Soapbox is an open access publication platform offering two different means for publishing: our print journal and our online platform. We encourage the exploration of how to practice cultural analysis across a wide variety of media—textual, visual and/or auditive. When submitting you agree to our copyright and publishing terms and conditions. Please go over our guidelines before submitting. Soapbox also welcomes editorial collaborations with institutes, seminars, and other journals. If interested in working together, please reach out to us at info@soapboxjournal.net.
JOURNAL
We publish a yearly double-blind, peer-reviewed journal featuring interdisciplinary scholarship. Our focus lies mainly on academic research papers, however, as a cultural analysis platform we also encourage creative work (e.g., creative nonfiction, visual, graphic, and photography series, etc.).
Call for Papers
Call for Creative Work - 5.0: SWAMPED!
For the upcoming issue of Soapbox, a graduate peer-reviewed journal for cultural analysis, we invite young artists to submit creative works that critically engage with the theme of swamped. We are inviting proposals or finished works to be submitted to submissions@soapboxjournal.net by October 10th, 2023.
Swamps speak to the imagination. While it may first be thought of as a space of stagnation, the swamp is also a transition zone: an area in which water and land merge, a space where the earth resists being controlled. In addition to its geographical referent, the swamp also covers less tangible—though equally murky—semantic ground. It has become associated with systems, both of society and signification, that are overwhelmed—whether in terms of a job market being swamped, or in the politically loaded draining of “the swamp” as a network of corruption. Where the former strand of signification uses the swamp to highlight agency, the latter points out a lack of it. How do these strands of meaning diverge, and where do they come together?
Guidelines for creative submissions are flexible: poems, short-stories (up to 5000 words), visual art pieces, collages, drawings, comics, anything as long as it's printable! Feel free to take a look at our previous issues for inspiration.
ONLINE
Our digital platform accepts submissions of a variety of formats all year round. We look for engaging, original work—written, visual or auditory—on a variety of cultural topics, whether of an academic or more experimental nature. Ultimately, our online platform intends to showcase the development of ideas traditionally explored in academia in order to apply and translate these to more approachable forms and styles.
Submitting
You can submit your work by sending an e-mail directly to web@soapboxjournal.net. Please provide the e-mail with the following subject line: "New web submission: [title of your work]." See below for the submission requirements per submission genre, and please detail in your e-mail to which genre your submission belongs. You should receive a response from us within fourteen days of your e-mail.
Editing Process
Keep in mind that all submissions are subject to a thorough editing process. In it, two members of our web team review and suggest changes to help make each submission suitable for online publication. Every submission goes through two but no more than three editing rounds. The editorial board reserves the right to refuse publication of an article at any phase of the editing process.
Online Submission Guidelines
Essay
We accept full papers as well as short abstracts. Make sure to follow the guidelines below when submitting:
- A full submission must be no more than 2500 words
(exc. footnotes, abstract and bio). - Title must not exceed 70 characters.
- Follow MLA formatting and referencing.
- Mention whether this work has been, or will be, published elsewhere
(e.g., personal blog, social media, other publishers). - Include a horizontal cover image with rights secured
(copyright free images can be found on Google using the right search term, Unsplash, and Creative Commons). - Include a short abstract/introduction
(no more than 80 words). - Add up to six keywords that contextualize the paper’s main argument
(e.g., affect, AI, Butler, postmodernism, etc) - Secure permissions from copyright holders for any content that is not your own.
(e.g., illustrations, audio, etc).
Optional
- A short bio (e.g., artistic and/or research background, interests and practice, affiliations, links to own site or previous work, etc).
Review
Can be of a book, art exhibition, performance, event, etc.
- A full submission must be between 700-1000 words
(exc. footnotes, intro/summary, and bio). - Title must not exceed 70 characters.
- Follow MLA formatting and referencing.
- Mention whether this work has been, or will be, published elsewhere
(e.g., blog, social media, other publishers). - Include a horizontal cover image with rights secured
(copyright free images can be found on Google using the right search term, Unsplash, and Creative Commons). - Include a short abstract/introduction.
(no more than 80 words). - Add up to six keywords that contextualize the review’s main argument
(e.g., affect, AI, Butler, postmodernism, etc). - Secure permissions from copyright holders for any content that is not your own
(e.g., illustrations, audio, etc).
Optional
- A short bio (e.g., artistic and research background, interest and practice, affiliations, links to own site or previous work, etc).
Experimental
TEXTUAL
- If longer than 1000 words, your piece will be published weekly as a series.
- Title must not exceed 70 characters.
- Follow MLA referencing.
- Mention whether this work has been, or will be, published elsewhere
(e.g., blog, social media, other publishers). - Include a horizontal cover image with rights secured
(copyright free images can be found on Google using the right search term, Unsplash, and Creative Commons). - Include a short introduction
(between 50 to 100 words). - Add up to six keywords that contextualize the content
(e.g., affect, AI, Butler, postmodernism, etc) - Secure permissions from copyright holders for any content that is not your own
(e.g., illustrations, audio, etc).
Optional
- A short bio (e.g., artistic and research background, interest and practice, affiliations, links to own site or previous work, etc).
VISUAL
- Email the original file (not just a link).
- Title must not exceed 70 characters.
- Follow MLA referencing.
- Include a short introduction that contextualizes the image/video.
(max. 200 words). - Mention whether this work has been, or will be, published elsewhere
(e.g., blog, social media, other publishers). - Include a horizontal cover image with rights secured
(copyright free images can be found on Google using the right search term, Unsplash, and Creative Commons). - Add up to six keywords that contextualize the content
(e.g., affect, AI, Butler, postmodernism, etc). - Secure permissions from copyright holders for any content that is not your own
(e.g., illustrations, audio, etc).
Optional
- A short bio (e.g., artistic and research background, interest and practice, affiliations, links to own site or previous work, etc).
AUDIO
- Email the original file (not just a link).
- Title must not exceed 70 characters.
- Follow MLA referencing.
- Add the required credits
(e.g., script, recording, voices, editing, etc). - Include a short introduction that contextualizes the content
(max. 200 words). - Mention whether this work has been or will be published elsewhere
(e.g., blog, social media, other publishers). - Include a horizontal cover image with rights secured
(copyright free images can be found on Google using the right search term, Unsplash, and Creative Commons). - Add up to six keywords that contextualize the content
(e.g., affect, AI, Butler, postmodernism, etc). - Secure permissions from copyright holders for any content that is not your own
(e.g., illustrations, audio, etc).
Optional
- A short bio (e.g., artistic and research background, interest and practice, affiliations, links to own site or previous work, etc).
Copyright and Publishing Terms and Conditions
By submitting to either of our publishing channels (printed journal or online) you agree with the following terms and conditions:
- Every online submission goes through two but no more than three editing rounds. Every journal submission goes through an anonimised selection procedure, a thorough three round editing process, and a double blind peer-reviewing.
- The editorial board reserves the right to refuse publication of an article at any phase of the editing process.
- You retain copyright of your work when submitting to Soapbox Journal for Cultural Analysis.
- You grant Soapbox Journal for Cultural Analysis an exclusive right to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform your submissions in any media formats now or hereafter created and through any media channels now or hereafter created, or use them for any other lawful purpose.
- Soapbox Journal for Cultural Analysis is an open-source publisher. By submitting you grant each reader a non-exclusive, irrevocable license to download, reproduce, redistribute, and/or republish materials from your work provided they reference your work accordingly when doing so.
- In case an exact copy of the submitted work is published elsewhere (in print, digital, or online format), you are required to credit Soapbox Journal for Cultural Analysis as the original publisher.