Incipitque Semper

With this issue we are happy to welcome Kate Khatib as the vital Editorial Assistant. We are also grateful to her predecessor, Thomas Dechand, for his continuing assistance in planning this issue and to Oleg Gelikman for his editorial suggestions and fidelity in preparing copy.

Once again, we are also indebted to Myrta Byrum at the Johns Hopkins University Press for helping to guide this issue through production with care, patience, and unfailing good humor.

Benchmarks

On April 29 and 30 The Humanities Center will sponsor a colloquium celebrating our long-time colleague and fellow editor Neil Hertz on the occasion of his retirement.

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There will be a special issue of MLN honoring the life and work of Gérard Defaux, which will appear this spring.

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W. J. T. Mitchell and Homi Bhabha have dedicated part of the Winter 2005 issue of Critical Inquiry to the memory and example of Edward Said: "Continuing the Conversation." The contributors to this colloquium reflect the range and vitality of Edward's engagements.

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On March 30th there will be a simple celebration at Hopkins honoring Jacques Derrida. Christian Delacampagne is organizing the event.

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A second edition of The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, edited by Michael Groden, Martin Kreiswirth, and Imre Szeman, will appear from the JHU Press in January, weighing in at 4¹/₂ pounds and 985 double-column pages.

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Annals of Scholarship, under the general editorship of Marie-Rose Logan, has just published a special issue [15, 2-3] devoted to a symposium on the work of John Ashbery, with Angus Fletcher as guest editor and introduced with a new poem by the poet.