About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Launched in 1993 has published over 600 essays, reviews and interviews. Going beyond print and engaging directly with the many possibilities of the new medium of digital communication, CTheory is innovative, critical, and engaged, both in content and form.

An online, open-access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal CTheory reflects the international character of the Internet, with readers in over 100 countries. Moving beyond received theoretical critiques to a highly original reflection on the question of technology, theory and the posthuman condition, CTheory has attracted to its (electronic) pages many of the world’s leading theorists, including Jean Baudrillard, Paul Virilio, Bruce Sterling, Kathy Acker, Friedrich Kittleu, Slavoj Žižek, Ricardo Dominguez, Eugene Thacker, Stelarc, James Tully, Timothy Murray, William Leiss, Critical Art Ensemble, Michel Serres, Alexander R. Galloway, Lev Manovich, Belinda Barnett, John Armitage, Jussi Parikka, Barbara Mor, Soraya Murray, Joan Hawkins, Mark Featherstone, Michael Betancourt, Manuel Delanda, Rachel Lee, Johnny Golding, Jordan Crandall, D. Fox Harrell, Stephen Pfohl, Taiaiake Alfred, Renata Lemos Morais, Jackson 2bears, Prakash Kona,  Rachel Armstrong and Ruth Miller, among many others.

The intellectual success of Ctheory owes much to the continuing support of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, and its Office of the Dean of Social Sciences, as well as to the research support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)’s Canada Research Chairs program.

Peer Review Process

CTHEORY is an international, peer-reviewed journal of theory, technology, and culture.

Before submitting an article to CTHEORY, please send a one-page abstract to ctheory@uvic.ca.

Submission of a paper to CTHEORY will be taken to imply that it presents original, unpublished work not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Papers presented at conferences can, with appropriate changes, be considered for publication.

Please ensure that documents adhere to both the general format and endnote guidelines listed below prior to submission. All papers should be sent as email attachments (.doc or .docx format unless otherwise requested) to ctheory@uvic.ca with the word "Submission" in the subject line.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Sponsors

The editors would like to thank the University of Victoria for financial and intellectual support of CTHEORY. In particular, the Editors would like to thank the Dean of Social Science, Dr. Catherine Krull.

Sources of Support

  • Dr. Arthur Kroker, Canada Research Chair in Technology, Culture and Theory
  • Canada Foundation of Innovation (CFI)
  • University of Victoria 
  • Department of Political Science (UVic)

Journal History

Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory was published from 1976–91 as an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal of critical thought. Envisioned as an independent intellectual journal, CJPST quickly attracted to its pages an expanding circle of theorists, writers, artists, and poets who explored forms of critical thinking that were politically engaged, theoretically critical, and intellectually diverse.

The result was a series of dynamic theme issues probing key currents of politics, culture and society including themes on Ideology/Power, Psychoanalysis, Language, Ideology, Feminism Now, Leninism in Ruins, Body Digest: Fashion, Skin & Technology, Marx and Marxism Reconsidered, Mediascape, and Hollywood/Hollywood.

The essence of CJPST was its publication of a new generation of critical theorists drawn from feminism and cultural studies to film theory, political economy, and psychoanalysis. Contributors to CJPST included the theorists Jean Baudrillard, Jurgen Habermas, Susan Sontag, Herbert Marcuse, Stanley Aronowitz, Caroline Bayard, Peggy Phelan, Toril Moi, Anthony Giddens, Claude Lefort, Louise Marcil-Lacoste, Zygmunt Bauman, Russell Jacoby, Nino Ricci, Pamela McCallum, Terry Eagleton, Ernesto Laclau, Irving Layton, and Eli Mandel.

Edited and published by Arthur and Marilouise Kroker in collaboration with an exemplary editorial board, CJPST provided the intellectual foundation of its scholarly online successor, CTheory. Now that we experience once-again intensified global forms of social and political repression, the volumes of CJPST read as a sequel to the future.

That future, in all its possibilities and deprivations, is charted out—eloquently, comprehensively, and critically—in the theoretical imaginations of the many contributors to CTheory. Launched in 1993 and now in its third decade of electronic publication, CTheory is the digital successor to CJPST. Here, going beyond print and engaging directly with the possibilities of the new medium of digital communication, CTheory is intended to be innovative, critical, and engaged, both in content and form.

An online, open-access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal that reflects the international character of the Internet, CTheory does something unique, namely it makes every trajectory of social, political, and cultural theory a potential center of global intellectual debate. Here, in a way first visualized by Marshall McLuhan, the intellectual center is everywhere, with theoretical contributions and translations from over one hundred countries represented in CTheory’s readership. This quiet revolution in the form of theoretical discourse first explored in all its complexity by CTheory has had an instant and continuing impact on the content of theoretical discourse. Moving beyond received theoretical critiques to a highly original reflection on the question of technology, theory and the posthuman condition, CTheory has attracted to its (electronic) pages many of the world’s leading theorists, including Jean Baudrillard, Paul Virilio, Bruce Sterling, Kathy Acker, Friedrich Kittleu, Slavoj Žižek, Ricardo Dominguez, Eugene Thacker, Stelarc, James Tully, Timothy Murray, William Leiss, Critical Art Ensemble, Michel Serres, Alexander R. Galloway, Lev Manovich, Belinda Barnett, John Armitage, Jussi Parikka, Barbara Mor, Soraya Murray, Joan Hawkins, Mark Featherstone, Michael Betancourt, Manuel Delanda, Rachel Lee, Johnny Golding, Jordan Crandall, D. Fox Harrell, Stephen Pfohl, Taiaiake Alfred, Renata Lemos Morais, Jackson 2bears, Prakash Kona,  Rachel Armstrong and Ruth Miller, among many others.

The intellectual success of CTheory owes much to the continuing support of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, and its Office of the Dean of Social Sciences, as well as to the research support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)’s Canada Research Chairs program. The initial electronic launch of CTheory was facilitated by Anastassia Khouri St. Pierre, Systems Librarian at McGill University Libraries. The Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory was generously supported by grants from SSHRC. CJPST was also supported by Deans of Social Sciences, first at the University of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada and later at Concordia University in Montréal, Québec. Archiving CJPST/CTheory at the University of Victoria Libraries was made possible by the skillful work of Inba Kehoe, Scholarly Communication Librarian, and Jennifer Zilm, summer co-op student.