About the Journal

Ánima is a student monographic series by the Department of Liberal Arts and the Colegio de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades (COCISOH) of the Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ. It is an open access publication that uses the peer-review arbitration system and the double-blind review methodology. Its objective is to provide a space for undergraduate and graduate students to publish their research and reflections, either in English or Spanish, in the areas of Philosophy, Literature and Art History.

ISSN: 2953-6340

Focus and Scope

Ánima is an annual academic publication under an open-access license, with an editorial peer-review process, through the double-blind review methodology. Its objective is to be a space in which undergraduate and graduate students can publish their research and reflections on contemporary debates on Philosophy, Literature, and Art History. It is divided into four sections, the first three correspondings to each of the aforementioned areas, and the last one is dedicated to the publication of opinion articles or dissemination by experts in the aforementioned disciplines.

We hope to capture the attention of those students with initiative, critical and investigative character, who want to share their academic work, giving them greater visibility and scope. This publication is aimed at both experts, who are interested in knowing the debates that are generated in the student academic context within the Humanities, and curious readers who want a broader and deeper knowledge of these areas, providing them with unpublished texts of excellent reflective and investigative quality.

The evaluation of the texts is based on a determination of their quality and not on subjective parameters such as "impact" or "relevance". For the review processes, we rely on internal and external reviewers to the USFQ. We have the support of experts from universities in Ecuador and abroad, depending on the volume of the monographic series and the topics of the texts received.

Ánima oversees the editorial processes that include peer review, style correction, design, and dissemination on social networks. The editorial processes have no cost for the authors due to the financial support of the publishing house USFQ PRESS, the Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ, and the College of Social Sciences and Humanities (COCISOH).

Thematic

The publication seeks to be the lens through which the different phenomena of the contemporary world are observed through the gaze of Philosophy, Literature, and Art History. In addition, it seeks to discuss the current role of the humanities in the global context, based on reflections and academic research.

For this reason, Ánima is divided into three sections, Philosophy, Literature, and Art History. The publication seeks for each of the sections diversity in terms of perspectives, methodologies, and interpretations, always supported by intellectual rigor and academic quality. The sections have the following characteristics:

  • Philosophy. This section is a space for the exchange of philosophical ideas of undergraduate students who are interested in academic research in all areas of philosophical research: political theory, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, ontology, epistemology, philosophical theology, etc. Each text for this section will be approximately 3000 words long.
  • History of art. This space reflects on how different cultures, throughout history, have built, conceived, and shaped the different dimensions of their existence in their historical and present context through visual art forms. This section publishes investigative texts on any period in the art history. These texts will have an approximate length of 3000 words, and their authors will be exclusively undergraduate students.
  • Literature. This section promotes the flow of academic reflections by undergraduate students on how the complexities of human dimensions have resulted in the creation of literary fictions. These discussions will revolve around thematic axes that cover topics such as the study, analysis, interpretation, and proposals for the rereading of texts from the global literary tradition. The approximate length of each text will be 3000 words.
  • Contributions from experts. This space encourages the publication of opinion or dissemination articles that are related to Philosophy, Art History and / or Literature. This section is intended only for texts whose authors are experts in any of the aforementioned disciplines. Each article will have an approximate length of 2500 words.

Publication Criteria

Ánima publishes original texts, which have not been published in advance and are not considered for other calls. However, we consider manuscripts that have been published as theses in institutional repositories or works that have been presented in academic contexts such as classes or conferences, as long as they comply with the format detailed in the author's guide. We accept texts whose conclusions are based on the appropriate and justified interpretation of the philosophical, literary, or art history bibliographic material. They must adhere to the international regulations of each discipline.

Peer review process:

Authors who want to publish in Ánima must send their text through the Open Journal System (OJS) platform. The texts received will be reviewed through the following stages:

  1. During the first stage, the texts are reviewed by a group of reviewers who are Liberal Arts students from the Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ, who are members of the Editorial Committee of the monographic series. In this first round of review, it will be decided if each text is a) accepted, b) accepted with minor corrections, c) temporarily accepted with major corrections, or c) rejected.
  2. In the second stage, the texts that were accepted in the first stage, accepted with minor corrections or temporarily accepted with major corrections, are reviewed by a group of experts from various universities that make up the Academic Committee of the Monographic Series.
  3. In the third stage of editorial review, the editors-in-chief will ensure that all pertinent corrections have been made to each of the texts in order to ensure their quality.
  4. Finally, all accepted texts will undergo a spelling revision.

In the first two stages of review, the form and substance of the received texts will be evaluated and special attention will be paid to the following categories: correspondence of the subject with any of the three disciplines of the monographic series, mastery of the contents, text structure, adequate use of academic sources and clarity in writing.

In addition, all the observations that both the members of the Editorial Committee and the members of the Academic Committee make to the texts will be shared with the authors so that they can make the pertinent amendments. The authors undertake to make the necessary edits in accordance with the observations made by the reviewers at each stage of the review. In order to guarantee the quality of the publication, the Ánima monographic series reserves the right to reject the texts at any stage of the editorial process.

Conditions for collaboration

  • All articles, other than undergraduate thesis or works developed in academic contexts such as classes or conferences, must be unpublished, and cannot be part of another publishing process.
  • After the first revision stage, Ánima reserves the right to assign the article to the section in which it will be published if accepted.
  • After each review stage, the authors undertake to make the corrections requested by the reviewers.
  • Authors must present an abstract and keywords that summarize the content of their text.
  • All quotes and references must follow the MLA norms.
  • Ánima holds the rights to make any formal change, if they do not change the content of the article.
  • Ánima reserves the rights to accept or reject articles at any stage of the editorial process.

Post frequency

Anima's periodicity is annual and is published between June and July of each year.

Open access policies

All Ánima content meets what is required to be an Open Access publication. The articles published by Ánima are subject to the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, which empowers the authors to retain the right to their texts, but frees any user from special permissions so that, for non-commercial purposes, they can share, transmit, redistribute, copy and adapt the material to any format, as long as the correct mention is made of the original authorship of the text, the changes made are indicated and a link to the license is provided.

The Ánima monographic series adopts this open access policy because it is based on the principle that the free exchange of knowledge fosters freedom and beauty, encourages intellectual production, and facilitates the dissemination of the humanities in the country and the region.

Code of ethics in research and publication

Ánima adheres to the Code of Honor and Coexistence of Universidad San Francisco de Quito , with an emphasis on Title II: Ethics of Research and Creation, where the rights and responsibilities of researchers and conflict resolution protocols are detailed. For more details, visit the following link

Access to content

The contents of the publication will be available in the OJS Archive.

Collaborators

The Ánima editorial team requests new members each year.

Active USFQ students from COCISOH and COCOA can be part of the team. The objective of this publication is the dissemination of articles of an academic nature in the areas of Literature, Philosophy and Art History.

Those interested in participating must meet the following requirements:

  • Be an active student of any career at COCISOH or COCOA USFQ.
  • Be studying the second semester of the degree or later.
  • Possess a minimum average of 3.2 in their accumulated GPA up to the last semester.
  • Have an interest in at least one of the areas of specialization in the journal.
  • Have passed a Humanities class (FIL, LIT, ARH) with A.
  • Have passed the Academic Writing class (ESP-1001) with an A.
  • Curriculum vitae.
  • A motivation letter about your interest in participating as a member of the editorial team of a minimum of 500 words and a maximum of 1000 words.
  • Have available time and commitment to carry out the editorial tasks stipulated in the editorial calendar of the monographic series.

The calls are opened every year between the months of June and August with an announcement on the page.