Submissions to Telos are now open. Please read the submissions guidelines below before submitting your manuscript. All manuscripts must be submitted via the Scholastica online submission system. Click the blue button below to begin the manuscript submission process.
Submission Guidelines
Please read the following submissions guidelines before submitting your manuscript.
About the journal: Telos publishes essays and notes on select topics in philosophy, social theory, politics, culture, and the arts. The journal is particularly interested in treatments of critical theory, phenomenology, and other intellectual trends and the light they may shed on issues such as federalism, sovereignty, globalization, religion, and contemporary politics. All original essays for Telos will be refereed. We encourage prospective authors to review recent issues of Telos, which offer a representative sample of the journal’s ongoing areas of concern and interest.
Length: Telos normally prefers articles that run no more than 7500 words (without notes) or 8500 words (with notes). Telos also invites submissions of shorter pieces that run as “notes,” and typically do not exceed 2500 words. A note usually focuses on a single topic, text, or set of events. Note: submissions that exceed these limits will not be evaluated.
Abstracts: Submissions to Telos must include a 250-word abstract.
Blind review: Telos submissions should be prepared for blind review. Before submitting a manuscript, please remove the author name, author affiliation, and any identifying information from the body of the manuscript, including the footnotes and the acknowledgments. This information should be included on a separate title page along with the abstract. References to the author’s own work, where they would compromise the author’s anonymity, should be avoided. Please also be sure that the Word document does not contain identifying information in the metadata fields.
Style and formatting: In terms of style and formatting, we request that all journal articles and reviews adhere to The Chicago Manual of Style guidelines. Pay particular attention to the documentation of your sources, as incomplete or improper citations can slow down the editing process quite a bit.
With regard to notes and citations in particular, Telos uses footnotes without a works cited page. Superscript footnote references within the body of the article should ideally be placed at the ends of sentences, although that rule is flexible where it makes more sense to do otherwise.
Here is an example of a footnote for a book citation:
1. Ernst Jünger, The Adventurous Heart: Figures and Capriccios, trans. Thomas Friese (New York: Telos Press, 2012), p. 68.
And here is an example for a periodical citation:
2. Jean-Claude Paye, “From the State of Emergency to the Permanent State of Exception,” Telos 136 (Fall 2006): 154–66.
Spelling and usage: For questions of spelling and usage, please consult Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed., or Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. For finer points of grammar and usage, see Garner’s Modern American Usage, 3rd ed.
Authors from the UK in particular, please note that formatting, spelling, and punctuation should follow American stylistic conventions.
A Note on Translations: Because Telos is an English-language journal, we need to ensure that it is accessible to our readership. If you intend to include quotations written in non-English languages, please include English translations of those quotations in the body of the article. Where published English translations exist, you should quote from these texts directly rather than provide your own new translation. You may of course modify the published translation, however please do so only where such modifications are critical to your argument. Likewise non-English quotations should be included supplementarily only where necessary.
Use of copyrighted material: We strongly discourage the use of lengthy quotations from copyrighted material. In nearly all cases, we find that quotations can be effectively replaced by paraphrased summary. If an author insists on the need for quotations from copyrighted material, it is his/her responsibility to obtain permission and to pay any applicable fees.
Publication history and rights: All original essays submitted to Telos should not have been previously published in any format, nor should they be currently under consideration or accepted for publication elsewhere. Telos will not consider simultaneous submissions. Prior to the publication of an article in Telos, its author(s) must complete and sign an author agreement that transfers the copyright on the article to Telos Press Publishing. Telos will not consider material that has been previously copyrighted.
Submissions format: Submissions to Telos should be provided as a Microsoft Word document.
Evaluation time: Telos receives a large number of submissions, and our editorial board reviews each of them carefully. Once your article is submitted, please allow four to six months for editorial evaluation. All original essays for Telos will be refereed.
