Editor’s Note

Editor’s Note I take the helm of the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism with both pleasure in the work-at-hand and humbleness in the face of my forebears’ legacy. This marks the first time in the twenty-five years of the journal’s history that the editor has not occupied a spot on the University of Kansas faculty. While the situation of editing the journal from the “outside” was at first daunting, I have been fortunate to draw upon the wealth of experience of the journal’s consulting editors: John Gronbeck-Tedesco, who cofounded the journal twenty-five years ago (and edited it for twenty-one of those years) and outgoing editor Iris Smith Fischer, who has generously shared her expertise and sage advice as she’s shown me the ropes. I also thank JDTC’s associate editors and John Staniunas, chair of the KU Department of Theatre, for all their help and guidance. Most of all, I owe a debt of gratitude to Jocelyn Buckner, our outgoing managing editor, who made my transition into the editor’s seat smoother and more enjoyable than I could have imagined. Jocelyn has served the journal for four years, and now we wish her the best as she starts her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh. It is an honor to have been tapped as the outside editor for the job, and doubtless the next three years of articles will be informed by my own editorial sensibilities. But I consider the journal to be first and foremost a Kansas production. As such, my role as editor is to be, as my predecessors before me, a custodian of the best and most dynamic work in dramatic theory and criticism. When my term is done, if the time and circumstances are right, I will turn the editor’s chair back over to its home in Lawrence—and, following the first rule of working in any theatrical space, I will do my best to leave it nicer than when I came in. As readers know, the landscape of scholarly publishing continues to be in flux with the proliferation of start-up journals, new ways of interfacing knowledge production with the latest web platforms and user-generated content, and the growing interdisciplinarity of our field. My charge, as I see it, is to keep one foot in the staunch history and traditions of the journal while necessarily navigating new courses through these choppy waters ahead. Now, to business: I only started this past July, but my tenure as editor has already been busy and rewarding. While we regret having to say goodbye to Jocelyn, I am delighted to welcome incoming Managing Editor Patrick Phillips, a PhD candidate in English at KU. Pat previously served the journal as subscriptions assistant, and now ably takes on this new role. The success of this issue is due in a large part to his diligence, skill, and professionalism. We also welcome Scott Knowles, a first-year PhD student in the KU Theatre Program, who takes Pat’s spot in the subscriptions assistant chair. The journal has added a new administrative position, conceived by Iris Smith Fischer to handle oversight of resources and staff that I am not able to do from Bowling Green. It is a pleasure to welcome Associate Editor and KU Theatre faculty member Mechele Leon, who has generously agreed to take on this new role for the journal. In August, JDTC presented “Paradigm, Praxis, and Field,” two sessions at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s annual meeting in Los Angeles, sponsored by theATHETheory and Criticism Focus Group. Each session comprised a panel of three of our associate editors, every one a high-profile scholar in our discipline, whom I asked to address the shifting institutional, economic, and disciplinary contours of contemporary theatre discourse with their current research projects. In the first of these two sessions, Rosemarie K. Bank presented “America’s Great Identifier and its Great Unfinished Business.” Beginning with the earliest maps on whichAmerica was coupled with the exotic images of the New World’s denizens, and through spectacles, anthropological displays, and depictions of Native peoples in drama (from Shakespeare to...