Introducing a New Electronic Initiative
CRITICAL REFLECTION
Critical Sociology is launching a new initiative to utilize almost 40 years of radical and critical scholarship. This initiative is designed to aid in and facilitate the dissemination of research on a variety of topics by creating clusters of previous articles found in the pages of this journal. The articles in Critical Sociology take on the major questions of the day, ranging from race relations to class struggles to environmental change. As such, the journal contains an extensive archive of articles on globalization, work and alienation, gender, neoliberalism, and many other topics reflecting ongoing research, debates, and advances in critical social science.
In order to take full advantage of our extensive and comprehensive archive, we are pleased to announce a new feature intended to compliment the journal's ongoing focus on current critical scholarship and research. This new feature, which we have called Critical Reflection, will consist of articles that synthesize and assess the relevance of previous research published in this journal in light of today's ongoing concerns and struggles. These collections of previously published articles will appear as electronic special issues behind their own tab, on the journal's website. This new feature will continue to expand as the number of Critical Reflections grows. These Critical Reflections will be widely advertized as they are made available and will serve the purpose of providing readers with an important and useful resource to trace the development of ideas central to critical sociological scholarship.
Each Critical Reflection will focus on a central theme, concept, debate, or approach to critical scholarship, and contain from eight to ten carefully selected articles from the journal’s archives. The Critical Reflections will be selected by an issue editor whose task it will be to provide an essay that introduces the scope and rationale for the chosen topic. The introduction will summarize each of the selected articles, provide a forward perspective on where this research is headed, and suggest some future theoretical directions or trends. This introductory essay will also appear as an article in the journal’s print pages where it will serve to alert readers of the importance of the Critical Reflection in question. Readers of the introductory essay will be directed to the Critical Sociology web site where they will find the electronic issue containing the articles featured in the Critical Reflection.
We anticipate that our electronic special issues will facilitate classroom instruction as well as stimulate new scholarship. By organizing articles in one place, and providing a synthetic essay that both summarizes this scholarship and situates it within contemporary research, each Critical Reflection will serve to advance our understanding of the roots of, and possible futures for, critical sociology.
There are no set deadlines for the production of Critical Reflections, however we anticipate producing several each year. To this end, the editors of Critical Sociology would like to invite proposals from its readers. Please submit your proposal for a Critical Reflection to the Editor, David Fasenfest (critical.sociology@gmail.com). Please note that Critical Reflections can be jointly edited by two or more individuals.
A proposal must contain the following information:
- A title for the proposed Critical Reflection
- A list of articles to be included in the special electronic issue
- A short (500-750 word) statement that describes the proposed theme, offers a rationale for the Critical Reflection, and situates the theme in relation to current critical sociological scholarship.
- A short, 100-word, biographical statement for each editor of the Critical Reflection. This statement will also serve as a description of why you are appropriate to develop the electronic special issue.
The Editors of Critical Sociology are happy to work with prospective editors of a special electronic issue, and will offer advice on the selection of articles to be included in the Critical Reflection. All the articles published in the journal are available on the journal’s web page (http://crs.sagepub.com), along with abstracts and keywords. Prospective editors are encouraged to review the back issues (SAGE provides good search tools) in order to create an inventory of potential articles.
For more information, contact David Fasenfest at critical.sociology@gmail.com.
