Call for Submissions
The editors invite submissions that approach history as a critical endeavor. We are particularly interested in essays that press the boundaries of history's disciplinary norms. In that spirit, we also welcome work from scholars thinking through the past in fields outside of history.
We want to publish articles that:
- examine the historical construction of categories of knowledge.
- analyze how relationships of power are established and maintained, and how history has served to legitimize or challenge them.
- are explicitly theorized without being restricted to the discipline’s conventional categorizations of method and subject (i.e. social, cultural, intellectual, legal, or political history).
Manuscripts should be about 9,000 words including notes and are accepted on a rolling basis. Editors can be queried and submissions sent to: editors@historyofthepresent.org
Style Sheet
History of the Present uses The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition for matters of style and citation. For spelling, refer to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary or Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary in its latest edition. For a .pdf verision of our Style Sheet, click here.
Manuscript Format
Because the journal works with manuscripts electronically, please use the following format to title your submissions:
Manuscript file: Last Name_manuscript.doc
Illustrations, Tables, Graphs: Last Name_Illustrations.doc
The following information should appear at the beginning of your essay on a cover page:
- A brief paragraph summarizing the essay.
- Your name, affiliation, mailing address, email address, fax number and telephone number.
- Two character counts for the essay (in Word this is known as “characters with spaces”): the first for the text, the second for the footnotes.
The following information should appear in separate files:
Illustrations, photographs, tables, graphs (see below for detailed formatting directions).
File formatting
Please do not apply “styles” to the various levels of heading. Use straight Times New Roman text. The display of the text is dictated by typesetting, so nothing in the file should interfere with that mark up.
Please format your essay as a Word document using 12-point Times-Roman font. All copy should be double-spaced.
Include page numbers, beginning on the second page of your manuscript.
Citations should appear as footnotes, not endnotes, using Roman numerals. Please note that citations in their final format will use a condensed format (see below for more details).
Deactivate any hyperlinks or email addresses in the text.
Tables, figures, and examples should not be embedded within the manuscript text. Tables should appear consecutively at the end of the manuscript.
Notes
Please be economical in your footnotes; since we are very restricted in the number of pages we have for the journal and since footnotes count as part of word counts, keeping footnotes to a minimum will ensure more space for the substance of the article.
Footnotes may be embedded in the Word document using the program’s footnote format function.
Please format your footnotes according to the CMS, documentation style 2, but omit place and publisher. For example:
1Laura Wexler, Tender Violence: Domestic Visions in an Age of U.S. Imperialism (2000), 47.
Illustrations
Digital images must be of sufficient quality and in grayscale format (i.e. no color). Accepted file formats are TIF, GIF, or EPS. Resolution must be at 300 dots per inch (dpi).
- Do NOT submit JPG files.
- Do NOT submit figures or images as Word files or embedded within a Word document.
Graphs, line drawings, maps, and music examples to be reproduced in articles must be in a form that is suitable for photoreproduction or scanning. For figures that are already in published form, you should submit clean, high-quality photocopies or 8 x 10-inch black-and-white glossy prints, along with permission to reproduce the figures. Digital format should be bitmap files at 1200 dpi or better.
Digital images are acceptable, provided they are of sufficient quality and in black & white format. Please submit files in TIF, GIF, or EPS format at a resolution of 1200 dpi. If the image will be large, it should be sized at 5” x 7”; small images can be 2” x 3”. Digital files must not be embedded in the text.
Photographs
Print photographs should be good quality, glossy black-and-white prints, preferably 8 x 10 inches in size.
Digital Photographs: submit grayscale TIF files of 300 dpi or better for photos.
All tables will be reformatted to the journal’s house style and therefore must be submitted in an editable electronic form. Tables should appear in consecutive order at the end of their respective article.
Please note is the author’s responsibility to secure copyright and permission to reprint illustrations and to cover fees associated with illustrations.
Preparing Your Manuscript
Here you will find background information on formatting, copyright and permissions.
History of the Present Permissions Guidelines
Permission Form for Text
Permission form for Illustrations |
