Aims & Scope

Iranian Studies is a peer reviewed multidisciplinary journal, covering everywhere with a Persian or Iranian legacy, especially Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, the Caucasus and northern India, and Iranians in the diaspora.

Article Types Accepted

• Article*
• Archival Report*
• Oral History*
• Review (solicited)
• Round Table (solicited)*
• Short Review (solicited)
• Review Essay (solicited)*

* These article types may be eligible for APC waivers or discounts under one of the agreements Cambridge University Press has made to support open access.

Archival Reports consist of writings which provide an in-depth analysis of a collection of archival documents on a subject matter. 

Oral Histories are recording the recollections of individuals who have witnessed important/defining historical moments. 

Short Reviews consist of reviews of books within the fields of Iranian studies which are written in non-European/regional languages. 

Author Guidelines 

Iranian Studies emphasizes the importance of inclusivity and accessibility, including open-access policies and accessibility options for people with disabilities. We encourage submissions from a diverse range of disciplines and geographical regions. We also encourage cross- and inter-disciplinary submissions. 

Ethical Considerations:  

Please observe professional standards to preserve the originality of your work, data integrity, and safeguard against conflicts of interest. 

Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools 

Authors must disclose any use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools or large language models in the preparation of their manuscript. This includes, but is not limited to, the use of AI for text generation, data analysis, or image creation. Authors should provide specific details about: 

1. The name and version of the AI tool(s) used 
2. The extent of AI involvement in the work (e.g., drafting, editing, data processing) 
3. How the AI-generated content was reviewed, verified, and integrated into the final manuscript 

All AI-assisted content must be clearly cited within the text and listed in the references section, following the journal's standard citation format. Authors retain full responsibility for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of their work, including any AI-generated components. 

Failure to disclose AI use may be considered a breach of academic integrity and could result in the rejection or retraction of the manuscript.  

Software to Use for Uploading your Submission: 

Please submit a document in the latest version of Microsoft Word, using Times New Roman 12 font.  The ScholarOne portal does not support early versions of Microsoft Word and might result in the footnotes not appearing in the submission. ScholarOne will automatically convert your file to a PDF. 

Please do not upload a PDF document unless you are submitting files which include Persian characters. If your manuscript includes Persian characters, please also upload a PDF in addition to your Word document. Please ensure you have checked the PDF to ensure all characters have been rendered correctly prior to uploading.

Article Length

The minimum word count for Articles is 8,000, while the maximum is 15,000.

Preparing your article for submission

Manuscripts are accepted in English. American English spelling and punctuation are preferred.

Manuscripts should be compiled in the following order:

• Cover page, including:
  • Authors, including Corresponding Author designation, full contact details and affiliations, including country
  • Abstract (100–120 words)
  • Keywords (5–8)
  • Disclosures (see below, Competing Interests)
  • Acknowledgements 
  • Financial Support
• Main text
• Bibliography
• Appendices (as appropriate)
• Table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages)
• Figure caption(s) (as a list)

How to Prepare your Material for Anonymous Peer Review:

The main text of your submission should not include any references to your identity.  Manuscripts are sent out for anonymous review and must, therefore, remove any reference to your identity. Instructions for anonymizing your manuscript prior to peer review can be found here.  

Formatting

• If quoting a long passage, use a block quote in the original script, followed by an English translation.
• Use footnotes, not endnotes.
• It is not required to include English translations of book or article titles that are not originally in English.
• If aligning words over several lines to illustrate parallel syntactical structures, use the tab bar, not the space bar, to separate each word. The English translation, in a full sentence, will follow on the third line, e.g.:
•                   khāneh    virān   ast
•                   house     ruined  is
                     The house is ruined.

Reference style: 

Iranian Studies uses the Chicago Footnotes + Bibliography style of references.  The following are some examples of footnotes, shortened footnotes, and bibliography:

Books

Footnotes:

Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown (Pantheon Books, 2020), 45.

 Amy J. Binder and Jeffrey L. Kidder, The Channels of Student Activism: How the Left and Right Are Winning (and Losing) in Campus Politics Today(University of Chicago Press, 2022), 117–18.

Shortened Footnotes:

Yu, Interior Chinatown, 48.

Binder and Kidder, Channels of Student Activism, 125.

Bibliography Entries (in alphabetical order): 

Binder, Amy J., and Jeffrey L. Kidder. The Channels of Student Activism: How the Left and Right Are Winning (and Losing) in Campus Politics Today. University of Chicago Press, 2022.

Yu, Charles. Interior Chinatown. Pantheon Books, 2020.

Translated Book

Footnote:

Liu Xinwu, The Wedding Party, trans. Jeremy Tiang (Amazon Crossing, 2021).

Shortened Footnote:

Liu, Wedding Party, 279.

