Journals as Innovators and the Innovation of Journals: The Council of Editors of Learned Journals Keynote Addresses MLA Convention 2004

摘要

At the 2004 conference of the Modern Language Association in Philadelphia, the theme for the keynote session of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ) was ‘Journals as Innovators and the Innovation of Journals’ — an idea suggested to us by Hayden Ward, retiring editor of Victorian Poetry (VP). VP itself has been as instrumental in prodding innovation in Victorian studies as in responding to change; likewise, all journals in the humanities aspire to help lead their respective fields, as well as to register how their fields are leading them. A related theme is how journal editors, precisely in thinking about ways to innovate, must periodically remake their journals; and how scholars who may be altogether new to editing, but who wish to speak to emerging fields, must invent new journals to spread the word.