SUBMISSIONS
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Guidelines for Submissions
1. Introduction
Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context is an international journal published twice a year on March 31 and
September 30, covering cultural studies in the Asian context. We welcome articles that cover topics related to the distinct regions and cultures of the continent. While we are based in Northeast Asia and many of the articles we have published
have come from scholars working in this region, we seek to examine issues of significance in a wider Asian context that
includes Southeast Asia (Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore,
Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam), South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka), the Central Asian republics of the
former Soviet Union (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) and West Asia (the Middle East).
The subject of cultural studies is understood to include both the traditional forms of the novel, poetry and drama and the newer cultural forms of television and film, advertising and fashion, social structures and habitus. We are interested in
the issues of ideology, class, nation, race and ethnicity, sexuality and gender, technology; and we follow developments in
stylistics and semiotics, history, philosophy and science, feminist and queer theory, social and political theory, literary,
film and media studies, museum and art history studies.
2. Peer Review Policy
Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context adheres to a rigorous double‒blind reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and the author are concealed from both parties. Decisions on manuscripts will be taken as rapidly as possible. Authors should expect to have the reviewer’s comments within approximately 6‒8 weeks.
The Editor will make an initial review of all received manuscripts, and only those manuscripts that meet the journal’s
editorial standards and mandate will be sent for outside review. Each manuscript will be reviewed by at least two
referees. A final editorial decision will be reached after the editor is in receipt of the reader reports.
3. A List of Peer Reviewers
When submitting a manuscript to Situations: Cultural Studies in the Aisan Context, we strongly recommend appending
a list of potential peer reviewers. This list should consist of accredited academics with strong records of publication in the
area of concern for your manuscript. We have found that a list of four names is usually sufficient. The list should include
the name of the academic, his or her academic affiliation (typically, the relevant department and university), a current
email address, and an indication of the peer reviewer's major research area or short list of relevant recent publications.
4. Statement of Ethics
Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context is committed to meeting and upholding a high standard of ethical
behavior at all stages of the publication process. As editors, we consider it an essential part of our ethical responsibility
to be aware of the potential for ethical misconduct and to develop strategies for coping with it.
This potential for ethical misconduct involves three parties. For our part, we will do our best to ensure that our editorial
decisions are fair, unbiased and transparent. Likewise, we expect the same awareness from our journal's peer reviewers.
Finally, we require that each author confirm that all work in the submitted manuscript is original and that he or she
acknowledges and cites content reproduced from other sources. What is more, the author understands that the submitted
manuscript should neither be under consideration for publication nor have been accepted for publication elsewhere. Any
detected case of misconduct, whether on the part of the author, the reviewers or the editor, will be vigorously pursued.
The following comments are intended to flesh out an understanding of these matters.
The Peer Review Process: Whenever possible, Situations aims at completing the overall peer review process within a
reasonable period of time. Typically, we will aim at six months, from reception of the manuscript until submission of the
verdict. This process can be broken down into a number of intermediate steps.
Following receipt of the author’s submission, the editor shall determine whether the manuscript is of sufficient
worthiness to be sent out for peer review. If the editor decides that it is not, he or she will return the manuscript to
the author with a negative editorial verdict. An immediate negative editorial verdict will normally be sent within three
months of the original reception of the author’s manuscript.
Situations follows a double-blind peer review process. If the editor decides that the manuscript is worthy, he or she will
send it out to two independent peer reviewers, both of whom will possess either knowledge of the research area or a
broad understanding of the issues dealt with in the manuscript. During the course of this process, the name of the author
will not be revealed to the two peer reviewers.
Attendant upon the speedy cooperation of the independent peer reviewers, the final editorial verdict will be made
following receipt of the two reviews. This process will not normally exceed six months.
In the case of a peer reviewer who fails to submit a review in a timely manner, the editor reserves the right to resubmit
the manuscript to an alternative reviewer.
