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  1. Very interesting and useful, thank you. To add to the recent discussions:

    I am the editor (since 1993) of DIECIOCHO, a journal (now in its 34th year) dedicated to the study of the Enlightenement and Long Eighteenth Century in Spain and Latin America. Here is the website:

    http://faculty.virginia.edu/dieciocho/

    DIECIOCHO believes strongly in mutual respect and professional behavior, and for that reason we promise authors that we will have a double peer review of their submission within 60 days of electronic receipt. My experience as editor is that it is possible to identify evaluators for anonymous review and that the reviewers will complete their work within the allotted time. Our evaluations strive to be respectful and constructive.

    It is unconscionable to ask a colleague to wait for 6 or 12 months for an evaluation of their submission. All of the excuses (“I’m busy,” “I have a lot of work,” “I didn’t have time”) strike me as egocentric whining (who is NOT busy??) and completely unprofessional. We can (and should) do better.

    Thank you.

    David T. Gies
    Commonwealth Professor of Spanish
    Editor, DIECIOCHO

  2. Thanks to all the contributors for sharing their knowledge, and also to the founder of the blog for facilitating this knowledge exchange. It is a really useful resource.
    I hope the query that I am about to make is not outside the remit of this blog.
    As a European scholar, I have been very surprised by the amount of American high quality Hispanic Studies journals that are available in print only. Practically all of the British ones are digitalised. Why this recluctance to embrace an on-line format?
    Surely, it impedes the internationalisation of these journals, perhaps contributing to the current divide in Hispanic studies scholarship whereby American and British scholars tend to use only national sources. For example, the Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies seems to have very little impact in America, while certain American journals have not received their deserved attention in Britain.

  3. We need more editors like David T. Gies. Given that our yearly reviews and tenure decisions (our livelihood and that of our families) depends on publishing and teaching, and that constructive criticism can only contribute to our fields to grow, his is the ethical was to run a journal. Bravo Dieciocho!

  4. In light of the wonderful comments and discussion taking place on this blog, I’d like to pose a simple question that may better aid younger scholars moving up or into the field: based on current reputation, how might one rank the top general journals in Hispanic studies? By “current reputation” I mean to underscore the journal’s importance today. In other words, if a journal was great back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, but is a mess right now, it’s overall reputation may be good, but its current reputation would not be good. I think that while humanities scholars generally resist rankings on a subjective basis claiming that they are arbitrary, they can certainly be useful to provide younger scholars with a basis from which to form their opinions as they move up or into the field. I’ve provided my own impression of the top general (accepts studies from all periods and on both sides of the Atlantic) Hispanist journals below. (Note: I’ve excluded places that aren’t exclusively Hispanic studies like PMLA, MLN, MLQ, etc.)

    1. Hispanic Review
    2. Revista Hispánica Moderna
    3. Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos
    4. Revista de Estudios Hispánicos
    5. Hispania
    6. Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies
    7. The Bulletin of Hispanic Studies
    8. Revista Iberoamericana
    9. Hispanófila

    Please, comment in response to this with your own ranking of general Hispanist journals, correcting my omissions, or reorganizing the journals I’ve ranked. I reiterate, I think this exercise, though pedantic and idiosyncratic for established scholars, may be very useful for young scholars trying to understand as best they can how journals are evaluated vis-a-vis other journals in the discipline of Hispanic studies.

    • Ya te vale. Ninguna revista espanola o latinoamericana?????
      O sea, que la revista esa de Arizona es mejor que las revistas del CSIC, la complutense????
      venga ya hombre. te lo voy a decir en inglés: get a life

      • ¿Ahí es donde publicáis todos los amigotes de la academia española una y otra vez no? Como tú dices, venga ya hombre.

