Journal for the Academic Study of Religion

About the Journal

JASR Aims and Scope

The Journal for the Academic Study of Religion publishes research that engages any topic, tradition, or methodology in the study of religion. As a generalist journal, we prioritize high-quality submissions that communicate effectively across disciplinary boundaries.

Historically, the journal has been an important venue for scholarship on religion in the Southern Hemisphere. As we have developed an increasingly international orientation, this Antipodean legacy has led us to develop a distinctive interest in the significance of place.

In the open section of the journal, we will continue to publish interdisciplinary scholarship on religion in any geographical area. In addition, we welcome submissions for an ongoing section of the journal – ‘Thinking Religion in Place’ – which addresses the way place shapes the methods and materials of religious studies.

Thinking Religion in Place

Through the articles published in this ongoing, themed section, we hope to cultivate a scholarly conversation that explores answers to the question: What is the significance of place – including the scholar’s own location – to the study of religion?

We think about place in two ways. Most immediately, place points to the scholar’s situatedness in a location with historical, cultural, and geographical particularities. More broadly, place prompts us to consider the way this situatedness impacts the production of knowledge, shaped as it is by the global politics of place. We invite scholars to reflect critically both on their place on larger maps, and also on the impact of local and international forces on the phenomena that interest them.

Because the concept of ‘religion’ is deeply marked by the (modern, European) places in which it developed, we want to be clear that we take ‘thinking religion’ in its most capacious sense. This includes the study of recognized religious traditions, nonreligious thought and practice, spirituality (within and beyond religious communities), and the critical study of religion as a category of analysis.

For more information about this themed section and our broader interest in place, see the Editorial Statement here.