About the Journal

The OCCT Review is a peer-reviewed journal of commentary, criticism, and reviews. While historically a review journal covering new books and trends in the fields of Comparative Criticism and Translation Studies, the OCCT Review has expanded its remit in 2026 to include working papers and criticism. We accept submissions in English that discuss new books and ideas that intersect with a growing range of linguistic and cultural traditions.

The OCCT Review is hosted by Shortform Hosting at Oxford (SHOx).

 

2027 Issue-Call for Papers

OCCT Review invites contributions from graduate students, doctoral candidates, and early-career scholars based in Oxford and beyond for our early 2027 issue. We would particularly like to publish contributions (book reviews, research articles, interviews, translations) on translation studies and comparative criticism

Submissions are now open and will close on December 13. We ask that interested authors submit their pieces via the portal.

The issue will be published online in 2027.

 

What We Publish

The OCCT Review publishes a range of scholarly and creative work. We welcome submissions in the following categories:

  • Book Reviews (up to 1500 words)
  • Research Articles (up to 6000 words)
  • Translations (up to 3000 words)
  • Interviews (up to 3000 words)
  • Creative pieces (up to 1500 words)

We also accept shorter commentary pieces addressing contemporary debates and emerging ideas. These short analytical essays may examine an overlooked aspect of current discourse, or offer an insider perspective on an otherwise familiar topic. For submission guidelines, please see below.

 

Book Reviews

A list of books currently awaiting reviewers can be found here. If you would like to review one of them, or indeed some other recent and relevant book, please contact the General Editors at occt.review@st-annes.ox.ac.uk

 

Author Guidelines

General Guidelines

  1. OCCT Review only publishes original research, reviews, translations and creative writing. Only proceed with a submission that has not been published elsewhere, and which has not been submitted to any other journal.
  2. The upper limit for submissions are 6000 words per research article (including words cited and endnotes), 1500 words per review, 3000 words per interview, and 1500 words per creative piece.
  3. The upper limit is 3000 words per original translation, inclusive of a brief context for the piece. Translators are encouraged to additionally submit a short preface or discussion of their translation process of up to 1000 words. Translators should include the source text in their submission. We ask that copyright clearance is obtained by the translator and provided with the submission. 
  4. Considering articles are subjected to a review process where the author and reviewers remain anonymous, authors are requested not to indicate their names anywhere in their manuscripts, including the properties of the document.
  5. Articles must be accompanied by an abstract in English of between 200 and 250 words and a list of between 5 and 8 keywords. A translation of the abstract in a language relevant to the article may be included at the author’s discretion. 

Technical Guidelines

  1. The typeface to be used is Times New Roman 12 pt., double spaced, and justified. 
  2. Leave a line open between paragraphs; do not indent paragraphs.
  3. Use headings and subheadings sparingly; headings are not numbered.
  4. The journal follows the 8th edition of the MLA citation style.
  5. Endnotes (rather than footnotes) must be used sparingly.
  6. Citations with fewer than 50 words are not indented but quoted in the running text; citations longer than 50 words are indented.
  7. Double quotation marks are used when citing another scholar or quoting from a literary work; within a quote, single quotation marks are used, unless the quote is indented.
  8. If there is an official translation of the title of a literary work, add it in brackets in italics; if there is no official translation, put the author’s translation of the title in brackets in normal text, no italics.

 

Peer Review Guidelines

General Guidelines

  1. The Editorial Board will be open to receive articles for a particular issue during a submission period following a Call for Papers. The Board will review all submissions it receives within this period. 
  2. If the Editorial Board deems a research article it receives during the submission period suitable for the journal (see Submission Guidelines), the Editorial Board will send the research article for double-blind peer review. 
  3. The Editorial Board will respond, during submission periods, within two working weeks of receiving a research article, informing the author whether 
    1. the article is suitable and has been sent for peer review, 
    2. the article is suitable and will be sent for peer review after revisions by the author, or 
    3. the article is not suitable for OCCT Review. 
  4. The Editorial Board expects peer review to last up to six working weeks; it will welcome queries from authors after this time if they have not heard back from OCCT Review. 
  5. The Editorial Board will not send book reviews, interviews, and creative writing to peer review.  Rather, the journal’s book review editors and creative writing editor will review these two types of submission. The Editorial Board will reserve the right, in these cases, to draw on the advice of OCCT Review’s expert advisory board of scholars in translation studies and comparative literature. 
  6. When publishing original translations, the creative writing editor of OCCT Review will endeavour to seek advice from peers with proficiency and/or expertise in both target and source languages, where relevant expertise is not represented on the Editorial Board.
  7. The Editorial Board expects submissions to meet a high standard in terms of presentation (see Submission Guidelines). It is not the job of the peer reviewer to copy-edit individual lines or check formatting. 
  8. The Editorial Board will make a final decision, following the peer reviewer’s recommendation, in the case of a research article, or an internal review, in the case of a book review or piece of creative writing, of whether to accept a contribution. 
  9. If accepted, the Editorial Board will copy-edit contributions and return them to the author with queries highlighted and a specified, reasonable deadline for response.

Guidelines for Peer Reviewers 

  1. OCCT Review specifically encourages contributions from graduate students, doctoral candidates, and early career scholars. The Editorial Board will also call upon early career scholars to provide feedback on research articles it receives in the form of peer review. 
  2. The Editorial Board expects peer reviewers to provide generous and constructive feedback on research articles, focusing on substantive issues and suggestions for improvement, and will proactively support peer reviewers in providing this.
  3. The Editorial Board will expect constructive feedback on research articles from peer reviewers in all cases, regardless of whether the peer reviewer recommends publication.
  4. The Editorial Board recognises the labour that goes into peer reviewing. It will provide authors with the opportunity to share feedback anonymously with the peer reviewer on the peer review process. 
  5. The Editorial Board expects peer reviewers not to use AI tools, such as Large Language Models (LLMs), to produce feedback and comments on articles. If the Editorial Board suspects that tools such as LLMs have been used, they may send out the article to a new peer reviewer. 

Technical Guidelines

  1. All submissions—research articles, book reviews, creative writing—will be received through the submission portal only. The submission portal is only open during the submission period.

 

Policies

The OCCT Review will not publish any form of hate speech or defamatory content.

We understand that AI usage is increasingly common across academic work, and not least in the fields of comparative criticism and translation studies, wherein authors may also be working with LLMs, machine translation, and AI as part of their research and the production of articles themselves. Using AI or incorporating it into research does not prohibit authors from submitting their work to the OCCT Review, but we ask that you declare how AI has been used in developing your piece (if at all) when you submit your work.

The opinions expressed in reviews, articles, and interviews published by the OCCT Review belong to the writers and should not be taken to represent the views of OCCT as a whole nor of Oxford University.

 

Contact

For any inquiries, please email us at occt.review@st-annes.ox.ac.uk