Editorial Remarks

This issue is the first with our new publishing partner Johns Hopkins University Press, and so marks an exciting moment in the development of the journal. College Literature has always sought to offer a space to reflect on literary studies as both a discipline and an intellectual enterprise in a broader sense than is sometimes possible in more narrowly focused publications. Over recent decades the discipline has moved through and beyond a period of radical paradigm shifts, so that it might now be said to operate within a new and relatively settled consensus—a calm after the storm, as it were. But if that is the case, then the project of reexamining the assumptions underlying such a consensus becomes all the more urgent as those assumptions become all the more taken for granted. The stability of any edifice may remain untroubled for a time even as the ground upon which it stands is already shifting, a lesson we routinely teach in our own histories of the emergence of the theoretical present.

In the current context, the structures of the university and of academic interchange operate in the face of economic and technological dynamics of immense power. Yet at the same time, the social and cultural movements in which critical discourse set so much faith have been cut adrift as the political is increasingly hollowed out under the imperatives of neoliberalism, which continues to set the horizon of political possibility. College Literature seeks to address this situation by calling for the renewal of critique and the rethinking of the relationship of the discipline to the public sphere. And we believe that our partnership with Johns Hopkins University Press offers the best institutional arrangement to pursue that call and continue to offer a space for reflection across (and beyond) the discipline.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have helped in the process of establishing our new publishing arrangements, although so many people have contributed support and advice along the way that it is impossible to include all who deserve thanks. First, I want to express my gratitude to the members of our International Editorial Board, who proved helpful, supportive, and encouraging and who offered me a superlative bank of understanding and insight upon which to draw. I would also like to thank all my fellow editors who shared their experience and time, among them most notably John Bryant, Michael Clarke, and Stephanie Hawkins, and to express my gratitude to the many others who gave invaluable support, including Joshua Clover, Priyamvada Gopal, Suvir Kaul, and David Kazanjian. At West Chester, I would like to recognize the unstinting efforts of all those who worked on the partnership process, especially Hyoejin Yoon, Eleanor Shevlin, and Gautam Pillay. And as always, I would like to give my ongoing thanks to the journal’s editorial team. Finally, I would like to record my appreciation for the professionalism and enthusiasm of all those now working on the partnership at Johns Hopkins, especially Bill Breichner, Carol Hamblen, and Mary Muhler.