Call for Papers: Special Volume on Music and Sound (2024-2025)

Special Editors: Noam Lemish (York) and Miranda Crowdus (Concordia) 

 The editors of Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes welcome manuscript submissions for a special volume dedicated to the intersections of music and sound with the Canadian Jewish experience, past and present. We are particularly interested in reviewing articles that go beyond the purely biographical or historical approach. Proposals for non-academic articles, including creative outputs such as compositions accompanied by detailed description and analysis with relevance to Canadian Jewish studies are welcome.  

Thematic areas for contributions include but are not limited to the following: 

  • Music and memory 
  • Music and migration 
  • Music in religious and spiritual contexts 
  • Music and activism 
  • Music and bridge-building, intercultural exchange 
  • Music and community building 
  • Music theory and analysis 
  • Musical intersections with other art forms (dance, theatre, film, visual arts) 
  • The soundscapes of Jewish Canada 

We seek original contributions of general and specialized scholarly interest, in both subject and approach, and from a range of disciplinary perspectives. These include (but are not limited to): ethnomusicology, historical musicology, musicology, music theory, performance studies, cultural studies, history, literature, sociology, anthropology, political science, religious studies, gender studies, the medical humanities, art history, film and media studies, education, and public policy. 

The journal also accepts contributions for several non-peer-reviewed subsections: 

The Archives Matter: short essays on holdings in Jewish and non-Jewish Canadian archives organized around the special volume theme. Please contact section editor Janice Rosen (jrosen@cjarchives.ca) for more information. 

Roundtables: scholarly and often interdisciplinary discussions featuring several voices and organized around the special volume theme.  

Translations: translations of historical or contemporary sources (broadly defined) dealing with the Canadian Jewish experience in languages other than English or French. 

Field Notes: non-standard academic writing on contemporary literary, cultural, intellectual, and communal events (e.g., concerts and other musical performances of interest relevant to the Canadian Jewish experience, and especially the special volume theme. More information about this section can be found here. 

Reflections: personal essays by academics or practitioners about their careers in the field. 

Book/Album Reviews: the journal maintains a list of books for which we seek reviewers, available here. If you wish to contribute a book or album review or propose a longer review essay, please contact section editor Vardit Lightstone (varditlightstone@gmail.com). 

In an effort to stimulate original, comparative, and intersectional research involving Canadian Jewish content and both non-Jewish CanCon and non-Canadian Jewish content, the journal welcomes submissions from researcher-author pairs committed to producing collaborative scholarship. The journal offers co-author collaboration grants of $500 in support of this work. Please note in your submission if you and your co-author seek consideration for this grant. More information can be found here. 

The journal is accepting expressions of interest for all sections until January 31, 2025. Accepted articles will be submitted for peer review by July 31, 2025. Deadlines for non-peer-reviewed contributions will be negotiated upon acceptance.  

  • For original articles to be submitted for peer review, please include a tentative title, a short abstract (250 words), and a brief biography. The journal also accepts completed manuscripts in the range of 6,000 to 9,000 words, including endnotes. 
  • For submissions to one of our subsections, please include a short abstract (200 words) clearly stating the subject of the proposed reflection, translation, field note, etc., how it relates to the special volume, and why you are best positioned to explore it. 

Please refer to the journal’s policies and submission preparation checklist available on our website. Completed manuscripts that do not comply with our guidelines may be returned to authors. 

For inquiries and submissions, please contact the special volume editors Noam Lemish (lemish@yorku.ca) and Miranda Crowdus (miranda.crowdus@concordia.ca), the journal’s editor-in-chief David Koffman (koffman@yorku.ca), or its managing editor Joshua Tapper (jtapper@yorku.ca).  

Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes is an open access, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal devoted to original scholarship that illuminates any and all aspects of the Canadian Jewish experience. It is published twice annually, in English and French, under the auspices of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies / Association d’études juives canadiennes. The journal is freely accessible on our website.