Editor’s Note

As most ASA members know by now, the American Quarterly will be moving to a new institutional home at the end of my editorial term on June 30, 2014 (the process to find a new institution is ongoing). In the meantime, the AQ Associate Editors and Managing Board will continue to work on engaging and intellectually stimulating quarterly issues of the journal, which includes the forthcoming special issues, “Speciesism, Racism, Sexism,” guest edited by Carla Freccero and Claire Jean Kim for fall 2013, and “Las Américas Quarterly,” guest edited by Macarena Gómez-Barris and Licia Fiol-Matta for fall 2014.

While different institutions organize their efforts to house AQ, we would like to announce a few editorial board changes. First, we want to thank Professor Glenn Hendler (Fordham University) for his incredible work as AQ’s Book Review Editor for the past several years. In a historical moment where there are fewer and fewer venues for publishing book reviews—despite the fact that university personnel committees, deans, and provosts continue to expect book reviews in appointment, tenure, and promotion files—AQ has been steadfastly committed to not merely publishing reviews of recent monographs, but also to the book review as a publication form, to put scholarly monographs in critical and intellectual conversation with each other. Glenn has been remarkably dedicated to this kind of scholarship, and has organized, solicited, and edited many noteworthy reviews that are widely referenced in scholarship and used in the classroom. Some of the remaining book reviews edited by him are enclosed in this issue.

Despite our regret that Glenn is stepping down, we are delighted to welcome Professor Cotten Seiler (Dickenson College) as the new Book Review Editor. Professor Seiler is equally dedicated to publishing intellectually engaging book reviews that help expand and enrich the field of American studies. His address can be found in an announcement in this issue of the journal, as well as on the AQ website (www.americanquarterly.org), so please send books and queries to him.

We would also like to welcome new members to the Managing Board and new Associate Editors. We welcome Richard Yarborough (UCLA) and Eric Porter (UCSC) to the Managing Board, and have already benefitted from their expansive knowledge of the field and sharp engagements with submitted articles. For Associate Editors, we want to first thank Danny Widener (UCSD) for his long (and extended) service as Associate Editor; thankfully he has agreed to remain on the Managing Board. We welcome, as new Associate Editors, Sarah Schrank (Cal State University, Long Beach), Michael Steiner (Cal State University, Fullerton), and Josh Kun (USC), who was already serving in the capacity of a Managing Board member. The addition of two more Associate Editors to AQ has already helped tremendously in shortening the time between submission to publication in the journal, and with the tireless volunteer labor of the Associate Editors and Managing Board, I am happy to say that the timeline is now shorter than it has been in years.

In this issue, we continue with our practice of publishing more unconventional forms of writing and scholarship alongside scholarly articles. Here, we present a forum organized by Naomi Greyser and Margot Weiss on “Academia and Activism,” which features short pieces on activism and protest within institutions of higher education, as well as interviews with scholars and activists. Additionally, we have a supplementary webpage for this forum where readers can find media examples and further materials to supplement the printed forum (http://www.americanquarterly.org/interact/beyond.html).

Also featured in this issue is Keith L. Camacho’s excellent essay which offers an ethnographic study of the ongoing activism against U.S. military build-up in the Mariana Islands and the U.S. unincorporated territory of Guam in the “post-9/11” era, while also situating this activism within the longer history of the cold war. Next, Miriam Thaggert looks at cinematic representations of the post-Civil Rights Movement Black female professional through a reading of the film Mahogany (1975), where in a compelling analysis, she asks us to revisit conventional readings of the film and think in new...