Focus and Scope

Slavic Queer Studies is an online publication dedicated to queer culture in Eastern Europe. Its broad focus includes film, literature, art, performance, digital media, and popular culture. In keeping with the ethos of queer studies, the publication resists categorization and encourages submissions of original research articles on a broad variety of themes from scholars in diverse disciplines, career stages, and countries.  

In addition to research articles, Slavic Queer Studies features fora of shorter essays on concrete issues in East European queer culture, translations of original materials, reviews of scholarly publications, and a chronicle section, comprising short reviews of contemporary literary works, films, exhibitions, conferences, etc.

The journal will be assigned an ISSN after first publication and contributions will be assigned DOI numbers (Digital Object Identifier), whereby they become immediately searchable and citable.

Publication Frequency
Slavic Queer Studies is published twice each year with one issue in the summer and one in the winter. Articles are published directly upon final approval, i.e., ahead of publication in the complete issue, in which they appear.

Submissions

• All submissions must be original, i.e., not previously published elsewhere and in American English.
• Length of articles, including bibliography, should not exceed 8000 words; reviews of scholarly works should not exceed 1000 words; reviews for the chronicle section should not exceed 500 words.
• For article submissions, we request the addition of an abstract of ca. 300 words.
• The required format: 12 dpi in Times New Roman, single-spaced. Citations and bibliography need to follow the Chicago Manual of Style (Author-date). We recommend that contributors refer to published research articles in the journal as a model.
• Italics, not underlining, for emphasis and titles of novels, films, plays, etc.
• Quotations from foreign languages should appear in English translation in the text, and in the original language (if applicable in LoC transliteration) in a footnote if their inclusion is essential.
• Visuals must be accompanied by proof of copyright permission.
• Authors retain copyright to their publications and are encouraged to post their SQS publications on their institutions’ sites so as to generate discussion.
• Contributors are encouraged to consult with the editors prior to submission if they have specific questions about these formal requirements.

Peer Review

SQS employs a blind peer review process, relying on two referees for each submission. Depending on the topic of a manuscript, reviewers may be members of the publication’s editorial board or ad hoc reviewers with established expertise in the subject. Criteria for publication comprise significance of the issue/s addressed, quality of the method and argument, and clarity of writing. Optimally, reviews and responses to submissions will take 6-8 weeks.

Open Access Policy

SQS is an Open Access Journal. Authors (and not the journal) retain copyright but they license SQS to publish their work under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0) License. 

History of the Journal

The co-editors developed the idea for Slavic Queer Studies in 2024 in response to the encouraging proliferation of primary works of art, film, and performance within Slavic culture addressing and engaging with queerness. Individual presentations and panels at conferences, occasional articles or thematic clusters in traditional Slavic journals, and other platforms organized by enterprising young colleagues collectively suggest that the time is ripe for queer Slavic culture to have its own publication. Hence the exclusive focus of Slavic Queer Studies on queer issues. Poland and the Czech Republic have a treasure trove of recent cultural texts begging for scholarly queer investigation. Ukraine and Russia are not far behind in materials inviting analogous serious study. It is the editors’ and editorial board’s conviction that Slavic Queer Studies will provide the ideal venue for articles and other genres that tackle this little-explored terrain.   

Privacy Statement

Contributors’ names and email addresses will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of the journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other entity.