Plan
Haut de pageBiens symboliques / Symbolic Goods welcomes submissions to be published bi-annually, on line and in open access. Proposals can be submitted independently or as part of a thematic issue. If you would like to submit a thematic issue, please refer to the dedicated page.
Submit a miscellaneous article or an article as part of a thematic issue
Papers present original research on the production, promotion, circulation or reception of symbolic goods —arts, culture, sciences, ideas, etc.— set in their social space. Whether they are praised or ordinary, highly visible or invisible, they should be grasped through their various social uses. Papers will tackle cultural products or political ideas, as well as non-professional activities, digital productions, media discourse, or the various elements of lifestyles (clothing, habitat, food, etc.). One of the journal’s specificities being to try and capture cultural activity as collective production involving multiple interests, contributors are invited not to limit themselves to the traditional figures of artists, intellectuals or scientists, but to consider the many people who, whatever the form, participate in producing, circulating and appropriating symbolic goods.
Papers may relate to one of the various disciplines of the humanities such as sociology, history, anthropology, political science, information and communication science, art history, literature, economics, film studies, musicology, etc. Papers will rely on clearly exposed empirical data, presenting the field, the collection of data or sources, as well as the methods used: archives, interviews, observation, quantitative analysis, speech or image analysis, etc. Contributors will be required to set the research exposed in perspective with the existing scientific literature and works (general, on the field studied and other comparable fields). The journal also encourages authors to propose a more general approach based on the case analysed, so that the article will be of interest to a wider readership, not just those interested in the field studied.
All submissions will have to include at least one copyright-free image chosen by the contributor, and, if needed audio and/or video documents, maps illustrating substance.
Articles submitted to Biens Symboliques / Symbolic Goods should be an original piece of work, not been published before and not being considered for publication elsewhere in its final form either in printed or electronic form.
Submission
Send the full paper and anonymous paper—up to 60,000 characters, including spaces and notes)—, following our publishing standards, to symbolicgoods[at]gmail.com.
Add a separate page with a brief introduction of the contributor with, if needed, affiliation and discipline, and an abstract of the paper.
In order to take into account any request from the peer reviewing, we suggest you to leave a margin of 5,000 to 10,000 characters in your first version.
Concerning the papers submitted as part of a thematic issue, a smaller volume may be requested depending on the number of contributions planned (the volume of a dossier must not exceed 450,000 characters, excluding translations).
Peer review
All papers submitted are subject to a first peer review by the Editorial Board to determine if it matches with the editorial guidelines; then, it is submitted to double-blind peer review by a member of the Editorial Board as well as an outside assessor.
Translation
Papers accepted for publication in the miscellany section or in thematic issues will be translated and published in French and in English.
Submit an article to the other sections
Contributions to the following journal sections are also welcome.
Presentation of the sections
The Library Section welcomes crossed reviews on books recently published and sharing a common issue. Contributors can also submit reflexions on the history and reception of key works in the various disciplines and fields covered by the journal. Provided they offer researchers, whose works have acted as landmarks for the production and reception of symbolic goods, a means of questioning their intellectual affiliations and life stories, interviews of such researchers can also be submitted.
Editors: Claire Ducournau, Isabelle Gouarné, and Arnault Skornicki
In the Research in Translation Section, translators, culture professionals, academics or researchers used to working with different languages are invited to explain their translation choices, ways of doing things, with added reflexivity. Such contributions will thus provide further ground for thought to one of the key issues dealt with by the journal: The transnational circulation of texts and ideas.
Editors: Celia Bense Ferreira Alves, Lison Burlat, Michela Passini, and Séverine Sofio
In the Classroom and Beyond Section papers and documents on teaching and how social science results on culture and ideas circulate outside the academic world and are being publicly discussed. Papers should expose the narratives and analyses of in-class teaching experiences so as to help develop didactic methods linked to specific works and audiences: students, mainstream audiences, artists, cultural mediators, etc.
Editors: Frédéric Chateigner, Marc Perrenoud, and Jérémy Sinigaglia
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods is not only addressing culture professionals it widely opens up the journal to them through its On the Job Section. This section welcomes papers, interviews or round tables dedicated to professional practices in the arts, sciences or cultural mediation and outreach.
Editors: Cécile Barth-Rabot and Frédéric Poulard
Two types of papers can be submitted to the Perspectives Section: Studies or articles on approaches developed abroad in the social sciences on arts, culture or intellectual life and which remain little known; the first results of studies being carried out by researchers who work at the crossroads of different disciplines.
Editors: Wenceslas Lizé and Aurélie Pinto
Finally, the Open Science section, set up in the context of the Open-SHS project (supported by the French Ministry of Research and Higher education), is intended to report on the issues involved in opening up scientific publications: open access, economic model, national and international policies, open peer review practices, new publication models, multilingualism, etc. Following on from the Open-SHS seminar (2022-2023), the articles will provide feedback on concrete ways of applying the principles of open science, as well as positions on these issues and the various ways of responding to them.
Submission
Send a half-page long anonymous Statement of intent to be examined by the Editorial Board (symbolicgoods[at]gmail.com).
Add a separate page with a brief introduction of the contributor and, if needed, affiliation and discipline.
Once the Statement of Intent is accepted, send the full paper—up to 30,000 characters including spaces and notes, following our Publishing Standards.
Peer review
The contributions to these sections are not submitted to a double-blind peer review process. Each contribution is examined by the editors of the section.


