Nova Religio

We invite English-language submissions of original research in the field of alternative, emergent, and new religious movements and communities. Submissions are invited across disciplines and cultures. Although articles from specialists and established scholars are preferred, articles of superior quality from graduate students are welcome. It is our hope that Nova Religio will serve not only as a forum for scholarly articles, but as a venue for the dissemination of news on issues of concern to the study of new religious movements in Updates essays and Field Notes essays. These short essays may consist of updates on specific new religious movements, studies based on field research, reports on archival collections, and reports on court cases and legal rulings. In addition, Perspective essays are reflections on new religions studies and its methodologies. Materials submitted to Nova Religio must not have been previously published nor submitted for publication elsewhere while under review by Nova Religio editors.

The preferred length of scholarly articles is between 8,000 words and 10,000 words, including endnotes. Field Notes, Update, and Perspective essays should be 3,000 to 5,000 words, including endnotes. Submission of photographs or other graphics is encouraged when they can substantively enhance an article. Papers should be submitted via email by attaching a file saved as a Word document (.doc or .docx).

Nova Religio requires that authors do not use AI of any type for the creation or polishing of text in papers submitted to the journal. The author must turn off the AI feature in their word processing application before typing a paper to submit to Nova Religio. Authors may not use Grammarly or any LLM product (Claude, ChatGPT, etc.). All submissions will be be scanned for AI usage. Any paper that is found to contain AI-written text will be rejected by the journal. Authors are cautioned that using AI for research, note-taking, or outlining may result in a paper being detected as AI, and therefore rejected."

Please download our style sheet here. This sheet details our preferred citation method and other stylistic matters. Also download and use the spelling style sheet.

We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity, with the agreement of the author. We also reserve the right to edit for usage and style. Accepted manuscripts must follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 18th ed., endnotes style, and should be submitted according to these style guidelines. All references should be in endnotes, numbered throughout the manuscript with the auto-numbering feature of the word processor. The journal encourages the use of nonexclusive language.

All submissions are refereed by the journal’s co-general editors and two or more external readers. Peer review by external readers is double-blind. The identity of the author(s) should not appear anywhere in the document. Please ensure that your manuscript does not refer to your name, institutional affiliation, or provide other demographic details about yourself. When such details are relevant to the article, mark such material as {redacted} for the purposes of peer review. If using MS Word, save the file with the “remove personal information from this file” option. Details on how to do this are available online, and vary depending on your computer’s software. The peer review of papers submitted to Nova Religio takes about three months.

Papers should be submitted by attaching a file saved as a Word document (.doc or .docx).