In the event of two positive peer reviews, the editor will decide that the essay should be accepted. In the event of two
negative peer reviews, the editor will decide that the essay should be rejected.
In the event of a split decision, the editor will then send the manuscript out to a third reviewer for a deciding opinion. In
cases of a split initial decision, the peer review process will naturally be extended, though not normally more than three
months.
For their part, the peer reviewers understand that a submission should not be rejected without sufficient reason and
particularly for the reason that the submission does not match the reviewer's own point of view. If the editor believes
that a peer reviewer has rejected a manuscript for idiosyncratic personal reasons, he or she may ignore the review in
order to seek out an unbiased second opinion.
Peer reviewers are expected to write up reviews that offer clear guidelines for the revision of the manuscript. Although it
is not possible to set a limit to the number of specific changes requested, the peer reviewer should not try to make the
review process unusually onerous. Beyond a certain unspecified number of critical revisions, it becomes more courteous
simply to reject the manuscript.
During the course of the peer review process, the peer reviewer may neither reveal nor quote the content of the
submission reviewed without the specific permission of the submitting author.
Plagiarism: The author submits a manuscript on the clear understanding that the work submitted is original—that is,
the main bulk of the material is fresh research that the author has not previously published elsewhere. The author also
submits the manuscripts with the understanding that he or she has properly acknowledged and cited all material taken
from the work of other scholars. In other words, Situations does not accept manuscripts that are the result of self-
plagiarism or the result of the plagiarism of the work of other scholars.
Should a manuscript be suspected of plagiarism, a committee will be set up to investigate. This committee will consist of
the managing editor and journal editors as well as of one scholarly expert chosen from outside. The author will be
informed of the journal’s concerns by institutional e-mail, and he or she will then be given one month’s notice of this
meeting. He or she will then be invited to write up a self-defense, should he or she choose to do so. The meeting will
then be convened and a verdict reached.
There are two penalties for proven acts of plagiarism: (a) admonition, in the form of an institutional e-mail sent to the
author. An admonition will be made in the case of minor acts of plagiarism, ones which appear to be the result of
scholarly carelessness rather than the desire to deceive; (b) a five-year ban on the submission of subsequent work to the
journal and a written note sent by e-mail to the author’s institution, informing them of the verdict. A publication ban will
be made in the case of major acts of plagiarism, ones that appear to be the result of active scholarly misconduct.
5. Article Types
Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context publishes original essays, book reviews, and the occasional translation of essays or book chapters that the editorial committee determines to be of significance.
6. Submitting Your Manuscript
Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure that you carefully read and adhere to all the guidelines and
instructions to authors provided. Manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Authors submitting manuscripts do so on the understanding that the work has not been published previously or is under consideration for publication elsewhere. The manuscripts should be sent to the editor at the address below.
Books for review and manuscripts of reviews should be sent to the editor at the address below.
7. Declaration of Conflicts of Interest
Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context does not require the author to submit a Declaration of Conflicting
Interests. However, you may wish to review the good practice guidelines of a reputable publishing house. For example,
Sage has useful information on this subject.
8. Acknowledgements
Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article before your Declaration of Conflicts of Interest
(if applicable), any other written material and your Notes.
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.
9. Acknowledgement of Funding
To comply with the guidance for research funders, authors and publishers issued by the Research Information Network
(RIN), Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent
fashion under a separate heading.
10. Permissions
Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere.
11. Manuscript File Type
Only electronic files conforming to the journal’s guidelines will be accepted. Preferred formats for the text and tables of
your manuscript are MS Word [*.DOC].
12. Artwork, Figures and Other Graphics
You should use only black‒and‒white artwork, figures and other graphics to accompany your essay. Please consider the
issue of reproduction quality when choosing your graphics.
13. Reference Style
With certain exceptions, Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context follows the Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.).
Specifically, while the general citation format is based on the Chicago Notes-Bibliography style, we do NOT use footnotes
or a separate Bibliography. Instead, we recommend the use of endnotes only for all your references and any additional
comments you might have. These should come under the heading, “Notes.” The “Notes” should be listed flush left
immediately after the last paragraph of your essay. No parenthetical documentation should be used to cite your sources.