    • Just to follow up on this list and discussion from years ago….first, I found this list and others’ lists extremely helpful, so thank you! I wondered if folks know that the MLA publishes useful stats on each journal, including turn around times. I found it useful to look at the odds of getting published. This might also speak a bit to the rigor and familiarity of the journal. Some journals accept 50% of submissions, while others have much lower acceptance rates:

      1. Hispanic Review Number submitted per year: 250; Published per year: 20
      2. Revista Hispánica Moderna Number submitted per year: 55-60; Published per year: 12
      3. Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos Number submitted per year: 100; Published per year: 15
      4. Revista de Estudios Hispánicos Number submitted per year: 100; Published per year: 15
      5. Hispania Number submitted per year: 250-300; Published per year: 45-50
      6. Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies Number submitted per year: 30; Published per year: 8
      7. The Bulletin of Hispanic Studies Number submitted per year: 90; Published per year: 48
      8. Revista Iberoamericana Number submitted per year: Number submitted per year: 300; Published per year: 140-200
      9. Hispanófila Number submitted per year: 75; Published per year: 30

  5. 1. Hispanic Review. Buena pero muy cerrada de criterio, anquilosada. Quiza si dentro de las 10 mejores pero al final de la lista.
    2. Revista Hispánica Moderna. Definitivamente muy buena.
    3. Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos. Buena pero no dentro de las 10 mejores
    4. Revista de Estudios Hispánicos. Buena
    5. Hispania. Tampoco pertenece a las primeras 10
    6. Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies. 2nd or 3rd tier.
    7. The Bulletin of Hispanic Studies
    8. Revista Iberoamericana. La mejor.
    9. Hispanófila. 2nd or 3rd tier.

  6. Revista Iberoamericana, la mejor? How did you come to that conclusion? As a Western European scholar, I can safely state that it has negligible influence in Hispanic Studies scholarship here. It does not have international influence and impact.

  7. I think it is important to note that Iberoamericana only accepts submissions on Latin America, which would, therefore, eliminate it from consideration in the original proposed list.

    That being said, here are my thoughts in regards to reputation:

    “Excellent” tier:
    Hispanic Review.
    Revista Hispánica Moderna.
    Revista de Estudios Hispánicos.
    The Bulletin of Hispanic Studies

    “Very good” tier:
    Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos.
    Hispania.
    Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies.
    Hispanófila.

  8. I am the author of the penultimate post. I coded the original journals into two tiers, though I do not contend that either is exhaustive. Personally, I would put HRJ in the “Very good tier,” along with Bulletin of Spanish Studies.

    I think that we can safely say that the journals included so far tend to not publish rubbish, again within the parameters of the original poster.

  9. Are there any journals we’re omitting here that might be included in a so-called “top ten” journal list in Hispanic studies? I’m an American scholar and am familiar with most of these journals, save Hispanófila, but I figure there may be other journals that have similar weight to, say, Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos. What other journals might we include? For example, the second commenter behind the original “ranking” post seems to suggest a completely different top ten than the one that organizes the journals into tiers. What other “tiers” could we include, beyond the first and second tiers, of general Hispanist journals?

  10. Efectivamente Revista Iberoamerican solo publica sobre Latinoamerica/Iberoamerica. Para mi es la mejor por el impacto que causa una publicacion ahi (ie pronto es citado el articulo, los colegas te felicitan… es una publicacion que se nota). Esa es mi experiencia. I am a latinamericanist based in the USA.

  11. Whatever you do – do not submit anything to Tesserae, the Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, based in the UK. They are incredibly infamous for taking their time with reviews and having little thought on the author. As both a reviewer and author I find the atitude of ‘sitting’ on articles for months on end utterly ludicrous and unprofessional at that. Things ought to be conducted in a much more efficient manner all round I think. Without authors there would be no journal, we all need each other so working together respectfully and with a professional attitude would really improve things.

  12. A quick question to fellow bloggers:

    When evaluating a candidate’s tenure packet for promotion and tenure, how would you react to seeing publications in the same journal, even if the candidate has published in other places? Does your reaction change if the journal in question is a venue such as Hispanic Review or Hispánica Moderna?

    Thanks to all.

    • Certainly a risk of perceived “amiguismo” as the entry below observes if the publications are back-to-back. But if there are different journals between publications, I would not see repeated publications in the same reputable journal as problematic. BUT the key here is to consult with your institution’s T&P “experts” in this regard to determine how they would evaluate such a scenario.

    • No problem at all. Submission is anonymous, and you can certainly publish in the same journal (save those that only allow submission in a fix period, of 4 or 5 years, such as HR and MLN). If the journal is good, great.

