Editors’ Note

Metaphor is a central irony of human communication: it attempts to explain what something by comparing it to something that it is not. The prevalence of metaphor in periodical studies indicates the field’s scope and its elusiveness. In this issue, Tim Lanzendörfer has organized an intriguing set of ruminations on the “Metaphors We Use”—ranging from the seemingly topical (printscape) to the practically transparent (medium)—encouraging us to more deeply consider the implications of the comparisons we make between periodicals (and the processes and concepts that govern them) and other things. “Metaphors structure our thinking,” Lanzendörfer writes; they provide openings and affordances, but also create “structural limits.” In examining each of their chosen metaphors, contributors to this Forum show us “the things they let us see and the things to which they blind us.”

The three subsequent essays included in this issue push against the already capacious boundaries of periodical studies. James Berkey’s “In the Archive” feature on Civil War newspapers shows how Union and Confederate soldiers waged war on the pages—and press beds—of newspapers, manifesting a concrete form of the “grapevine telegraph” where lead type replaced lead shot in battles to control the news coming from “Secessia.” Alexandra Urakova examines the ways in which antebellum gift books functioned like periodicals, especially in the ways they used marketing strategies prevalent in periodical publication. Finally, Nathan Rees considers the Minutes of the Sacred Harp Singings, an annual volume produced by the Sacred Harp Musical Heritage Association, and its accompanying FaSoLa Minutes app, as performing the functions of representing and shaping sacred harp singing as it becomes an international community rooted in the traditions and racialized history of the South. While neither the Minutes nor the FaSoLa Minutes app present as periodicals, Rees shows through analysis of their organization and formal features how they function “periodically,” expanding our understanding of periodicality itself.

Rounding out the issue, we offer two review essays. The first explores exciting contributions to scholarly considerations of Frederick Douglass and Herman Melville and thinks actively about contexts and reading; the second meditates on the continuing expansion of African American periodical studies. We share, as well, a pair of reviews of individual books on American little magazines of the 1890s and on the Liberator, an important African American activist magazine of the civil rights and Black Power eras.

We hope you enjoy this issue of American Periodicals. We are always on the lookout for new work. Please spread the word about our Forum and In the Archive features, and contact us if you have work that may be suitable for these pages.