Notes: The notes should be kept brief and will typically include the complete cited reference. Further argumentation in
the Notes is discouraged; all genuine argument should be placed in the body of the text or otherwise simply omitted.
Please note that numbers in the text should be superscripted and placed at the end of the clause or sentence they
support. With the exception of the dash, the numbered reference should be placed after the final punctuation mark.
The first line of an endnote is indented 0.5 cm from the left margin.
Page Number Ranges: For page numbers below 100, use all digits (e.g. 1‒8, 3‒10, 71-79). For page numbers over 100,
use two digits to indicate ending pages, unless more are needed to avoid confusion (e.g. 92‒125, 100‒04, 217‒45, 285‒321, 995‒1003, 1098-175).
Some Citation Examples:
Books: Given Name Family Name, Title of Book (Place of publication: Publisher, Year), page number.
Examples:
- Single author: William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 271.
- Two authors: Scott Lash and John Urry, Economies of Signs & Space (London: Sage Publications, 1994), 241‒51.
- Translation: Julio Cortázar, Hopscotch, trans. Gregory Rabassa (New York: Pantheon Books, 1966), 165.
- Edited book: Edward B. Tylor, Researches into the Early Development of Mankind and the Development of Civilization, ed. Paul Bohannan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 194.
Journal Articles: Given name Family name, “Title of Article,” Journal Title volume number, issue no. (Year of publication): page number.
Ex) Susan Peck MacDonald, “The Erasure of Language,” College Composition and Communication 58, no. 4
(2007): 619.
Online Sources: Given name Family name, “Title of Web Page,” Publishing Organization or Name of Website in Italics,
Publication Date, if available, URL.
Ex) Mister Jalopy, “Effulgence of the North: Storefront Arctic Panorama in Los Angeles,” Dinosaurs and Robots, January 30, 2009, accessed March 5, 2011, http: //www.dinosaursandrobots.com/2009/01/effulgence-of-north-storefront-arctiic.html.
Date of Access: These are required for internet sources, except for credited sites, such as newspapers, institutional
archives and other permanent sites; when in doubt, we recommend that you do provide the date you accessed the
website. For more information, please visit the Chicago Manual of Style homepage.
14. Referencing Full-Length Korean, Chinese and Japanese Works
If you need to transcribe specific lexical items from the original language, items that you feel resist translation, we
recommend the McCune‒Reischauer system for Korean, the Pinyin system for Chinese, and the Romaji system for
Japanese. For example, you might write:
The founding fathers of the puppet-kingdom Manchukuo had dreamed of building an ideal country [risōkoku].
In this example, the author believes that the word risōkoku carries a sufficiently distinct charge to warrant specifying it,
presumably to separate it from other possible lexical choices that might also connote “an ideal country” in the original
Japanese.
This major exception aside, we recommend the use of the published English title, followed by the original Korean,
Japanese or Chinese title in parentheses. In the case of non-published works, it is acceptable to provide your own
translation. So, for example, for in-text citations, the author might write:
A good example of a documentary film taking this perspective is The West Front [서부전선] (Yon Bong-cheon, 1951).
Figure 1 is a shot taken on the number 973 bus, which runs from Shanghai South Railway Station on the west side of the
Huangpu River through the city to Lancun Road [蓝村路] on the east side.
while in the Notes, we would find such items as:
Cho Hyejung, Children Searching for School, Society Searching for Children [학교를 찾는 아이, 아이를 찾는 사회]. Seoul: Alternative Culture Press, 2000.
Open Road after Harvest [收割,開路], directed by Fredie Ho-lun Chan (Hong Kong: 2015), 100 mins.