  13. I am surprised by the comment posted on April 10th regarding Tesserae: Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies. I have published with them twice, ten years apart, and on both occasions the pieces went through at the normal speed for journals here in the UK. I did find the editing process a little trying second time round, as I was required to make several pedantic (in my opinion) alterations to wording, but I’d rather know that my contribution has been read closely, not just “waved through”. It’s a good journal, I was surprised to read elsewhere that it has little impact in the US.

  14. I am dabbling in Latin American cinema and would like any input on where the best pieces in Hispanic cinema are published. Do scholars in Hispanic cinema consider a similar list to those seen above?

    • Estanislao Plasini  |  

      To the question from October on Latin American cinema: There are pieces scattered in many of the journals listed on this site, but the specialized ones are Studies in Hispanic Cinemas and Imagofagia. And Chasqui publishes reviews of Latin American films. Imagofagia is open access and published in Argentina. It’s excellent, especially if you’re interested in cinema previous to the 1960s. The link on this website only gets you to the first number, but there are actually six, I think, which you can find by searching for the name of the journal on the webs.
      As far as regular ole Hispanic lit and cultural studies journals, the British ones tend to do more work on cinema and they do it a bit better, I think. Many scholars in British Hispanic studies departments are film first, not moonlighting literature folks, so the pieces on film tend to be of a higher caliber and engage more with the specificity of the medium.
      There are of course occasional pieces on Latin American cinema in the film studies journals like Screen, Cinema Journal, Framework, etc., but a great place to begin to “dabble” is Senses of Cinema. It’s online, open access.
      Anyone else have any suggestions?

    • What needs to be highlighted here is the tragic disappearance in the past few years of two relatively iconic journals in the field: _Letras peninsulares_ and _Monographic Review_. In both cases, the decisions to fold the publications seems to have come from the founding editors themselves. Such highly respected, long-standing journals should conscientiously and aggressively seek alternative options other than simply ceasing to exist. There is a responsibility not only to every past author published in these journals, but also to the profession in general… not to mention the institutions with which the journals are associated (if I were dean or department chair of the host institution in question, I would ensure everything was done to ensure the reputable journal survived… numerous reputations hinge upon such survival). If you are an editor, particularly a founding editor with the power to decide whether your journal lives or dies, please take note and have a plan in place to ensure your journal continues when you either 1) no longer wish to lead the journal; 2) are faced with funding obstacles. You owe it to yourself, your institution and the journal to have such a responsible plan…

  15. A general question to fellow bloggers: Is it possible to submit the same contribution to 2 different journals at the same time? Thanks

    • Absolutely not. Perhaps one of the biggest errors that an author can commit. Send an essay ONLY to one journal at a time. So many HUGE risks with submitting to two different journals: 1) if your article is accepted to both journals, you will be forced to decline one of the acceptances, and explaining that this is because you were accepted to another journal with perpetually alienate you from the journal you rejected; 2) you risk a reviewer who is on both Ed Boards receiving your article for review from two different journals, and he/she will immediately notify both journals, and you will consequently alienate yourself from both. NEVER EVER SUBMIT AN ESSAY TO MORE THAN ONE JOURNAL AT A TIME.

    • I couldn’t agree more with the previous comment. A good strategy, however, (if you are pressed for time) would be to submit to a place with a very quick turnaround…Therein lies the great value of this blog, as sometimes those MLA statistics are sneaky

    • I just wanted to add that if you look at the Author Guidelines of many journals you will see they request that you confirm, via email or otherwise, that the manuscript is not under review elsewhere. I agree with the previous commenter that the best solution is to send something to a journal with a quick turnaround time. There are a few, and some are even high quality.

  16. Does anyone know of any web site that contains lists of calls for publication in the area of Spanish Studies/ Literature? An equibalent to h-net.org but limited to Spanish.
    Thanks

  17. He enviado una artículo hace cinco meses a la RCEH. Hace unas semanas les escribí y me dijeron que todavía estaba en los evaluadores. El hecho de que haya pasado tanto tiempo es buena o mala señal para que sea aceptado?

    • Es completamente normal. En particular en RCEH el tiempo de espera es de 6 meses (tu post fue hace un año, asi que asumo que ya te respondieron). La verdad que, lamentablemente, el tiempo de respuesta poco tiene que ver con la decisión. Eso ya es un tema del tiempo que se demoren los evaluadores externos. Se pueden tomar 12 meses para decirte que no, o 2 para decirte que sí, o viceversa.

