Guest edited by Sharin Rabin (Oberlin College)

Southern Cultures encourages submissions from scholars, writers, and artists for a special issue, Religion, to be published Fall 2026. We will accept submissions for this issue through December 15, 2025, through Submittable.

Although many see the South as a Protestant “Bible Belt,” it has always been home to a wide array of religions—what religious studies scholar Thomas Tweed defines as “confluences of organic-cultural flows that intensify joy and confront suffering by drawing on human and suprahuman forces to make homes and cross boundaries.” Native American traditions, Africana religions, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Bahá’í, and new religious movements like Spiritualism, Christian Science, and Scientology, all have histories in the region, alongside many forms of Protestantism.

Practitioners of each of these traditions—and others—have brought to the South their own cosmologies, practices, rituals, objects, and self-conceptions, which influenced how practitioners engaged with and were received by those around them. They have operated within a complex field of power relations, in which racial and religious differences and hierarchies were intertwined.

We seek submissions that explore the South as home to multiple religious traditions, from before colonization to the present day, engaging historical, literary, documentary, ethnographic, and other methods. How have varied religious groups related to and shaped the region’s racial politics, its built and natural environment, its cultural expressions, and one another? How might a broader understanding of its multireligious history revise our understandings of the region? How do southern narratives contribute to current conversations in religious studies?

Submissions may explore any topic related to the theme, and we welcome investigations of the region in the forms Southern Cultures publishes: scholarly articles, creative nonfiction, memoir (first-person or collective), interviews, surveys, photo and art essays, and shorter feature essays. 

Possible topics and questions to explore might include (but are not limited to):

• Native American, Africana, and immigrant religiosities
• New religious movements
• Religions as vectors of global entanglement
• Sacred spaces 
• Cultural production
• Interreligious encounters
• Religious bigotries
• Religio-racial identities in/of the South
• Religion and politics, including on the Left
• Religion and gender/sex 

As Southern Cultures publishes digital content, we encourage creativity in coordinating print and digital materials in submissions and ask that authors submit any potential video, audio, and interactive visual content along with their essay or artist’s statement. We encourage authors to gain familiarity with the tone, scope, and style of our journal before submitting. For full submissions guidelines, please click here.