Calls for Papers and Scholarly Profiles

Calls for Papers and Scholarly Profiles #

Once you have a draft worth sending out, two tasks remain: knowing where conferences and journals post their calls, and building a public presence so other scholars can find your work in return. In this post I list the boards I actually check, then make one plea about timing (I will return to it at the end).

Where to find calls for papers #

RelCFP is a call-for-papers board built specifically for religious studies, theology, and philosophy.

WikiCFP is a general, crowd-sourced call-for-papers tracker spanning every academic field. It helps with interdisciplinary work that does not sit neatly inside one subject database.

Penn Calls for Papers is a long-running listing site run out of the University of Pennsylvania's English department. It is especially strong for humanities conferences and edited-volume calls.

H-Net is a network of subject-area discussion lists that regularly circulates calls for papers, job postings, and reviews. Its religion, history, and related networks are often where an announcement appears first, before it reaches any of the boards above.

Build your scholarly profile #

Set up a profile on Humanities Commons, a nonprofit scholarly network run by the Modern Language Association (MLA). You can post your CV, deposit your own work in an open repository, and connect with scholars working in your subfield.

Also register for an H-Net account, and subscribe to the networks that match your interests. Being subscribed, not just aware the network exists, is what actually puts calls for papers and journal announcements in front of you.

Now the plea: do this early. Setting up a profile takes less than an hour, and an hour now beats squeezing the same task in later alongside a writing deadline.