  18. Anybody want to take a stab at ranking book presses as we did months ago for journals? I’d be interested to see opinions on Latin American and Peninsular studies.

  19. Elise Dietrich  |  

    I’d be interested in seeing a similar ranking or list of suggested journals for Brazilian studies, which often elides with Hispanic/Latin American Studies, but is often left out.

    • Mark P. Del Mastro  |  

      Elise: excellent suggestion, and I am pleased to inform you that in the weeks ahead you will see numerous additions of journals related to Brazilian/Lusophone studies.

  20. Can somebody give estimates on how long it can take for a book to be published by a US university press: from submission of entire manuscript then review (after it has been invited for review), then hopefully acceptance, revisions, proofreading, etc.? 1.5 years, 2 years, 3 years?

  21. Ricardo Roque Mateos  |  

    I just wanted to congratulate you all on the good job you did with the list of journals and to encourage you to keep up this level of commitment. It’s really inspiring to have platforms like this one available. Thanks!

  22. Gracias a los que han publicado. Ha sido realmente útil leerlos.

    Hace un par de años alguien propuso hacer una lista similar para las presses. Ojalá alguien se animara a hacerla. Es difícil encontrar recursos útiles sobre este tema.

  23. Any advice for PhD students about to jump to the job market? How important is the name of the university you graduate from when applying for a tenure position? Is the number of publications of the candidate (and the quality of the publishing journals) a more important factor?

    Thanks in advance to anyone who answers.

    • Check out the resources on the professor is in blog and website and consider buying her book. If you are already going on the job market there isn’t much you can do about where you graduated from or your publication(s), and there are no rules on any of that anyways. You should focus on preparing your application materials and yourself for interviews and not worry for things you cannot change. If you have something publishable, get it out there, but publications take time so there isn’t much you can do for this year.

    • I would say that for most R1 schools the name on the PhD will help you get a first look, but that publications and a good letter are the key. For other colleges and universities, i.e. most of them, I don’t feel that the name carries a huge weight. Of course Prestigious U will always sound better than Pudunk College, but I work at an R2, and we don’t sort be where you graduated and it has never been a factor that changed who we interviewed.

    • Anonymous scholar  |  

      My advice would be to speak to people who have recently been successful on the market and seek their tailored advice.

      The importance of the name of the university you graduate from depends on the position. Often, R1 jobs will value elite institutional names (and by extension the dissertation advisor) very highly. By the same token, regional colleges may, in fact, deliberately ignore scholars coming from elite universities. These things happen for a whole host of reasons. And, SLACs may value elite institutional names but will minimize scholars who appear to only be interested in research.

      Quality will always trump quantity. An article in, say, Hispanic Review could be more valuable to a committee than several dozen articles published in journals no one has heard about. And, as you suggest, a scholar from a non-elite university with a few top publications should regularly trump a scholar from an elite university with many no-name publications.

  24. I recently received an invitation from the journal Humanities (link below) to edit a special edition in my specific field. Hidden in this website is the fact that they have an “article processing charge” of 1400 CHF, which is roughly $1,500 USD. They told me they are willing to to waive it for the editor and well-known scholars, but that means the lesser known folks still foot the bill. Not surprisingly, perhaps, I declined.

    Then I thought it is important to remind the junior scholars who read this blog that in our discipline that they should NEVER publish in (or submit to) a journal that has these types of astronomical fees. There are hundreds of journals that will publish your work for FREE, many of which are excellent. In my experience, the most a journal asked me to pay was for a subscription. Book publications are a different story.. The veterans of this blog can feel free to correct me if I am wrong about this.

    Of course, also remember look at all parts of the website because that might be something that is easy to overlook.

    https://www.mdpi.com/journal/humanities/about

    • I am posting a follow up to this, because I found their reply to me in my junk mail. There is a fee, but many times in our discipline the authors do not pay the fee, or they pay a small portion of it below. I am providing a link that was provided in the reply (which was from the publisher’s website, and not the journal’s), and this information is under #6.

      https://www.mdpi.com/apc

  25. This is great advice! Actually, I recently saw a CFP for a special issue in my area of expertise for that journal. I was very excited and seriously considered submitting something. But then, browsing the website, I found that astronomical publication fee. No way!

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