Religious Studies Review

Religious Studies Review
Title	Religious Studies Review
Discipline	Religious studies
Abbreviation	Rel. Stud. Rev.
Publisher	Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Council on Foreign Relations
Country	United States
Frequency	Quarterly
History	1975–present

Religious Studies Review is a quarterly academic journal that provides critical reviews and bibliographic surveys of recent scholarship in theology and religious studies across global traditions. It serves as a nexus between scholarship on Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, and indigenous and new religious movements by commissioning concise evaluative essays and review essays that map developments in secondary literature. The journal functions as a resource for libraries, specialists and comparative scholars seeking orientation about recent books, debates, and methodological trends connected to specific persons, movements, institutions, and texts such as Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Muhammad, Buddha, Rabbi Akiva and Adi Shankara.

History

Founded in 1975, the journal emerged during a period of institutional expansion for religious studies alongside growth in area studies centers such as the School of Oriental and African Studies and university departments at institutions like Harvard University and University of Chicago. Early issues reflected conversations prompted by publications from figures associated with the Second Vatican Council and postwar scholarship linked to the work of Mircea Eliade, Wilhelm Schmidt, and critics like Jonathan Z. Smith. The journal’s editorial lineage includes editors who moved between American learned societies—such as the American Academy of Religion and the Society for Biblical Literature—and international organizations like the International Association for the History of Religions. Over decades it documented shifting emphases toward comparative theology, feminist scholarship influenced by thinkers connected to Dorothy Day-era discussions, postcolonial responses tied to the work of Edward Said, and the rise of interdisciplinary engagements with scholars from Oxford University, Cambridge University, and the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences.

Scope and Focus

The journal covers monographs and edited volumes across subfields related to canonical figures and institutions including Pope Francis, John Calvin, Siddhartha Gautama, and the historical corpus of Philo of Alexandria, while also addressing scholarship on movements like Sufism, Zen Buddhism, Hasidism, Bhakti, and contemporary currents such as Evangelicalism and New Age movement. Methodological lenses represented in reviews include work by scholars associated with Phenomenology of Religion, the comparative approaches of Ninian Smart, historical-critical methods traceable to Julius Wellhausen, and sociological frames emerging from the legacy of Émile Durkheim and Max Weber. The journal frequently highlights interdisciplinary intersections with specialists from Columbia University, Yale University, Princeton University, and cultural institutions such as the British Museum when discussing material religion, texts, and ritual practices.

Editorial Structure and Publication Details

The editorial board typically comprises senior scholars affiliated with institutions like University of California, Berkeley, University of Oxford, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Jawaharlal Nehru University. Its production rhythm is quarterly, with themed issues occasionally organized around conferences at centers such as the Institute for Advanced Study or gatherings of the American Anthropological Association. Submissions are by invitation for many commissioned review essays, while libraries and individual subscribers receive regular listings and cumulative bibliographies patterned after practices used by editorial teams at Cambridge University Press and Routledge. The publisher manages distribution through academic consortia and university presses tied to repositories like the British Library and the Library of Congress.

Abstracting and Indexing

The journal is indexed in major bibliographic services that aggregate humanities and social science literature, including listings that parallel coverage found in JSTOR, EBSCOhost, ProQuest, and national bibliographies like the British National Bibliography. Its contents are discoverable via library catalogs at institutions such as New York Public Library and research infrastructures used by scholars at University of Michigan, supporting citation tracking in databases employed by research assessment bodies and disciplinary associations like the Modern Language Association.

Reception and Impact

Scholarly reception highlights the journal’s role as an orienting instrument for faculty, librarians, and graduate students navigating expansive publication outputs from presses including Oxford University Press, Harvard University Press, Cambridge University Press, Princeton University Press, and university-based publishers worldwide. Its influence is visible where book review ecosystems intersect with tenure and promotion practices at departments in universities such as Duke University, University of Chicago, and Stanford University. Critics have noted tensions about review selection practices echoed in debates at meetings of the American Historical Association and the American Political Science Association over representation of global perspectives, leading to editorial adjustments similar to reforms enacted by periodicals tied to the Modern Humanities Research Association.

Notable Articles and Special Issues

Selected issues have foregrounded debates around scholarship on topics involving figures like Augustine of Hippo, Rumi, and Nāgārjuna, and special issues have addressed postcolonial critiques inspired by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and methodological pluralism linked to scholars at The New School. The journal has published influential review essays that synthesize literatures on themes associated with the Reformation, the Iranian Revolution, and the study of diaspora communities connected to cities such as London, Tehran, and Mumbai. Special issues convened with partners at research centers such as the Center for Contemporary Religion have attracted contributions referencing archival collections at Vatican Library and manuscript holdings at the Bodleian Library.

Category:Academic journals in religious studies