Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

About

Zamani is an international biannual journal that welcomes submissions for publication consideration from all over the world. It welcomes submissions that specifically engages with African history or issues that shows relationship between Africa and other parts of the world in historical perspective. The submissions can be on methodological or on conventional thematic histories like political, economic, environmental, demographic, social, cultural, medical, material culture, religion, science and technology histories covering any geographical area of the African continent. The journal promotes African perspectives and thinking on African history, in both writing and research. Thus, the journal is pan-African thematically and geographically. The journal has an international and diverse editorial team of established and proven historians of Africa from Africa itself, Europe and North America.

Zamani journal is not fundamentally a new journal. Between 1964 and 1991, Zamani was a series of publications in African history that promoted African perspectives. It was a series that was spearheaded by Africanist historians who were based in East African universities first at the University of East Africa and later at the universities of Dar es Salaam, Makerere and Nairobi. The prominent historians who published under this monographic series include Isariah N. Kimambo, Bethwel Ogot, John Iliffe and Adrew Roberts. Between 1992 and 2023, the Zamani series was changed into a journal that was known as Tanzania Zamani. The journal published articles and book reviews on the history of Tanzania only. The journal was co-published and co-owned by the Historical Association of Tanzania and the Department of History at University of Dar es Salaam. In 2024, Tanzania Zamani changed the name and scope to accommodate historical research from across the African Continent. The journal became under full control of the University of Dar es Salaam. With a new, vibrant and dynamic editorial team and board, the journal revived the spirit of the pan-African Zamani series by promoting African perspectives on the past and also became institutionally the only African-based journal of history. 

Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief:

• Salvatory S. Nyanto

Associate Editor-in-Chief:

• Samuel Mhajida

Managing Editor:

• Frank Edward

Book Reviews Editor:

• Emanuel L. Mchome

Submissions

Login or Register to make a submission.

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

• The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
• The submission file is in Microsoft Word document file format.
• Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
• The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
• The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in About the Journal. The journal insist on authors adhering to Chicago Style when preparing their submissions.
• If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review have been followed.

Author Guidelines

Submission Guidelines to Authors

i. All submission should be written in British English consistently. Authors are thus advised to edit their works prior to submissions to make the review process a smooth exercise.
ii. Authors should submit manuscripts in word format document and justified. All texts should be in Times New Roman font size 12 and in single-space throughout. Quotations exceeding 20 words should be indented consistently. Page numbers should be written in the centre of the footer.
iii. At the time of submission, the work should not be submitted for consideration elsewhere.
iv. Each author should submit two word-format documents. The first document should a one-page document with title of submission, name, institution affiliation, ORCID number, and active email address. The second document should have five main elements: title, abstract, keywords, main essay and references.
v. Authors should use Chicago Style (16th edition) in organising their footnotes and references consistently. Here are few examples:

• End of article reference page with full citations in Chicago Style:
  BOOK: Nyerere, Julius K. Freedom and Unity. Dar es Salaam: Oxford University Press, 1966.
  CHAPTER IN A BOOK: König, Wolfgang. “Design and Engineering.” In The Oxford Handbook of Business History edited by Geoffrey Jones and Jonathan Zeitlin. Oxford: Oxford University
  Press, 2007.
  ARTICLE IN PRINT JOURNAL: Smiley, Sarah L. “Researching Housing, Water, and Sanitation
  in the British and Tanzania National Archives.” History in Africa 40 (2013): 353-364.
• Footnotes written continuously (at bottom of page); with full citation when cited for the first time and with brief relevant citation of Author’s last name and short title only when cited again. Here is the example
  1. Julius K. Nyerere, Freedom and Unity (Dar es Salaam: Oxford University Press, 1966),
  24-25.
  2. Nyerere, Freedom and Unity, 26.
  3. Sarah L. Smiley, “Researching Housing, Water, and Sanitation in the British and Tanzania
  National Archives,” History in Africa 40 (2013): 353-364.
  4. Smiley, “Researching Housing,” 355.
  5. Interview with a healthcare worker, March 20, 2024, Peramiho.
• No in-text citations

vi. On length:

• for book reviews, submissions should be between 900 and 1200 words. If necessary, book reviews may include a very limited number of footnotes.
• For essay reviews, the submissions should not be less than 3000 and not more than 4500 words long including footnotes.
• For papers coming from allied sciences of history, particularly African Archaeology, the submissions should not be less than 5000 words. 
• For conventional articles, the submission should be not less than 7000 words and not more than 9000 words with footnotes and references.

viii. Authors have a responsibility to sort out copyright issues for all materials used in their works and that originally do not belong to them. Such materials include images, maps and other forms of illustrations.
ix. Submissions may regrettably be returned back to authors if the above guidelines are not adhered to.

Copyright Notice

Once published, the author handles the rights to the journal. The author will be asked to sign a form consenting transfer of rights to Zamani Journal.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Contact

Editor-in-Chief

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studie
Department of History, University of Dar es Salaam
P.O. Box 35050
Dar es Salaam 16103
Tanzania.
E-mail: zjahs@udsm.ac.tz

Principal Contact

Chief Editor

Department of History, University of Dar es Salaam.

zjahs@udsm.ac.tz

Support Contact

Frank Edward

edward.frank@udsm.ac.tz

Please see the submission guidelines here.