• Stan Rzeczy [State of Affairs] features in the Ministry of Science and Higher Education’s index of scholarly journals from 9 February 2021 (20 points).
• The journal is listed in Erih Plus, CEEOL, CEJSH, and the IC Journals Master List (ICV 2020: 77.85).
• The original (reference) version of the journal is the paper version.
• Publication frequency: two issues per year (semiannually).
• Publisher: Faculty of Sociology, University of Warsaw. Publishing partner: Wydawnictwo Campidoglio.
• ISSN: 2083-3059.

 

Aims and Scope

Stan Rzeczy [State of Affairs] publishes exclusively academic articles that have never before seen print and which are the original work of their authors (with the exception of translations and any visual material). We also publish reviews of books (in all languages) that have been published within the past two years.

The aims of the journal are to (a) initiate discussions on the foundations of the social sciences and humanities, (b) develop original theoretical concepts and orientations, and (c) interpret new social phenomena and intellectual trends, especially in Central and Eastern Europe.

Each issue of the journal is focused on a specific topic. An open call for papers is always published on the journal’s website. For current issues in preparation see the Call for Papers tab.

Foundations

State of Affairs was created in 2011 by an editorial board under Michał Łuczewski with the aim of initiating discussions in the social sciences and humanities. While the journal’s core interests were determined by its affiliation with the University of Warsaw’s Institute of Sociology (now the Faculty of Sociology), from the very beginning the publication moved beyond the boundaries of narrowly defined disciplines and contained articles by sociologists, philosophers, lawyers, culture experts, ethnologists, economists, political scientists, geographers, historians, art historians, and other scholars. This approach has been continued by the editorial team under Jakub Motrenko, which has attempted to expand the journal’s group of authors and readers and to institutionalise the journal’s work. State of Affairs is based on the proud tradition of sociology at the University of Warsaw, on critical and committed thinking about society, and on maintaining the highest levels of scholarly discipline.

The authors have various disciplinary affiliations, belong to a range of research centers in Poland and in Europe, represent the older, middle, and youngest generations of scholars, and have different axiological sensitivities and theoretical orientations. Diversity, however, is not an end in itself. In the opinion of the editors, none of these differences eliminate the fundamental unity that characterises rational research in science and the humanities.

The journal desires to move freely between the perspectives of detailed research and meta-reflection. It has returned to the study of society as a whole and to describing and explaining social phenomena for their own sake rather than on the basis of specialisations determined by research tools or historically established divisions between the areas of interest of individual sciences.

What distinguishes us?

• We publish thematic issues.
• We publish articles by well-known authors.
• We reserve space for an extensive book review section (we actively seek books worth reviewing and reviewers).
• We make our pages available for polemics.
• We translate classic texts in the humanities and social sciences into Polish.
• We have a demanding review procedure for texts (double-blind review, 90% of reviewers are from outside the Faculty of Sociology of the University of Warsaw).
• We are painstaking in regard to language editing, proofreading, and layout.
• We have distinctive covers reflecting our special aesthetic.
• We organise meetings in various academic institutions in connection with recently published works.  

Methods

Each issue of the journal consists of papers by authors who have been invited by the editors to contribute, articles submitted in response to a call for papers, and a review section. Even when some of the papers derive from a conference, submission is always open and all papers pass through standard external reviews and strict editorial appraisal. Work on each issue is supervised by the issue editor – an expert in the given field who is either a member of the editorial team or has been invited to collaborate.

The journal editors organise the publishing process but above all are involved in editing: they actively participate in subsequent stages of work on the texts. As a last stage, the editorial team would like to introduce seminars for authors on a permanent basis, both so that publication of an article would promote the further development of the author through encounters with other scholars, and in order to contribute to building a wider scholarly community.

The journal also publishes English-language issues. By mobilising an international network of scholars and inviting foreign scholars to be co-editors, the editorial team ensures that the journal has international visibility.

This publication model has proven successful. The editorial team has been pleased to observe that the journal is becoming increasingly recognisable, including abroad, while the number of articles and reviews, as well the number of persons eager to participate in the editorial work, has been growing. 

State of Affairs has a permanent base of authors, reviewers, and readers, including – in the opinion of the editors – Poland’s most outstanding scholars in the relevant fields. The journal is the product of an inclusive milieu of academics who frequently collaborate with each other on various undertakings. The journal also desires to discover new talents and to work with new authors from various academic environments, both within Poland and abroad.