Policies

Focus and Scope
Contemporaneity: Historical Presence in Visual Culture explores the diverse ways in which the complexities of being in time are expressed. With each new edition, the journal examines how cultures around the world conceive of and construct their present and the concept of presentness, from prehistory to today. Through scholarly writings from several disciplines in the humanities, Contemporaneity maps the dynamic ways that cultures use visual and literary means to record, define, and interrogate their historical context and presence in time.

Contemporaneity is a scholarly, open-access, peer-reviewed journal edited by graduate students in the Department of History of Art & Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. It is published by Pitt Open Library Publishing.

The journal welcomes submissions from scholars at all career stages, especially graduate students and early-career researchers, and is committed to promoting inclusive, diverse, and interdisciplinary approaches to visual culture.

Peer Review Process
All scholarly submissions undergo a rigorous single anonymized peer review process, in which the identities of the authors are concealed throughout. Each submission is evaluated by two reviewers. Reviewers are selected for their subject knowledge and are asked to evaluate the submission based on originality, clarity, methodological rigor, contribution to the field, and coherence with the journal’s scope.

The editorial board makes the final decision on acceptance based on the reviewers’ recommendations. Authors may be asked to revise and resubmit their manuscripts based on reviewer feedback.

All review policies, including criteria for evaluation and expected timelines, are communicated clearly to reviewers and authors.

Publication Frequency
Contemporaneity is published biennially, with each issue typically released in the fall. Additional special issues may be published at the discretion of the editorial board.

Open Access Policy
Contemporaneity provides immediate open access to all of its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Our publisher, Pitt Open Library Publishing, adheres to the Budapest Open Access Initiative definition of open access:

“By ‘open access’ to [peer-reviewed research literature], we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers…”

All content is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which allows for reuse and redistribution with proper attribution.

We also support author self-archiving. Authors are encouraged to deposit preprints or accepted manuscripts in institutional or disciplinary repositories, personal websites, or non-commercial platforms after publication. We also permit posting of the final published version (publisher's PDF) with appropriate citation and link to the official journal site.

Author Fees
Contemporaneity does not charge any fees for submission, review, or publication.

Generative AI Policy
Contemporaneity recognizes the increasing use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools in research and writing. While such tools may support scholarly work, the journal upholds standards of academic integrity and transparency in line with best practices. Authors must disclose any use of generative AI tools in the preparation of their submission. Acceptable uses may include assistance with language or ideation, but AI tools may not be listed as authors and cannot take responsibility for submitted content.

Any AI use must be clearly documented and explained in the acknowledgments or methods section. The journal does not accept manuscripts that rely heavily on AI-generated text without meaningful human oversight.

To preserve confidentiality and data privacy, reviewers and editors are prohibited from uploading unpublished manuscripts to AI tools.

Editorial Team
Contemporaneity is edited by a rotating team of graduate students in the Department of History of Art & Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. The current editorial board is listed here. The board is advised by faculty from the department and supported by the University Library System’s Digital Scholarship and Publishing team.

All editorial decisions are made independently, without influence from the department, university administration, or sponsors. Editors recuse themselves from handling submissions where a conflict of interest may arise.

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
Contemporaneity adheres to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. Authors, reviewers, and editors are expected to uphold the highest standards of ethical conduct.

• Authors must ensure the originality of their work and acknowledge all sources appropriately. Plagiarism, fabrication, or falsification of data will not be tolerated.
• Reviewers must disclose any conflicts of interest and review submissions fairly and confidentially.
• Editors are responsible for maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record and will investigate any ethical concerns in accordance with COPE protocols.

Allegations of misconduct should be reported to the editorial board at contemporaneity@maill.pitt.edu

Archiving and Preservation
The Public Knowledge Project has developed the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN) to digitally preserve OJS journals. The LOCKSS program offers decentralized and distributed preservation, seamless perpetual access, and preservation of the authentic original version of the content.

Copyright and Licensing
Authors retain copyright of their work published in Contemporaneity and grant the journal the right of first publication. All works are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which allows users to share and adapt the work, with attribution.

Advertising and Direct Marketing
Contemporaneity does not publish advertisements. Any announcements about calls for papers or related events are issued in alignment with the journal’s mission and values and are not part of any commercial marketing or promotional activity.

 

(Revised August 2025)