ASEBL Journal [pronounced, az-a-bell] issues
are housed on the St. Francis College (Brooklyn Heights, NY) website. This is an
online journal, so issues appear as PDFs. The journal, peer-reviewed, is
indexed in Humanities Source, a major database of EBSCO Host, and the MLA
International Bibliography. That would be the case with any future,
special issue. ASEBL Journal is also a member of the Council of Editors of
Learned Journals.
Over the years the journal has been fortunate to have in its pages prominent scholars like Peter Richerson (cultural evolution), Kathryn Coe (anthropology), Mark Turner (cognitive science), David Sloan Wilson (biology), and Ellen Dissanayake (evolutionary art history). As the official publication of the Moral Sense Colloquia, the journal included legendary people like Robert Trivers (biology) and Diana Reiss (psychology). ASEBL Journal has consistently blended interdisciplinary approaches in the following instances: competitive altruism in Beowulf (v. 9, January 2013), cultural traditions from an anthropological perspective in Romeo and Juliet (v. 11.1, January 2015), art and evolution (v. 11.2, April 2015), the cultural evolution of attitudes about homosexuality (v. 12, February 2016), traditional ethical codes as a puzzle to evolutionary theory (v. 12, February 2016), morality and biology (v. 13, January 2018), great ape personhood (v 14, January 2019), and in its sunset issue, consciousness (v. 15 January 2021).
The overall scope of the journal can be classified as evolutionary cultural
studies, where culture is understood (via Edward Tylor, 1871) as “that complex
whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, law, morals, custom, and any
other capabilities and habits acquired . . . as a member of society.”
If you are interested in submitting a short essay for the site, please carefully review the information below and contact the editor, Professor Gregory F. Tague: publisher@ebibliotekos.com
So while ASEBL is interested in, primarily:
1. How moral (social) behavior is depicted in “texts,” whether literary or not,
how “readers” might respond to such depictions, and whether or not there is an
evolutionary or adaptive function to the production of such moral
representations.
Nevertheless, ASEBL can include:
2. The other dimensions of culture Tylor notes. There is no reason one cannot
cover personal responsibility, moral identity, social emotions, human nature,
consciousness, and conscience from an evolutionary perspective in other
cultural manifestations. Scholars working in cognitive cultural studies,
environmental ethics, or animal studies are welcome to query about a
submission. The journal is, therefore, open to analyses (evolutionary, cognitive,
ethical) of other cultural creations (e.g., visual arts, dance, music, film,
or sculpture) or cultural attitudes (e.g., about the environment or animals).
Thus, regarding ASEBL, think of converging lines across disciplines like ethics/arts/evolution.
Please query before submitting, and make sure that any correspondence includes
ASEBL in the subject line. While submissions are to be in MLA or APA format with
brief in-text citations and a bibliography, we discourage any endnotes (no
footnotes). If you have a few endnotes, they need to be set up without using
embedded noting programs. If you use some type of automatically-enumerating
noting software (such as Endnote), all of the enumerations become askew. Simply
type notes (if you have any), numbered consecutively, as text, after your paper
just before the bibliography. Times New Roman should be your font at 12 pitch.
Documents should not have any headers, footers, or pagination. Any special
codes (such as automatic end-noting) get transferred to the site software and
cause formatting problems. The editor has the right to reject any accepted
manuscript that does not conform to the established guidelines.
If, after a query, the editor asks you to submit a paper for consideration, and
if you’d like the essay peer-reviewed, please send two Word attachments in one
email: one that is a cover sheet with your name, the title of the essay, and
contact information; and a second attachment that is the paper itself (though
your name should not appear anywhere in the body of your paper). For online
publication, papers should be no more than 4,000 words and preferably less, where
word count includes the bibliography. Please submit finished, proofread work
only, not a draft. Essays published online will not be indexed in Ebsco Host or
MLA.
We prefer papers that do not use extensive block quoting or any notes. In the
case of lengthy quoting (discouraged, anyway), the author of any paper is
responsible for obtaining written permission from the original writer or the
writer’s estate. The site software does not permit the presentation of
tables, graphs, or charts – text only.
While submissions need not be scholarly, there should be some commitment to
academic discourse. Book reviews are welcome, although for these the preference
would be for works only in the realm of evolutionary studies, animal studies,
or environmental ethics. Please query first about any submission or book review
– do not send any unsolicited material. When querying, please include ASEBL in
the subject line.
Cite as: ASEBL Journal
Although this is an open-access journal and site where papers and articles are
freely disseminated across the internet for personal or academic use, the
rights of individual authors as well as those of the journal and its editor are
nonetheless asserted: no part of the journal/site can be used for commercial
purposes whatsoever without the express written consent of the editor.
We work on this venture purely as volunteers. Feeling generous? If you have a Paypal account and want to contribute to the cause, send some ₵$ to ebibliotekos@gmail.com
[April 2022 update]
