Literary Spaces

About the Journal

• Books & Ideas is the English-language parent site of La Vie des Idées, a humanities and social science online journal powered by the Collège de France, Paris. Since 2007, La Vie des Idées  has gained a large readership and established itself in France as a major place for intellectual debate, and is now developing an international platform.
• Books & Ideas publishes essays, reviews, and interviews on a bi-weekly basis. It emphasizes pluri- and trans-disciplinarity, and embraces all the political and social sciences, with one central concern: offering highly readable, previously unpublished pieces of outstanding scholarship to the general public. Making academic production a regular part of public life is our main challenge.

Author Guidelines

• Books and Ideas chiefly publishes two types of text; reviews of recent academic works, and essays in which the authors analyse current affairs topics, present a piece of research, and draw attention to a question or issue that is under discussion either in France or abroad. Other articles take the form of videos, sometimes with a written transcription of the interview attached.
• Each text is read collectively by the editorial committee, who then reserve the right to decide whether to publish the piece.  Books and Ideas‘ editorial team carefully reviews the texts, and the committee and copy-editing team may ask for further material, amendments and clarifications.
• Papers covering all fields of humanities and the social sciences are accepted.
• The ideal length for reviews is between 8,000 and 10,000 characters (including spaces) and between 10,000 and 30,000 characters (including spaces) for essays. To make the texts easier to read, we strongly recommend that they be divided under subheadings (3-4 subheadings per review and 5-6 per essay.)
• Authors are always encouraged to make full use of Internet resources that enhance the presentation of their articles, such as web links (preferably provided at the end of the article under the ‘Further Reading’ section), and images in the public domain
• It is important to limit the use of footnotes. References to other works under review can be included in the body of the text in parentheses (p. 112). It is possible to include within the text one or more explanatory diagrams to highlight certain ideas, authors or issues under debate. With essays, the bibliography can be included at the end of the article under the section titled ‘Further Reading.’
• full editorial guidelines will be sent to the authors upon acceptance of their proposed contributions
• Each new author provides a brief biography with a photograph (in digital format) to go on his personal page. The biography can include the following information: profession, any institutions they may be a part of, research subjects they may be working on, recent publications, and links to a personal website.

 

Please send all publication proposals to:

Mélanie Cournil

melanie.cournil@college-de-france.fr

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Journal Director

• Pierre Rosanvallon, Collège de France

Editor-in-chief

• Florent Guénard, Rennes University

Editorial Team

• Sarah Al-Matary, Lyon 2 University
• Nicolas Delalande, Sciences Po Paris
• Nicolas Duvoux, Paris-Descartes University
• Emilie Frenkiel, Paris Est University
• Thomas Grillot, CNRS
• Ivan Jablonka, Paris 13 University
• Marieke Louis, Sciences Po Grenoble
• Eric Monnet, EHESS
• Pauline Peretz, Nantes University
• Mathieu Trachman, INED
• Thomas Vendryes, ENS Cachan
• Ophélie Siméon, Sorbonne Nouvelle University

 Scientific Committee

• Edward Berenson, NYU
• Suzanne Berger, MIT
• Philippe Descola, Collège de France
• Mamadou Diouf, Columbia University
• Jon Elster, Collège de France
• Carlos Forment, New School for Social Research
• Sudhin Hazareesingh, Oxford University
• Baber Johansen, Harvard University
• Tony Judt, NYU
• Sunil Khilnani, Johns Hopkins University
• Serge Paugam, EHESS
• Alain Prochiantz, Collège de France
• Jean-Frédéric Schaub, EHESS
• John Scheid, Collège de France
• Patrick Weil, CNRS