About

Imaginations is a multilingual, open-access journal of international visual cultural studies. It is published twice yearly and is double-blind peer-reviewed. As a knowledge democracy project, Imaginations is free to submit to and free to read. Founded at the University of Alberta in 2010, the journal is funded by the federal granting agency of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Imaginations showcases artistic work and scholarly research. It focuses on innovative artistic practices and interdisciplinary, intercultural theoretical understandings of images, screens and visual culture. The journal provides an online installation venue for original artwork and publishes academic articles in original languages and translated into French or English.

Elicitations is the reviews section of Imaginations and it complements the publication of the journal. Using a rolling publication model, it collects reflections on the latest art exhibits, installations, scholarly books, and social and political movements of interest to the visual cultural studies community.

Visual culture practices and scholarship come together in Imaginations. Here, high-caliber, international and intercultural research informed by national histories and linguistic traditions creates a new vocabulary to address the notion of the image and its many avatars. Researchers and visual artists, each reflecting on their own practices, revealing new insights into the interlacing of academia and visual culture.

Editorial policy and ethics

IT IS IMAGINATIONS’ MISSION TO:

• Bridge communities of artistic visual practice and academic scholarship;
• Create a knowledge democracy venue for the image;
• Disseminate high-quality works of art and scholarship to a diverse reading publics; and
• Explore the ways in which visual culture is transforming.

Imaginations publishes scholarship that makes form part of its message, and our digital platform makes this possible. Imaginations publishes scholarship that embeds images and video-clips in academic articles, connecting with the accessibility of current visual and textual culture.

We encourage contributors to submit works that embed high-quality media, and to make their work accessible to an academic and general reading public.

We welcome submissions from artists and writers coming from academia and other communities of practice: curators, freelancers, art and media journalists, visual designers.

The editorial board of Imaginations believes in the democratic dissemination of information, both for readers and authors. As such, Imaginations is an online open access journal that publishes its articles according to a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives 3.0 license. Please review the parameters of this license agreement before submitting to Imaginations or repurposing any of its material.

To us, open access has to do with readers’ access to published materials and equally with the authors’ access to publication. Because of our generous SSHRC funding, and the time donated by our editorial board, guest editors, and peer reviewers, Imaginations is free to submit to and free to read online from anywhere in the world. We do not charge author publication fees.

As an open access journal, our funding relies heavily on Altmetrics data. Readers can best support the future of the journal by liking, sharing, and citing us with frequency and fervour. Furthermore, as a courtesy we ask authors to link to our journal as often as possible.

The copyright for each article belongs to the author and has been published in this journal under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives 3.0 license that allows others to share for non-commercial purposes the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.  The content of this article represents the author’s original work and any third-party content, either image or text, has been included under the Fair Dealing exception in the Canadian Copyright Act, or the author has provided the required publication permissions.

PUBLICATION ETHICS AND MALPRACTICE GUIDELINES

Imaginations is committed to ensuring that ethical standards are met at all stages of the publication process. All authors, editors, and reviewers involved in the publication of Imaginations must, therefore, conform to the ethical standards outlined below. These standards have been adapted from Elsevier’s publishing ethics guidelines for authors, and from COPE’s ethical standards for editors.

Authors

Authorship should include, and be limited to, every party who has made a significant contribution to the concept, content, execution, or design of the finished article. Any changes to the authorship of the article must be immediately reported to Imaginations, along with an explanation for the change and written consent of parties involved in the change.

Authors are expected to submit original work for first publication in Imaginations. Plagiarism, multiple concurrent submissions of the same manuscript to multiple journals, and resubmission of an already published manuscript constitute unethical publishing behaviour and are unacceptable. Authors must appropriately cite all sources according to the standards outlined in our style sheet. Authors are further expected to disclose any existing or potential conflicts of interest relevant to their research subject. A conflict of interest may exist when an author has a financial or other significant relationship with organizations or people that could inappropriately influence the author’s work. Finally, if the author finds any significant errors in their work after publication, the author is obliged to report this error to Imaginations promptly, and collaborate with the journal editors to retract or correct the error. If the editors become aware of an error, it will promptly be brought to the author’s attention, and a collaborative correction or retraction will be sought.

Editors

Editors will evaluate all manuscripts only on the basis of their academic merit and their suitability for the journal, according to the specifications set down in Imaginations’ Mission, Publishing with Imaginations and Author Guidelines. Editors will not use unpublished research in their own work without the express consent of the author. Editors will respond to all perceived misconduct and all ethical complaints presented to Imaginations regarding submitted manuscripts or publications in a timely and reasonable fashion.

Reviewers

Reviewers will treat all manuscripts received for review as confidential. Reviewers may not use unpublished research in their own work without the express consent of the author. Reviews should be conducted objectively, with a view to academic merit and suitability for the journal and journal issue theme, according to the specifications set down in Imaginations’ Mission, Publishing with Imaginations and Author Guidelines. All observations and suggestions should be formulated clearly, and final recommendations should be presented with supporting arguments so that the author may use this feedback to improve their work. Any reviewer who feels unqualified for a particular review, or who feels incapable of promptly completing the review, should contact Imaginations and recuse themselves from the review process. Furthermore, reviewers who perceive conflicts of interest between themselves and the manuscripts they are reviewing will promptly notify the editorial team and recuse themselves from the review process.

Editorial board

EDITORIAL TEAM | L’ÉQUIPE EDITORIALE

Editor-in-Chief | Rédacteur en chef | Markus Reisenleitner
Managing Editor | Rédacteur | Brent Ryan Bellamy
Editorial Team | Comité de rédaction | Laura Bisaillon, M.E. Luka, Andriko Lozowy, Carrie Smith, Sheena Wilson
Elicitations Reviews Editor | Comptes rendus critiques – Élicitations | Tara Milbrandt
—
Web Editor | Mise en forme web | Brent Ryan Bellamy
French Editor | Contenu français | Dominique Laurent
French Translations | Traductions françaises | Aurélie Lesueur
Substantive Editor | Rédacteur | Shama Rangwala
Copy Editor | Révisions | Shama Rangwala
Founding Editors | Fondateurs | Carrie Smith, Daniel Laforest, Sheena Wilson, William Anselmi
Previous Team Members | Anciens membres de l’équipe | Marine Gheno, Dennis Kilfoy, Daniel Laforest, John Montague, Lars Richter, Katherine Rollans, Angela Sacher, Dalbir Sehmby, Justin Sully

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD | COMITÉ SCIENTIFIQUE 

Hester Baer | University of Maryland College Park, United States
Mieke Bal | University of Amsterdam &
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Netherlands
Andrew Burke | University of Winnipeg, Canada
Ollivier Dyens | Concordia University, Canada
Michèle Garneau | Université de Montréal, Canada
Wlad Godzich | University of California Santa Cruz, United States
Kostas Gouliamos | European University Cyprus
Faye Hammill | University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
Anton Kaes | University of California Berkeley, United States
Dominic McIver Lopes | University of British Columbia, Canada
Sarah McGaughey | Dickinson College, United States
Peter McIsaac | University of Michigan, United States
Marie-Dominique Popelard | Université de la Sorbonne
Nouvelle – Paris 3, France
Christine Ramsay | University of Regina, Canada
Laurence A. Rickels | Academy of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe, Germany
Will Straw | McGill University, Canada
Imre Szeman | University of Alberta, Canada