Editor’s Note

As my tenure as Editor of TAPA comes to an end, I would like to express my gratitude to the many people and institutions who have made my work not only possible, but also a pleasure. My heartfelt thanks go to the APA, especially the indefatigable Adam Blistein; to Columbia’s Department of Classics and Stanwood Cockey Lodge Foundation; and to Carol Hamblen, my wonderful editor at Johns Hopkins University Press, who has made the semi-annual production of the physical journal a breeze. I am especially delighted to acknowledge my Editorial Assistants, David Ratzan and Mathias Hanses, for their acumen, dedication, and sense of both style and humor; I could not have done it without them. And of course, I am most grateful to the many authors who over the last four years have submitted to TAPA, not only for providing the stimulating papers that make up the journal (and many more), but also for their professional and gracious conduct, even when confronted with unwelcome news.

My biggest thanks, however, go to yet another group, one without whose help I could not have carried out my duties as Editor at all: the referees. Referees, by definition anonymous, are the unsung heroes of journal publishing. They dedicate their expertise and often not inconsiderable time to evaluating and improving work that is not their own, an activity for which they receive no credit beyond the occasional thanks to the nameless reader in an article’s acknowledgments. Granted, it is not always easy to find referees, and occasionally (as some authors have experienced to their frustration) readers who have agreed to comment on a paper take unconscionably long to do so, or even drop off the radar altogether. On the whole, though, I have been greatly impressed by the readiness of colleagues from a wide variety of institutions on different continents to engage with submissions of often not inconsiderable length on everything from Homeric wall-building to the social structures in late antique Palestine. I have been blown away by the dedication of referees who went way above and beyond the call of duty: the readers who returned their reports within less than 48 hours; those who submitted page upon page of detailed comments even on papers they did not consider worthy of publication; the colleague who procured and attached a pdf of an old German article the author had not been able to access; and (my favorite) the first-time father who penned his cheerful report on the afternoon of the birth of his daughter, while mother and child were taking a nap.

There are obvious drawbacks to producing a refereed journal: it takes time and effort, and even with the Editor’s best intentions, there is a certain hit-or-miss aspect to the process. I have on occasion found referees to be too easy on a paper or otherwise too hard (authors often agree on the second though rarely on the first!) or simply not very engaged with the piece. While the refereeing process thus carries an unavoidable whiff of subjectivity (somewhat alleviated by the fact that there are always at least two referees), I believe that it is nevertheless an admirable instrument that achieves a number of important objectives. It ensures the internal quality of the published articles and the journal as a whole. It acts as an external seal of quality, again for both the published pieces (important, as we all know, for purposes of evaluation and promotion) and the journal itself. As a not inconsiderable bonus, it provides highly valuable comments to the dozens of authors whose papers end up not being published, but who nevertheless profit from the readers’ reports (and often in fact specifically ask me to thank the very referees who have rejected their work). And finally, despite the double-blind nature of the process, it creates a kind of scholarly community, one where referees engage with work that is not their own or their colleagues’ and students’, and authors in turn find informed and interested readers beyond their own immediate circle.

The landscape of academic publishing is changing rapidly, and the TAPA of the...