To encourage greater dialogue and the wider exchange of ideas, each issue of Reason Papers will be a symposium. Contributors will engage with each other around either a central paper, book, or theme.
Reason Papers Symposia will collect several essays focused a central topic and, in part, respond to each other. The form of the symposia will vary depending the topic and editorial determination. One common form will be the author-meets-critics model where we will have several essays that discuss themes or criticisms of a book and end with an author’s response to these essays. Another form will have a lead essay with subsequent responses to this essay and then a final response by the lead author. Or, we will have round robin, where each author writes on the given theme or topic and then replies to the other essays within the same issue (though on rare occasion in a subsequent issue). Other formats will be considered as appropriate.
We invite proposals for topics or themes for symposia. These topics should reasonably align with the journal’s mission. See the Editorial Essay from our Fall 2011 issue for the mission.
Proposals and inquires about proposals should be sent to reasonpapers@gmail.com
Proposals should include:
- An explanation of the topic/theme and how it connects to the journal’s mission.
- Your name and institution affiliation.
- Explain what you see as your role in the symposium would be: a contributor, a lead, or a guest editor.
- The names of committed or potential contributors. If you plan for an open call, please indicate this.
- An estimated timeline for the editorial process: when the manuscript would be submitted, when authors would have final manuscripts (responding to editorial feedback) completed, when the anticipated publication would be (we publish twice a year: usually in mid-autumn and mid-spring).
- Editors are open to discussions about proposals before an official proposal is made.