Processing Stories

When Ari Kelman took on editorship of this journal, he asked me to become managing editor. I am not a historian, but he knows me as a trivia fiend who's opinionated on many fronts. I studied classical Greek, then worked as a transcriptionist and became a foster-adoptive parent. Now I am a freelance editor and yarn-shop clerk in northern Kentucky. As managing editor, I track the reviews we have assigned, then shepherd each essay from submission to publication, collaborating with the authors to make their arguments stronger and clearer. It has been a delight and a challenge to get into the mindsets of a few dozen scholars per issue, seeing where I can push and where they lead me to fresh ways of thinking.

In this issue, we introduce a new feature: Process Stories. Scholars writing Process Stories will not provide traditional book reviews but instead reflect on how historiography has shaped the ways they teach, theorize, write, or do service. Process Stories may explore authors' experiences of their own changes over time or the interplay between history in the outside world and in the classroom, delineating the work of working historians. Jane Kamensky's powerful initial offering traces the revolutions in her students' thinking and in her goals as their teacher.