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  • Standing on the Shoulders of Giants:A Scholarly Leave-Taking
  • Craig Monk, Cynthia Lee Patterson, and Karen Roggenkamp

The academic image of “standing on the shoulders,” traced through Sir Isaac Newton in 1676, back to Bernard of Chartres in the twelfth century, compares the production of truth to dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. In this metaphor, the dwarfs rely on their added height to broaden their horizons and expand the scope of known truths. However, the major thrust seemed to be the reliance of these dwarfs on the truths gleaned by their giant predecessors. Now, the editorial triumvirate at American Periodicals do not consider themselves to be scholarly dwarfs, nor their predecessors monstrous giants. Nonetheless, in this editorial address, which coincidentally celebrates the twenty-fifth anniversary of the journal, we do wish to acknowledge the foundation upon which we built our own contributions to the journal as we enter the final year of our editorship. What better way than to feature the remembrances of a headline cast of former AP editors and contributors? Furthermore, from the added height of our past five years’ experience editing the journal and the work we have done to secure cutting-edge contributions for future issues, we would like to announce exciting special issues on the horizon. We will close our editorial address by prognosticating some of the challenges we see in the future of scholarly publishing in American periodicals.

We envision this twenty-fifth anniversary issue of American Periodicals as a kind of “primer” issue—one that not only commemorates the past, but serves in a single compact package to help introduce a future generation of scholars to important trends in the field of American periodicals research over the past [End Page 1] quarter century. We hope that seasoned professors will consider assigning it as required reading in undergraduate and graduate courses, and that it will serve in the future as a milestone, marking the growth of a field. Speaking of the future, we would be remiss if we failed to recommend the splendid, forthcoming collection The Future of the Magazine Form: Research Perspectives and Prospects, edited by David Abrahamson and Marcia R. Prior-Miller. You will see some of the authors contributing to this special twenty-fifth anniversary issue of American Periodicals in that collection, as well. Look also for the fifth volume of the Oxford History of Popular Print Culture, on U.S. Popular Print Culture to 1860, edited by Ronald J. Zboray and Mary Saracino Zboray, scheduled for release in 2018.

For our twenty-fifth anniversary issue, we have invited a group of the journal’s most distinguished former editors and contributors to reflect on the importance of their contributions to AP, in terms of their professional development, and to imagine the future of American periodicals research. We are delighted to have received contributions from the journal’s original editor, James Tanner, and from Kim Martin Long, who, for many years, contributed the annual review of scholarship. Also weighing in are the journal’s second editorial team, from the Ohio State University—Steven Fink, Jared Gardner, and Susan Williams—in a submission that will be familiar to long-time AP readers, “From the Editors’ Chair.” More than a dozen other American Periodicals contributors add their voices, reflecting on how their publications in this journal served as important turning points in their own careers.

Looking ahead, the outgoing editorial team is proud to announce a slate of upcoming special issues. For Fall 2015, American Periodicals will feature an issue on “Black Periodical Studies” guest-edited by Eric Gardner and Joycelyn Moody. In Fall 2016, James Berkey and Mark Noonan will curate an issue devoted to “War and Periodicals,” an outgrowth of recent conferences on the topic. A very special Fall 2017 issue, co-edited by Cecile Roudeau and Helene Quanquin from the Sorbonne Nouvelle, will focus on “Reading and Writing ‘Periodically’: Nineteenth-Century American Periodicals Across Disciplines.” And, finally, in Fall 2018, our Canadian colleague Michelle Meagher will co-edit a special issue on feminist print culture. Annual spring issues will continue to be devoted to articles selected from regular submissions.

As should be evident from the list of forthcoming...

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