Bibliography:

Chapter or Part of an Edited Book:

Footnotes:

Liu Xinwu. The Wedding Party. Translated by Jeremy Tiang. Amazon Crossing, 2021.

Chapter or Part of an Edited Work.

Kathleen Doyle, “The Queen Mary Psalter,” in The Book by Design: The Remarkable Story of the World’s Greatest Invention, ed. P. J. M. Marks and Stephen Parkin (University of Chicago Press, 2023), 64.

Shortened Footnote:

Doyle, “Queen Mary Psalter,” 65.

Bibliography Entry:

Doyle, Kathleen. “The Queen Mary Psalter.” In The Book by Design: The Remarkable Story of the World’s Greatest Invention, edited by P. J. M. Marks and Stephen Parkin. University of Chicago Press, 2023.

Journal Article

Footnotes:

Hyeyoung Kwon, “Inclusion Work: Children of Immigrants Claiming Membership in Everyday Life,” American Journal of Sociology 127, no. 6 (2022): 1842–43, https://doi.org/10.1086/720277.

B. T. Hebert, “The Island of Bolsö: A Study of Norwegian Life,” Sociological Review 17, no. 4 (1925): 310, EBSCOhost.

Shortened Footnotes:

 Kwon, “Inclusion Work,” 1851.

 Hebert, “Island of Bolsö,” 311.

Bibliography entries (in alphabetical order):

Hebert, B. T. “The Island of Bolsö: A Study of Norwegian Life.” Sociological Review 17, no. 4 (1925): 307–13. EBSCOhost.

Kwon, Hyeyoung. “Inclusion Work: Children of Immigrants Claiming Membership in Everyday Life.” American Journal of Sociology 127, no. 6 (2022): 1818–59. https://doi.org/10.1086/720277.

Please refer directly to the Chicago resources for more examples.  

Style guidelines

Please use double quotation marks, except where "a quotation is 'within' a quotation". Long quotations of 40 words or more should be indented without quotation marks.

Section headings should be concise.

Authors must also incorporate SI units. Units are not italicized.

When using a word which is or is asserted to be a proprietary term or trade mark, authors must use the symbol ® or ™.

If aligning words over several lines (e.g. to illustrate parallel syntactical structures), please indent the words using tabs not the space bar.

Transliteration Guidelines

Please adopt consistent usage throughout your submission. If your submission draws on Arabic and Persian, or Persian and Turkish, you may add a note explaining your use of two different transliteration systems.  Please feel free to reach out to the Editor if you have questions. 

For the transliteration of New Persian, authors may follow one of two methods, depending on their discipline and/or personal preference:

1. The Iranian Studies guidelines

Consonants

ب	b	ج	j	د	d	س	s	ع	‘	ل	l
پ	p	چ	ch	ذ	z	ش	sh	غ	gh	م	m
ت	t	ح	h	ر	r	ص	s	ف	f	ن	n
ث	s	خ	kh	ز	z	ض	z	ق	q	و	v
				ژ	zh	ط	t	ک	k	ه	h
						ظ	z	گ	g	ی	y
										ء	’

Vowels and diphthongs

a (dast) دست	ā (kār) کار	ay (hay) حَی	āy (āy) آی
e (gereft) گرفت	i (did) دید	ey (pey) پِی	ow (rowshan) روشن
o (shod) شد	u (bud) بود	uy (guy) گوی	oy (khoy) خوی

NB: The above tables reflect the standard variety of Persian spoken in Iran. It is important to acknowledge that there are other equally important varieties and dialects that do not follow this format. However, providing separate tables for each variety and dialect is beyond the scope of this guideline. Authors working on different varieties of Persian (e.g. Tajiki, Dari, Indo-Persian) as well as those working on other Iranian languages (e.g. Kurdish, Pashto) or dialects (e.g. Kurmanji Kurdish, Yazdi Persian) may make modifications as needed; the same goes for authors working on classical Persian.

Other rules: The following points are presented as best practices. However, different disciplines may require different methods, and in such cases, internal consistency is the most important factor.

• The long vowel alef is represented with a macron (ā), not a circumflex (â). For example, the correct transliteration is Khāneh rather than khâneh.
• Please use /ʾ/ (Unicode 02BE), and not a closed inverted comma [’] for hamzeh (ء).
• Please use /ʿ/ (Unicode 02BF), and not an open inverted comma [‘] for eyn(ع).
• The tashdid is represented by a doubling of the letter, e.g. bachcheh, takhassos. The glide /y/ does not follow this rule, e.g. adabiyāt not adabiyyāt.
• When the letter ه is used to mark the final vowel /e/, it is kept in transliteration, e.g. beh, keh, nāmeh, shodeh, dowleh.
• The ezāfeh is written as /-e/ after consonants, e.g. ketāb-e, and as /-ye/ after vowels, e.g. daryā-ye, khāneh-ye.
• The author may choose to utilize hyphenation in other cases, such as to separate particles, enclitics, and compounds, as long as there is consistency throughout the manuscript.
• There is no need to transliterate familiar names such as Isfahan, Ilkhanid, Mossadegh, etc. However, when using a direct quote, retain the original form, e.g.: "There is a popular saying about the city of Isfahan: esfahān nesf-e jahān ast." The Merriam-Webster Dictionary is a useful guide for anglicized words; if more than one variant is recorded, use the one that aligns most closely with your selected method.
• The transliteration of other scholarship in quotation should not be altered.

