Focus and Scope
Public is the e-journal of Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life. It promotes scholarship and practice across arts, humanities, and design, including texts, literature, video, photography, performance, sound, historical representation, and interactive media. It focuses on the integration of cultural expression with other forms of knowledge to animate and deepen engagement with civic life. We are interested in interdisciplinary contexts such as the arts in economic development, humanities and social justice, design and environmental stewardship. We encourage more than one perspective on subjects addressed, and the crossing of traditional divisions of knowledge and professional sectors (i.e., educational, artistic, business, governmental, neighborhood-based).
Section Policies
Please limit your submissions to one per issue.
Editorial(s): Short pieces that introduce and frame the issue, written by the editor, members of the editorial board, and others by invitation.
Open Submissions | Indexed | Peer Reviewed |
Principles and Practices: Critical pieces that foreground ideas and provide examples of how they play out in practice, incorporating humanities, arts, and/or design in public life, and linked to the theme of the issue. Text or multimedia driven, authored individually or jointly, and in narrative, interview, or other form.
Open Submissions | Indexed | Peer Reviewed |
Resources and Case Studies: Specific, replicable instances of effective and/or inspiring projects, programs, or teaching. May be as modest as a single assignment or syllabus, or as large as a multi-year, cross-sector, cross-disciplinary endeavor. Provide a 250-500 word introduction/ frame in addition to the initiative’s description.
Open Submissions | Indexed | Peer Reviewed |
Reviews: Critical reflection of performances, books, websites, exhibitions, films, etc., in line with the journal’s mission. If you are interested in submitting a review, please email the editor, one month in advance of the submission deadline, a 150-word statement of what you wish to review and why it would be of keen interest to our constituents.
Open Submissions | Indexed | Peer Reviewed |