under review with another journal or publisher at the time of submission.
The contents have not been published elsewhere. Citing previous or forthcoming publications is acceptable, but the author agrees that the same text will not be republished.
Although there is no established limit regarding the length of submissions, JJRS articles are typically ten to fifteen thousand words and book reviews are between one to two thousand words. Exceedingly long manuscripts will be returned to the author for revision.
The JJRS only accepts translations of published articles from non-English language journals under the following conditions: all parties (author, translator, publisher, JJRS editors) agree to its republication, the original publication is included with the submission of the translation, and the draft cannot be translated by the author of the original article.
All requirements for submission listed below are met.

Submissions will not be evaluated unless these criteria are fulfilled. The JJRS reserves the right to retract acceptance of the manuscript at any time if it is discovered not to have met the designated criteria.

requirements for submission

To be considered for publication in the JJRS, submissions must include the following information:

Contact details of the author: name, affiliation, email, and mailing address.
Title page consisting of the title of the manuscript, an abstract (150–200 words), and five or six keywords related to the content. Authors should bear in mind that titles will be searchable in online databases, so long and overly specific titles are discouraged.
Completed manuscript, including footnotes.
List of references including primary sources mentioned in the text, secondary sources cited in the text, URLs for all websites, as well as DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) for relevant online publications.
All images, illustrations, or photographs must be submitted individually as JPG, PNG, or TIFF files. Tables and graphs should be submitted as individual files or spreadsheets.
The order of images, tables, and graphs, along with captions and acknowledgements, should be listed in a separate document or at the end of the manuscript.
Special fonts not available in unicode (for example, Siddham scripts) should be sent separately and placement in the manuscript should be clearly noted.
If submitting a translation, a copy of the text in the original language must be included.

All documents must be submitted in MS Word (doc or docx) and PDF format. If these formats are not available, please contact the editors for other options prior to submitting the manuscript.

Evaluation Process

Once the editors receive the submission as outlined above, they will review the manuscript internally to confirm whether it meets the JJRS’s criteria for publication. Once approved by the editorial board, the anonymous manuscript will then be sent to a specialist for peer-review. Reviewers are asked to select one of the following decisions regarding the submission:

rejection: The manuscript is not accepted. The same manuscript will not be considered for resubmission.
revise and resubmit: The manuscript is not accepted in its current form, but the author is encouraged to resubmit in the future after substantial changes have been made.
accept with major revisions: The manuscript is accepted with the condition that the author revises it as stipulated by the reviewer and editors.
accept with minor revisions: The manuscript is accepted with only a few minor suggestions for improvement.

The JJRS reserves the right to reject or delay the publication of manuscripts that fail to implement the suggested revisions.

Copyright

To facilitate possible future republication requests, the copyright for articles and book reviews published in the JJRS resides with the journal. The JJRS readily grants permission for the reprinting of articles and reviews without fees for reprinting. As a matter of courtesy, requests for republication will be forwarded to the author(s) for their consent. The JJRS also asks that publishers of republished articles send a complementary print copy of the publication to the library of the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture.

The JJRS is certified by Creative Commons as a cc by-nc 4.0 journal. As an open access journal, the contents of the JJRS are available for download on the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture website, JSTOR, and other databases of academic articles. Acceptance of this condition is implied by the author’s consent to publish in the JJRS. The selling or distribution of JJRS publications for profit is strictly prohibited. For further details, see cc by-nc 4.0 regulations.

The JJRS is a nonprofit publication. No fees, including Article Processing Charges (APC), are required for publication in the JJRS.

Staff

editor: Matthew D. McMullen

associate editor: Kaitlyn Ugoretz

internal editors: Suemura Masayo and Yamada Tomoaki

editorial board (2023–2027)

Barbara Ambros, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Anna Andreeva, Ghent University

Erica Baffelli, University of Manchester

Heather Blair, Indiana University

Clark Chilson, University of Pittsburgh

Lucia Dolce, SOAS, University of London

Helen Hardacre, Harvard University, Emerita

Hayashi Makoto, Aichi Gakuin University

Hoshino Seiji, Kokugakuin University

Kawahashi Noriko, Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture

Keller Kimbrough, University of Colorado at Boulder

Orion Klautau, Tohoku University

Levi McLaughlin, North Carolina State University

Lori Meeks, University of Southern California

Minowa Kenryō, University of Tokyo

Okuyama Michiaki, Toyo Eiwa University

Ian Reader, University of Manchester, Emeritus

Aike P. Rots, University of Oslo

Brian Ruppert, Kanagawa University

Jacqueline I. Stone, Princeton University, Emerita

Paul L. Swanson, JJRS Editor Emeritus

Jolyon B. Thomas, University of Pennsylvania

Duncan Ryūken Williams, University of Southern California

Yamanaka Hiroshi, University of Tsukuba