In other words, we strongly discourage the use of Romanized titles, such as:
In the 1970s the system of censorship was expanded; and in 1975 a Public Performances Screening Committee
[Han’guk kongyŏn yulli wiwŏnhoe] was put in charge of the screening of entertainment, including animation.
In an age of readily-available multi-lingual fonts, we believe the practice of Romanized titles places an unnecessary layer of text between the researcher and the original material.
The guidelines set out above for dealing with Korean, Japanese and Chinese language sources may also be applied when
dealing with the majority of the other major Asian language research sources.
15. Manuscript Preparation
The length of the manuscript should normally be about 6,000 words. The font should be Times New Roman 12 point.
The text should be composed on A4 paper, with 1.5 line spacing. The margins may be set as follows: 2.3 cm left/right and
2.4 cm top/bottom margin, 1.25 cm at head, and 0 cm at foot. The right margin should be justified. Except for the first
paragraphs right after the main title and each subheading, the first line of all paragraphs should be indented 0.5 cm
(3 spaces). Each non-indented first paragraph should simply be flush left. The pages of the manuscript should be
numbered consecutively throughout.
An accompanying cover sheet should include the name(s) of the author(s), his or her university or institutional affiliation, the full postal and email address, as well as the relevant telephone and fax numbers, where possible. In addition, along
with the original submission, each individual author should also submit a 100-word bio-statement. A brief (max. 150 words) abstract should be included, plus up to 7 keywords on the first page. Spelling should follow Merriam Webster.
Prose quotations of five or more lines should be blocked off with 1.5 line spacing, without quotation marks. Leave an
extra line space immediately before and after the quotation. Indent the entire quotation 1 cm (2.5 characters). Please avoid the generic “he” when both genders are intended and the authorial “we” when the first person singular is meant.
16. Your Title, Keywords and Abstracts
Use 12 point for your Title, Abstract and Keywords. Each of these should be bolded. One layer of titled subheadings may be used, but without numbering. Since your title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers can find your article
online by means of the relevant online search engines, please take some time to make them meaningful.
17. Corresponding Author Contact Details
Please ensure that you 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.
18. English Language Editing
We respect that some authors who may publish with Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context will speak and write English as their second language. In most cases, we will be able to accommodate these language issues.
Sometimes, however, we may request the prior use of a professional editing service.
19. Proofs
After the acceptance of your manuscript, we will email a PDF of the proofs to the corresponding author. This will form the basis for the last set of revisions prior to publication.
20. E‒Print
We will provide authors with access to a PDF of the published article.
21. Feedback
We value your feedback to ensure we continue to improve our author service levels.
22. Copyright and Open Access Licenses
Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context has the sole and exclusive right to produce, publish, and otherwise
disseminate the articles or book reviews or other contribution for the full legal term of the copyright and any renewals of it throughout the world, in all languages and in all formats, and through any medium of communication presently known
or conceived or developed in the future.
Situations presents its content as open-access scholarship and grants its authors the right to use his or her contribution
for purposes that are noncommercial such as: the right to make and distribute copies in relation to the activity of
teaching and the pursuit of research; the right to quote passages from the contribution in any future scholarly work he or she may write; the right to make photocopies of the contribution for educational purposes, such as use in the classroom;
the right to upload and post the contribution to the author’s personal website, the author’s university website, and other open access sites that are not-for-profit, while providing copyright and source information with a link to the published
version; and the right to republish the contribution in any book he or she may write or edit after the issue containing it
has been published. If the work is to be republished, notice must be given that it has already appeared in Situations.
23. Further Information
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent
to both the Managing Editor and the Editors in the form of an e-mail:
Dr. Suk Koo Rhee, Managing Editor
skrhee@yonsei.ac.kr
Dr. Miseong Woo, Editor
mswoo@yonsei.ac.kr
Dr. Chih-Ming Wang, Editor
wchimin@sinica.edu.tw
Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context
Dept. of English, Yonsei University,
50 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu
Seoul, KOREA 03722
Dept. of Eng. Tel:
82-2-2123-2300
