Penn Press is thrilled to announce that the Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (JSAMES) will be joining its journals program in 2026. JSAMES is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal edited by Samer Abboud and sponsored by Villanova University’s Center for Arab and Islamic Studies (CAIS). The move marks an exciting new chapter for the journal as it embraces a new editorial vision and visual identity.
For almost fifty years, JSAMES has published scholarship on South and Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa, and the interconnections that bring the people and states of these areas together. Building on this legacy, the journal will revitalize its current focus by moving beyond the geographic, epistemological, and disciplinary boundaries of area studies such as South Asian or Middle Eastern Studies to bring these fields into shared dialogue.
Many scholars of the Middle East and South Asia today deploy complex, multi-scalar analyses that are rooted in interdisciplinary methodologies and varying epistemologies. The journal aims to highlight these varied approaches. In particular, JSAMES is interested in works that explore the dynamics of region-making, and therefore world-making, including pilgrimage routes, logistics infrastructures, smuggling networks, piracy circuits, informal security providers, and religion. This effort will be spearheaded by new editor Samer Abboud, Associate Professor of Global Interdisciplinary Studies and Director of the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at Villanova University. Dina Baslan serves as the journal’s managing editor.
The journal has a new visual identity created by Nicole Hayward.
JSAMES will be a welcome addition to the Penn Press journals program. Its interdisciplinary focus, broad geographic scope, and strong foundation in historical research aligns closely with Penn Press’s traditional strengths.
