About & Board
Publishing scholarship in Contemplative Studies
Mission
The mission of the journal is to provide an academic forum for specialists to publish rigorous, innovative, humanities-based scholarship in Contemplative Studies and to promote interconnections across disciplines, perspectives, and traditions. JCS and its associated preprint service are committed to supporting the growth of an academic field for a global community of scholars who study contemplative practices in all of their diversity. This includes scholarship that examines practices, first-person meditative experiences, and the historical and cultural contexts in which forms of contemplation are embedded and from which they derive.
Focus
JCS is focused on publishing rigorous academic work on contemplation that is deeply grounded in the humanities in the most capacious sense. The journal publishes original research and scholarship on topics related to the world’s contemplative practice traditions—historical and contemporary, religious and secular. Articles are not restricted to a particular disciplinary or methodological approach and submissions could be, but are not limited to, scholarly methods that are comparative, text-critical, historical, theoretical, ethnographic, or phenomenological.
Scope
While the focus of the journal is humanistic studies on contemplation, we encourage interdisciplinary scholarly collaborations with a humanistic core. We invite interdisciplinary collaborative studies across the contemplative arts, humanities, anthropology, sciences, and technology, and we welcome submissions that reflect multi- and trans-disciplinary approaches. We do not accept journal article submissions that are single-method empirical studies, meta-analyses, and similar scientific reviews. JCS is not intended for articles that simply present or describe a contemplative intervention or a program for applied contemplative practices, as might be found in the context of contemplative pedagogy or clinical practice—for example, a summary of a new mindfulness-based intervention for use in schools or the workplace. In contrast, an article that examines mindfulness-based interventions through the lens of some scholarly perspective, such as cultural history, would be welcome.
Publishing Model
JCS uses a rolling publishing model, which enables authors to submit articles at any time. A streamlined workflow of the peer-review and editorial processes allows articles to be published on a rolling basis that is not dictated by the publication timetable of a larger collated journal issue. Each article is treated on its own publication timeline to meet scholarly criteria of peer-review, incorporate author revisions, and finalize typesetting and editing for the digital publication. JCS also publishes special thematic issues.
The Open Access (OA) movement has proven to be a catalyst for change in academic publishing, and JCS is committed to public dissemination of scholarship free of charge to both authors and readers. We publish on a proprietary digital platform, Mandala, which was developed at the University of Virginia and is hosted at the University Library. Articles may be read onscreen, downloaded as PDFs, or printed by the reader. Universal Resource Locators (URLs) and Digital Object Identifier (DOI) links will be created for each individual article to ensure reliable bibliographic citation.
Preprint Service: ContemplativeRxiv
To support a global community of scholars committed to the study of contemplation, the journal offers a free preprint archival service at ContemplativeRxiv. The preprint platform enables authors to make their work available and citable, and receive feedback from experts in the field prior to the peer-review process. See the ContemplativeRxiv page for more details.
Advisory Board
The Advisory Board advises on the strategy, scope, and vision of the Journal of Contemplative Studies:
Niki Kasumi ClementsChristianity, Religious Ethics, Philosophy of Religion
Rice University
Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, Contemplative Sciences
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Founding Editor
Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, Contemplative Studies
University of Virginia
Africana Mysticism, Digital Religion
Boston University
Medical and Psychological Anthropology
Stanford University
African and Afro-Atlantic Religions
University of Virginia
Yoga, South Asian Religions
Oregon State University
Phenomenology, Philosophy
Don SeemanJudaism, Anthropology of Religion, Phenomenological Anthropology
Emory University
Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, Contemplative Studies
University of Virginia
Editorial Board
The Editorial Board represents diverse subject experts who act as a team to monitor the rigor and quality of publications by providing editorial counsel on peer-review, special issues, and related editorial recommendations for the Journal of Contemplative Studies:
Loriliai BiernackiHindu Tantra, Science, Panentheism, Gender
University of Colorado-Boulder
Buddhism, South/East Asia, Anthropology
Washington State University
Indigenous Studies, Cultural Psychology, Self-Transcendence
University of California-Berkeley and United Nations
Indian Religions, Yoga, Jainism
Loyola Marymount University
Contemplative Ecology, Desert Monasticism, Apophatic Mysticism
Loyola Marymount University
Islamic Philosophy, Sufism, Subjectivity, Consciousness Studies
University of Cincinnati
History of Indian / Buddhist Philosophy
Yale University
Anthropology, Neuroscience, Meditation, Imagination, Psychedelics
McGill University, Canada
Comparative Religions, Judaism, Sufism
Boston University
Yoga, Indian Religions
SOAS University of London
Jewish Mysticism, Contemplative Ecology
Stanford University
African Religions, Worship, Divination
Bowdoin College
Religion, Literature, Christian Spirituality
Harvard Divinity School
Mindfulness, Media, Pragmatism
University of Applied Sciences in Jena, Germany
Reflective Practice, Consciousness Studies, Phenomenology
Macquarie University, Australia
Philosophy of Mind, Dreams
Monash University, Australia
Ifa, Orisa, African Spirituality, Plant Medicine
African and Diasporic Religious Studies Association (ADRSA)
Editors
Michael Sheehy (he/him)Editor-in-Chief and Founding Editor
Contemplative Sciences Center, University of Virginia
Associate Editor
Contemplative Sciences Center, University of Virginia
Copy Editors
James MacNee (he/him)Editor and Proofreader
University of Virginia
Freelance Copy Editor
Site Production
Veronica Kuhn (she/her)Website Manager
Contemplative Sciences Center, University of Virginia
Digital Technologies Manager
Contemplative Sciences Center, University of Virginia
Graphic Designer
Research Assistants
Erin Burke (she/her)Postdoctoral Research Assistant, University of Virginia
Devin Zuckerman (she/her)Graduate Research Assistant, University of Virginia
Evelyn Dickey (she/her)Undergraduate Research Assistant, University of Virginia