Call for Submissions | Socio-Legal Review Journal [Volume 21(2)] & SLR Forum
April 16, 2025
NLSIU’s Socio-Legal Review (SLR) Journal is currently inviting submissions for a Special Issue of the Journal – Vol. 21(2) on Law and Culture.
About the Journal
Socio-Legal Review (SLR) is a peer-reviewed, bi-annual journal that encourages interdisciplinary research at the intersection of law and social sciences. It is an open access, student-run journal published by the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru. First published in 2005, the Journal has carried articles by luminaries in the field of law and society and has been cited by the Supreme Court of India in two landmark cases.
About Vol. 21(2)
In India and elsewhere, culture has entered a new space of contestation. By culture, we mean to focus on the arts—including cinema, art, photography, theatre, performing arts, comedy, and cartoons.
Comedians face legal consequences; movies roll off Bollywood’s conveyor belt parroting dominant cultural and political narratives. The relationship between state and culture is simultaneously confrontational and reinforcing.
The current situation throws up interesting questions on the nature of and relations between culture, law, state, and state power. How can culture be a refuge for us, presenting utopian possibilities while being stamped out by (extra-)legal censorship? How are the arts appropriated today by the state? What methods do we use to understand the cultural life of law and the legal life of culture? How do we read laws, judgments, and legal practices as cultural texts? How do law and culture collide to resolve or further polarize questions of identity, citizenship, religion, caste, and belonging?
We, at the Socio-Legal Review, are interested in investigating these questions in India and the wider South Asia region. To this end, we are proposing a Special Issue on Law and Culture for Volume 21(2) of the SLR.
We recognise that what constitutes culture bears the weight of both past and current atmosphere. We are keen to amplify voices from the margins of caste, gender, sexuality, religion, and region. It is our hope that the special issue provides a space for cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary dialogue and creativity.
For details regarding our submission categories (Articles, Notes from the Field, and Case/Legislative Comments), click here.
To make your submission for Volume 21(2), please visit https://repository.nls.ac.in/slr/.
The deadline for submission is May 31, 2025.
Call for Contributions: SLR Forum
SLR is also accepting submissions on a rolling basis for its online platform: the SLR Forum.
About the Forum
The SLR Forum is envisioned to be an accessible place for discourse around issues that have a socio-legal relevance, including but not limited to contemporary developments. We invite submissions in the form of short essays, commentaries, and other forms of writing ranging between 800-2500 words. Like the SLR Journal, the Forum houses interdisciplinary research. We do not accept pieces that consist of purely doctrinal or legal analysis; submissions must approach the issue through an interdisciplinary lens.
To make your submission for the SLR Forum, you may send an idea/theme you would like to develop further or a complete manuscript directly to
In case of any questions, please reach out to . To know more about its work and editorial policies, please visit https://repository.nls.ac.in/slr/