Gil Eyal launches new journal: Theory and Social Inquiry

Professor Gil Eyal is among a group of former editors of the journal Theory and Society (TS) who recently launched a new journal, Theory and Social Inquiry (TSI). 

As the group recounts in a widely-circulated public statement, in 2023, Springer Nature--the publisher of TS--unilaterally decided to change the intellectual direction of that journal. Beyond simply changing editorial personnel for operational reasons, Springer decided that the journal needed to be “less political” and “more scientific." The publisher asked members of TS's existing editorial board to resign.

The ordeal highlighted a structural problem in academic publishing: "Because academic careers depend on scholarly publications, allowing for-profit publishers to determine the intellectual trajectory of a journal means allowing them to dictate the intellectual trajectory of the discipline. Springer decided the direction of the journal without any consultation with the community that produces the journal."

In order to address this structural issue and to continue the original mission of TS, the group of editors decided to launch TSI. In contrast to Springer, TSI is hosted on the platform of the Open Library of Humanities, a non-profit organization whose mission is to assist journals in breaking free of commercial publishers if their intellectual autonomy comes under attack. This will allow the editors to resist commercial publishers' demands that have by now become routine across the whole spectrum of journals - pressure to publish more (typically shorter) articles so that the press can make higher profits from access fees (“article processing charges”). TSI has no such fees and the limits on article length are flexible and substantially longer than other sociology journals.  

Additionally, the new journal is open access. This means that readers without university affiliations can access scholarly work, expanding the reach of the scholarship published in our pages to the broader public. Even more importantly for the new editors: they own the journal. An association of sociologists is the collective owner of TSI, which means that what happened with Springer can never happen again. 

TSI has two lead editors who will promptly decide on desk rejects, distribute papers to the editors, and oversee the movement of papers through the review process. The lead editorship will rotate among the editors, and the role will arrive to Columbia within the next 3-4 years. There is a plan to include graduate students in the editing process as a course credit. Additionally, a large group of associate editors (~50) will play the main role in reviewing papers. Associate editors are all senior, leading sociologists at top departments.  

The journal is now accepting submissions at its website theoryandsocialinquiry.org. 

Congratulations, Gil!