REVIEWS

EDITOR-REVIEWED

1500 words for single reviews of books, films, electronic media, or exhibitions, must include thumbnail image

Book, film, exhibition, and electronic media reviews may be solicited directly by the review editors or suggested by potential reviewers.

At the moment, VAR is actively seeking ways of documenting and reviewing scholarship in progress, such as pedagogical experiments, visual ethnography labs, gaming platforms, filmmaker residencies, COVID-19 distanced exhibition media, and other ephemera relevant to visual anthropology. 

If you are suggesting a review, please send a short proposal introducing your idea and yourself to the relevant editor (below) before submitting completed essays. VAR also publishes multi-book, film, installation, and other multi-media review formats and forms of criticism, including transcribed dialogues between anthropologists, artists, and filmmakers (see DIALOGUE submission guidelines). Proposals for experimental writing, including collaborative and hybrid virtual review forms, are also welcome. Note: if your review idea overlaps between texts, installations, and new media, please copy all relevant section editors on your proposals. 

For Publishers/Distributors: Please send review copies of films or books directly to the respective editors at our institutional addresses below:

Film & Exhibition Review Editor
Eugenia Kisin
New York University
Gallatin School of Individualized Study
1 Washington Place, Rm 516
New York, NY 10003
eugenia.kisin@nyu.edu 

Book & Electronic Media Review Editor
Natalie Underberg-Goode
University of Central Florida
Nicholson School of Communication & Media
12461 Research Parkway, Suite 500, Room 130 Orlando, FL 32826
Natalie.Underberg-Goode@ucf.edu

Submission Portal
After your initial proposal has been accepted by the correct editor, please submit all materials through ScholarOne. It is important to note that all revisions, re-submissions, and communication with authors about their manuscript are facilitated through ScholarOne. Authors are encouraged to check spam/junk folders for filtered emails from Wiley, ScholarOne, and the editors.

Deadline & Length
Reviews are due on ScholarOne eight weeks after the editor’s acceptance of the proposal, unless otherwise agreed. Your review should be 1000-1500 words.

Content
Your article is a descriptive engagement with the material under review that would help someone unfamiliar with the book, film, exhibition, or electronic work decide how they might use it in their teaching and/or research. It should include a summary of the thing you are reviewing, as well as a discussion of how it engages with visual anthropology discourse, debate, and literature—in other words, why your chosen work matters to the field, and how it could be used in the classroom (or not). As criticism, your review should offer your evaluation of the work, as well as discussion of medium-specific and “off-screen” concerns where appropriate. For example, how do exhibition technologies and materials shape its narrative? How does a video’s circulation contribute to its meaning? How does an interactive game’s affordances enhance the teaching of visual anthropology in the classroom? Overall, why does this work of visual anthropology take the form that it does?

Formatting Your Review

Books. Title in bold. On a new line list the author or editor, the place of publication, the press and the date, followed by a period. On a new line list your name in italics and your affiliation on the next line. For example:

Images and Empires: Visuality in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa
Edited by Paul S. Landau and Deborah D. Kaspin, Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 2002.

Jude G. Akudinobi
University of California, Santa Barbara

Films. Title in bold. On a new line list the film’s director, the year it was made, its length, its distributor and the distributor’s contact information, followed by a period. On a new line list your name in italics and your affiliation on the next line. For example:

In the Name of Love: Modern Day Mail Order Brides Directed by Shannon O’Rourke, 2002, 58 minutes, color. Distributed by New Day Films, www.newday.com.

Sheila R. Tully
San Francisco State University

Exhibitions. Title for review in bold, which should include the full exhibition title in italics OR exhibition title in bold. On a new line list the curator, other relevant artists/makers, the dates of its run, its physical location, and URL (if any), followed by a period. On a new line list your name in italics and affiliation on the next line. For example:

White Walls, “Black City: Reflections on Exhibition as Residency - Art, Anthropology, Collaboration
Curated by Craig Campbell, Kate Hennessy, Fiona P. McDonald, Thomas Ross Miller, Trudi Lynn Smith, and Stephanie Takagarawa (Ethnographic Terminalia), November 18-22, 2013, Arts Incubator, University of Chicago, Chicago IL.

Monique Scott
Columbia University

Electronic Media. Title in bold. On a new line list the work’s author, the year it was made, distributor/publisher/producer (as appropriate), and distributor’s contact information. On a new line list your name in italics and your affiliation on the next line. For example: 

Philaplace (http://www.philaplace.org)
Created and Directed by Joan Saverino, 2009, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, accessed April 13, 2020. 

Gary Mills
University of the Ozarks

Accepted Manuscripts Once a manuscript is accepted, authors will work with the editors on final copyediting via First Look in ScholarOne. Final revisions must conform to VAR Style or they will be returned. The editors may enlist an external copyeditor for an additional level of review. Authors will receive e-proofs from the publisher along with queries and corrections approximately six weeks before the issue goes to print. They should take this opportunity to carefully proof their article as this will be their last chance to make any changes. Both copyediting and proofreading must be completed in a timely manner to meet publication deadlines. Prior to publication, the author must complete the Author Agreement Form, which will be sent to the author directly via email from the publisher (Wiley-Blackwell).

Supplements Once your manuscript is in production, you will be invited to provide additional materials (images, videos, links to relevant news articles, etc.) for an online supplement to your work. This is a space in which we feature dynamic, multimedia, and pedagogical content that extends the impact of your work. Authors will work directly with the VAR editorial assistant on these. See recent examples here.