Submission Guidelines

*We are currently accepting submissions for Volume 43 Issue 2 of Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies. In honor of Ufahamu’s recent 50th anniversary of publication, this special Retrospective issue will include republished essays from our back catalog alongside new submissions including but not limited to: essays, poems, commentaries, book reviews and visual arts. This call gives special consideration to those submissions which directly engage with the themes covered in the first decades of Ufahamu’s publication.

Examples include direct engagement with a previously published article in Ufahamu, a paper written through citations of past Ufahamu writings, or any submission addressing themes such as: anti-colonialism, national liberation, consciousness, pan-africanism, Black Marxisms, Diaspora, activist-intellectualism, and much more. We are also soliciting articles concerning contemporary political issues in Africa and the diaspora in the spirit of Ufahamu's original activist-intellectual ethos.

Ufahamu's full catalog is freely available and digitized at: https://escholarship.org/uc/international_asc_ufahamu/1/1.

We encourage our readers to submit poetry, fiction, scholarly articles, interviews, commentaries, political or economic analyses, and review articles. You may submit your work to Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies via email at ufahamu@gmail.com. 

Our online submission process now requires that manuscripts be submitted via email in two separate attachments to ensure anonymity of the review process and appropriate formatting.

-The title, abstract, and author information should be attached as a stand-alone file (in Microsoft Word). 

-The main text must be submitted as its own Microsoft Word document and should not include information identifying the author(s) or their institutional affiliations.

• The submission should not exceed 25 pages double-spaced, 12 Times New Roman font, one-inch margins.
• The title must be centered and bolded.
• Abstracts (400 words or less) should directly follow the title.
• If applicable, all subheadings should be bolded.
• Main text should be left-justified. Block quotes (if applicable) should be indented at .5 inches.
• Please do not include page numbers or other headers or footers. 
• Submissions must include a bibliography (not inclusive of the 25 page limit). Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies uses the Chicago Manual of Style (with endnotes) as its publication style guide. Endnotes are required and must abide by these guidelines. For online assistance, please refer to Ohio State University’s online guide.

Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies only accepts original and unpublished work. Authors retain the copyright to material they publish in Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, but the journal cannot re-publish material that has been published elsewhere, and does not accept papers that are simultaneously submitted to other journals.

Since we publish two issues per year, we continuously accept submissions. Though we occasionally publish special, thematic issues, most issues treat a broad range of topics. So, please, feel free to submit all of your African-related work. 

If you have any further questions, you may contact the editors at ufahamu@gmail.com.

Book Review Submissions

Book reviews should be limited to 750-1000 words. An abstract is not required. For more information on submitting a book review, or requesting a book to review, please visit this link.

 Art Submissions

If you are submitting anything relating to artwork, arts, art-review, music, performance, poetry, exhibition review etc. please submit it to our Arts Editor at ufahamu@gmail.com.