About


C21: Journal of 21st-century Writings is the official affiliated journal of the British Association for Contemporary Literary Studies (BACLS). The journal is dedicated to examining the genres, forms of publication, and circulation of 21st-century writings. Originally launched in 2012, and open access since 2016, C21 aims to create a critical, discursive space for the promotion and exploration of 21st-century writings in English. It addresses a range of narratives in contemporary culture, from the novel, poem and play to hypertext, digital gaming and contemporary creative writing. The journal features engaged theoretical pieces alongside new unpublished creative works and investigates the challenges that new media present to traditional categorisations of literary writing.

Articles are encouraged from academics, contemporary writers, publishers and readers. The journal publishes articles on 21st-century writings as well as reviews, features and opinion pieces from academics, readers and writers in the field, and conference reports.


Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Authors of published articles remain the copyright holders and grant third parties the right to use, reproduce, and share the article according to a Creative Commons license agreement. 

One of the benefits of open access publishing lies in others being able to re-use material. We believe that the greatest societal good is possible when people are free to re-distribute scholarship and to create derivative works. This is why we use the CC BY 4.0 license, under which others may re-use your work, on condition that they cite you.  

If a more restrictive licence is required (for example, if you are reproducing third party material that cannot be reproduced under more open licences), please make this request upon submission in the ‘Comment to the Editor’ field or email your editor directly, stating the reasons why.


Archiving Policy

The journal's publisher, the Open Library of Humanities, focuses on making content discoverable and accessible through indexing services. Content is also archived around the world to ensure long-term availability.

Open Library of Humanities journals are indexed by the following services:

In addition, all journals are available for harvesting via OAI-PMH.

To ensure permanency of all publications, this journal also utilises CLOCKSS, and LOCKSS archiving systems to create permanent archives for the purposes of preservation and restoration.

If the journal is not indexed by your preferred service, please let us know by emailing editorial@openlibhums.org or alternatively by making an indexing request directly with the service.


History 

C21 was originally launched as a journal with Gylphi Press, an independent arts and humanities publisher specialising in the contemporary period. In 2016, C21 joined the Open Library of Humanities and became Open Access. All content published since then is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.