2. The system used by the International Journal of Middle East Studies(IJMES)

For more information about IJMES, please click here; a convenient reference chart is available here. Whichever approach is chosen, it must be strictly and consistently adhered to. Failure to do so will result in the submission being rejected, even if it has passed peer review. Section 3 on formatting should be followed by all authors, irrespective of their transliteration system.

The transliteration of Avestan should employ the system of Karl Hoffmann; for Old Persian, R. G. Kent's Old Persian (New Haven, 1953); and for Middle Persian, D. N. Mackenzie's Concise Pahlavi Dictionary (London, 1971).

For the transliteration of Arabic and Ottoman Turkish, authors should utilize IJMES in a manner consistent with their rendering of New Persian (i.e. preserving or ignoring diacritics other than macrons).

NB: IJMES makes a distinction in the way it renders Arabic ة (/-a/) and its Persian counterpart ه (/-ih/); cf. al-wilāyāt al-mutaḥḥida vs. iyālāt-i mutaḥḥidih. Authors who wish to use IJMES may ignore this distinction and simply write /a/ or /i/ as appropriate, thus ki for که, nāma for نامه, and mutaḥḥida for متحده.

For other languages (e.g. Armenian, Hebrew), authors are advised to use the relevant ALA-LoC Romanization Table.

How to prepare your materials for blind peer review

Instructions for blinding your manuscript prior to peer review can be found here.

Artwork, figures, and other graphics

All figures and tables should be supplied in separate files. Resolution: halftone images must be saved at 300dpi at approximately the final size. Line drawings should be saved at 1000 dpi, or 1200 dpi if very fine line weights have been used. Combination figures must be saved at a minimum of 600 dpi. Cambridge Journals recommends that only TIFF, EPS or PDF formats are used for electronic artwork. For more detailed guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format please see the Cambridge Journals Artwork Guide.

All figures must be numbered in the order in which they appear in the manuscript (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2). In multi-part figures, each part should be labelled (e.g. Figure 1(a), Figure 1(b)).

Figure captions must be saved separately, as part of the file containing the complete text of the manuscript, and numbered correspondingly.

The filename for a graphic should be descriptive of the graphic, e.g. Figure1, Figure2a.

Color figures: Please indicate whether figures should be printed in color. There will be a charge of $320 for each color figure printed in the journal. If you select this option, you will be contacted by CCC-Rightslink who are acting on our behalf to collect Author Charges. If usable color figures are supplied, these figures will appear in color online regardless of whether or not they are reproduced in color in the printed version.

Reproduction of copyright material: Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. A copy of the paperwork granting permission should be provided to the Cambridge production editor. You may be asked to pay a permissions fee by the copyright holder; any permissions fees must be paid for by the author. For an example of a permissions request form please see the Cambridge Journals Artwork Guide.

Ethics and transparency policy requirements

Please review our ethics policies prior to submission.

All authors of a manuscript should include their full names and affiliations, including country of institution, on the cover page of the manuscript. One author should be identified as the Corresponding Author. Note that the designation of the Corresponding Author may be used to determine your eligibility for APC funding under Institutional Transformative (Open Access) Agreements.

All persons who have a reasonable claim to authorship must be named in the manuscript as co-authors, and the order of names should be agreed by all authors. The journal will no longer consider for publication papers with more than three authors. Colleagues who have otherwise assisted or collaborated should be recognized in the section for Acknowledgements. Please supply a short biographical note for each author.

Acknowledgements

Authors can use this section to acknowledge and thank colleagues, institutions, workshop organizers, family members, etc. that have helped with the research and/or writing process. It is important that any type of funding information or financial support to be listed under ‘Financial Support’ rather than Acknowledgements so that it can easily be tagged and captured separately.

Financial Support

Please supply all details required by any funding and grant-awarding bodies as a separate section of your manuscript, as follows:

For single agency grants: "This work was supported by the [Funding Agency] under Grant [number xxxx]."

For multiple agency grants: "This work was supported by the [Funding Agency 1] under Grant [number xxxx]; [Funding Agency 2] under Grant [number xxxx]; and [Funding Agency 3] under Grant [number xxxx.]"

Where no specific funding has been provided for research, please provide the following statement:

"This research received no specific grant funding form any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors."