Focus and Scope

AMSJ publishes interdisciplinary, creatively accessible scholarly articles in the field of American Studies. In this regard, we seek articles that examine wide scope regarding the United States, the Americas, through exchange via economics, ethnicity, environment, gender, literary, migration, music, nationalism(s), protest, race, and transnational relationships. The intent of our journal is to provide readers and scholars with contemporary humane analysis of culture and society through a prism of American Studies. Over the last decade, American Studies has hosted a diverse group of scholarly, research-based questions anchored in American studies. As a transnational, interdisciplinary journal with emphasis in critical regionalisms, borderlands spaces, and diasporic cultural production (including but not limited to what these mean to the U.S. Midwest region), AMSJ holds a commitment to publishing research that explores diverse (and often divergent) histories, social lives, and cultural expressions of the United States. Our strengths include furthering American studies conversations around music, gender and sexuality, literature, ethnic studies, history, and visual culture, and we wish to continue engaging those strengths as they relate to race, capitalism, colonialism, Indigeneity, im/migration, and citizenship, to name a few of our central areas.

Peer Review Process

American Studies’ editorial process is designed to encourage interdisciplinary dialogue, collegiality and intellectual exchange. American Studies uses a double-anonymous review process. Editors and readers attempt to assist contributors by suggesting ways in which manuscripts might be improved, and by prodding them to think of the relationship between what they have done and ideas and hypotheses developed in other sectors of American Studies. Few articles are ever accepted without having gone through at least one round of substantial revisions. Authors who receive an invitation to revise and resubmit have up to two years to submit a revision for consideration. Many authors report that they have enjoyed the interchange with our staff and reviewers and the stimulation of connecting their often specialized work with the interests of scholars in contiguous, or more distant fields. Ideally an article is reviewed by an outside specialist, an editorial board member familiar with the field, and an editorial board member from outside the academic discipline who reads for broad interest. The non-specialist’s review is weighed equally with that of the specialist, for the goal of American Studies is to cross academic disciplines and to expand dialogue beyond narrow fields. We would like to make research accessible to the widest band of scholars. Essays are sometimes sent back with the invitation to place the argument within the larger context of American culture, and then resubmit. The editors and editorial board members of American Studies often invite scholars to submit pieces to the journal. Invited manuscripts, however, go through the same review and decision process as unsolicited ones. We do not accept “multiple submissions.” We ask our referees to provide in-depth reviews and offer extensive critique and comments to the author. This is a time consuming process, and we consider multiple submissions exploitative of us and our reviewers. Often, the delay in processing is caused by our hunt for a specialist who is willing to review, as well as reviewers failing to return reviews by their first deadline. If an author has not heard from us within six months, we encourage them to write us for an explanation.

We expect from reviewers not only a detailed and thoughtful response to a manuscript, but also an evaluation of the significance of the piece, its potential, and most importantly, whether or not the author would be capable of revising it for publication in American Studies. It is important to keep in mind, however, that publishing in American Studies is only one goal of the journal. We are also committed to helping scholars improve their work, and the readers’ reports forwarded to the authors nearly always offer detailed critiques and suggestions for improvement. Even when manuscripts are turned down, we hope that authors will have had a constructive engagement with other scholars through American Studies. When the editors invite revision and resubmission, they send the revised manuscript to the same readers who read it previously. We always send back the reviewer’s comments to the author, and invite the author to respond to criticisms by informally “talking back” to the referees in appended notes or explanations. We like to share the comments of our reviewers directly with our contributors, and we hope that contributors and reviewers are thick-skinned enough to take criticism without bitterness. Our goal is to be helpful and to give a personal and detailed response to each submitted piece. American Studies currently processes about 60 articles a year and prints about 10. Many are finally turned down not because of their quality but a too-narrow focus. We strongly advise prospective contributors to read through a few recent issues to familiarize themselves with American Studies and our readers’ interests. Articles are accepted or rejected on their own merit, not because we have run too many or too few on given subjects.

Criteria for membership on the Editorial Board of American Studies (AMSJ) includes tenured-faculty, as well as community college professors, high school teachers, scholar-activists, librarians, artists, and others who actively contribute to knowledge production in American studies but who may not work within a tenure-line system.

Online submission is strongly preferred. Please send all inquiries to:

Lydia Epp Schmidt, Assistant Editor, asjo@amsjeditors.org.
The University of Kansas
1440 Jayhawk Blvd., Room 213
Lawrence, Kansas 66045-7590

Publication Frequency

American Studies publishes four issues per year, sometimes with two issues published together as a special double-issue. The most recent 3 years are available through a print subscription only. The full content of all earlier issues is freely available on this website.