The Journal

SIS_journal_66Italian Studies was founded in 1937 as the annual journal of the Society for Italian Studies (SIS), and has established itself nationally and internationally as one of the leading journals in the discipline. The journal has contributed to the development and broadening of Italian Studies as a field of enquiry within the Arts and Humanities, and has itself expanded in 2005 to two issues, in 2010 to three issues, and in 2015 to four issues per year. The editors welcome original scholarly and critical work, in English or Italian, on Italy’s literary culture, and also work on Italy from a range of other disciplines and inter-disciplinary fields, including history, politics, linguistics, art history, film, gender and cultural studies. Articles which adopt a comparative or global perspective on Italy are encouraged alongside those whose focus is exclusively the Italian peninsula and islands. Each issue includes a reviews section, and usually a review article, which encompass a similarly broad spectrum of the most recent Italian-related publications. Interviews with scholars, writers and creative practitioners are often featured.

The first (February) and second (May) issues of the journal each year are the general issues, including articles of critical enquiry into Italian literature, film, art, history, language, and critical theory from the thirteenth century to the twenty-first. The third (August) is normally a themed issue, and may appear as a guest-edited Special Issue, where a suitably developed topic and body of material have been proposed. The fourth (November) is the Cultural Studies issue, dedicated to articles addressing aspects of Italian culture, again from medieval times to the present day, using materials and modes of enquiry which extend the methodological scope of the discipline.

Call for Proposals: Special Issue proposals invited for Italian Studies 2029

Deadline for proposals: 15 December 2026

Italian Studies dedicates its spring issue to guest edited Special Issues, on any theme covered by the journal’s aims and scope. With a rising number of proposals reaching the Editors every year, the journal has formalised its call for submissions from prospective Guest Editors to a single annual deadline: on 15 December every year.

Proposals received will be evaluated by the Senior Editors on the basis of the quality of the topic and presentation in the first instance, as well as its timeliness, potential attractiveness to our readers, and the feasibility of on-time submission. We are also keen to ensure the journal provides a good spread of themes and periods that will be of interest to our diverse readership, including by varying the focus of the annual Special Issue. For instance, recent and forthcoming Special Issues include: From Manuscript to Machine: Italian Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence (2027); Reading Michela Murgia (2027); Sicily, the Mediterranean, and the South (2026); Envisioning Dante (2026); Invention, Reenactment, Exchange: Lyric Communities in Medieval and Early Modern Italy (2025); Geographies of the Present: Spaces and Places of the Anthropocene in Italy (2025); Growing up across Borders: The Transnational Evolution of Italian Youth and the Nomadic Generation (2024); ‘Col fumetto posso fare di tutto’. Life Narratives and the Italian Graphic Novel (2024); A Century of Calvino: Interdisciplinary Approaches (2023); Mediating Dante (2022); Italian Thought and the Problem of Potentiality (2021); Key Directions in Italian Studies (2020); The Reception of Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato and Pulci’s Morgante (2019); Continuity and Rupture in the Italian Literary Field 1926-1960 (2018).

The Senior Editors welcome proposals based on themed conference and workshop events, or from research teams working on defined projects, but also from more informal collaborations. At least two Guest Editors should be named on the proposal, and should be willing to sustain their commitment to the project for the entire 24 month period from commissioning to publication. The word allowance for a Special Issue is approximately 60,000 words in total, and usually consists of 7-8 individual articles, plus a short Introduction by the Guest Editors. Proposals should also include details of 1-2 reserves. Articles in the Issue may be written in either Italian or English.

Proposals should take the form of a 1-2 page document, and must include the following:

· Title of Issue and Guest Editors’ names and contact details.

· Introductory note outlining the main theme of the Issue and its rationale.

· Provisional list of contributors and article titles (with reserves), together with a brief abstract and indication of word length for each article.

· Proposed schedule of editorial work, from commissioning through peer review, revision, copyediting, and completion.

The next Special Issue commissioned will be published in 2029 and should be complete and ready for submission with the Senior Editors by 1 November 2028. Proposals are now invited for submission to the Senior Editors by Monday 15 December 2026 at the latest. All applicants will be notified of the outcome by 28 February 2027, at which time detailed guidelines will be supplied to the Guest Editors of the selected Special Issue proposal.

The submission should be by a single email jointly to all four Senior Editors.

Further information can be sought from any of the Senior Editors before the submission date.

Information about the journal, and a full view of all current and recent issues, can be found on the webpage at: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/yits20/current.

All submissions to Italian Studies are submitted to a process of rigorous peer review by members of the Editorial Board of the journal and external subject experts. This process normally takes ten to twelve weeks. Both individual article submissions and proposals for Special Issues should be addressed to one of the Senior Editors of the journal, whose respective responsibilities are:

• Clodagh Brook (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland): brookc@tcd.ie (Cultural Studies submissions)

• Daragh O’Connell (University College Cork): daragh.oconnell@ucc.ie (pre-1700 submissions)

• Federica Pedriali (University of Edinburgh): f.pedriali@ed.ac.uk (post-1700 submissions)

• Marina Spunta (University of Leicester): m.spunta@le.ac.uk (post-1700 submissions)

The Journal also contains a reviews section. Authors and publishers who would like volumes to be considered for review should contact the Reviews Editors, by either using the following email address [bookreviewsItalianStudies@gmail.com] or by sending a paper copy of the book to the following postal addresses:

FOR ALL PRE-1700 WORKS: Aistė Kiltinavičiūtė (Vilnius University/Centre for Dante Studies in Ireland). Items for review should be ideally sent in digital format to the Reviews Editor’s address (aiste.kiltinaviciute@flf.vu.lt). Alternatively, they can be posted to the Reviews Editor at the following address: Radvilenu pl. 5-31, Kaunas 50264, Lithuania

FOR POST-1700 WORKS: Eloisa Morra (University of Toronto). Items for review should be ideally sent in digital format to the Reviews Editor’s address (eloisa.morra@utoronto.ca). Alternatively, they can be posted to the Reviews Editor at the following address: Department of Italian Studies, Carr Hall, 100 St Joseph St, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1J4, Room 218.

FOR CULTURAL STUDIES WORKS: Roberto Binetti (Università di Padova). Items for review should be ideally sent in digital format to the Reviews Editor’s address (roberto.binetti@unipd.it). Alternatively, they can be posted to the Reviews Editor at the following address: Via E. Vendramini 13, 35137, Padova, Italy.

For all further information on the journal, please see the Italian Studies section of the Taylor and Francis website, which includes links to:

  • Subscription information
  • Current and back issues, 1937-present
  • Full list of members of the Editorial Board
  • Instructions to authors.