WHO WE ARE AND WHY WE'RE HERE A MESSAGE FROM THE EDITORS
We are here to revolutionize academic reviewing. We aim to
do so by assessing new books on English and American literature of the
nineteenth century within ninety days of their publication, by inviting authors
to respond to each review within thirty days of its submission, by linking key
words in each review to other online sites, by posting relevant pictures along
with our reviews, and by inviting comments from visitors to the site.
Background. On August 1 and 2, 2008, a proposal to launch an online review of books
on literature was discussed at a conference generously sponsored by the Leslie
Humanities Center of Dartmouth College (See list of participants below.)
Incorporating the rationale for the conference as well as a number of
suggestions that arose from it, we drafted a Prospectus that has been
circulated to interested parties during the past year.
The Need.At present, most books published by university presses must wait at
least two years to be reviewed in print by academic journals. In other words,
academic reviewing remains bound to the glacial pace of printing schedules. We
find this pace intolerably slow and grossly unfair to any author who has
already spent several years writing a book, another year waiting to get it
accepted, and still another year waiting to have it produced.
Some examples of what has been done so far.
1.
The College Art Association (CAA) has its own site for reviewing new
books on art and art history in various categories. To read a complete review,
the site visitor must join the CAA. This site publishes more up-to-date reviews
of university press books than any other we have seen, and in some ways serves
as a model for our enterprise. But we plan to review books much more promptly
than CAA reviews now does.
2.
The Victorian Web posts reviews of books on Victorian literature and art, but
most of the books it reviews have been out for at least two years.
3.
H-NET REVIEWS already offers over 500 reviews of
UP books, most of them recently published. While H-NET nominally covers
“humanities and social sciences,” nearly all of the books it reviews are in
history. Nonetheless, its promptness and range of coverage exemplify something
like what we envision for the new review.
4.
The Electronic Book Reviewlists academic books published in 2007
and earlier, but—in spite of its title—has so far reviewed none of them.
5.
Romantic
Circles Reviews treats books on English and American Romanticism. Of the five books
“currently” reviewed, the newest appeared in 2007 and the rest have been out
for at least three years.
6.
The
Medieval Review. Since 1993, The Medieval Review (TMR; formerly the Bryn
Mawr Medieval Review) has been publishing reviews of current work in all
areas of Medieval Studies, a field it interprets as broadly as possible.
Current reviews include 65 books published in 2007 and 55 published in 2006.
8.
The Bryn Mawr Review of Comparative Literature, published four times a year,
reviews about ten books per issue. Books covered range “from studies of
national literatures to theoretical, interdisciplinary and cultural inquiries.”
The latest issue (Fall 2007) reviews nothing published later than 2006.
9.
Online since 1996,
the Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies reviews 2-3 books on this topic
every month. So far as we know, it’s the only site that sometimes posts more
than one review for a book and regularly invites the author to respond. Most of
the books it currently reviews date from 2006 or earlier.
10.
Founded in 1996 and
edited by Michael Eberle-Sinatra at the University of Montreal, Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net reviews about 15 books in each of
its quarterly issues and has so far published over 250 reviews in all. But its
latest issue (February 2009) reviews just four books published in 2008, ten
from 2007, one from 2006, and none from 2009.
11.
We feel bound to salute here the reviewing done two printed journals. From 1972 until recently, The Wordsworth Circle set a remarkable standard by annually reviewing every book published the previous year on English, American, and European Romanticism, and its latest review issue of Autumn 2009 (TWC 40.4) appraises 42 books. Of these, however, just 10 were published in 2009 and 17 in 2008, with the rest published earlier. Likewise, the European Romantic Review reviews thirty-one books in a special issue of December 2008 (ERR 19.5). But the reviews in this issue treat no book published later than 2006 (with most published earlier), and the editors plan no such issue in the future.
12.
Beginning with the
issue of February 2010, Modern Philology will post its reviews online, but it has not yet
indicated how many reviews a year it plans to publish and how soon they will
appear after the publication of each book reviewed.
13. Though its beat is outside modern
literature, we must also note that online review sites include the Bryn
Mawr Classical Review, which appraises scholarly work in
classical studies (including archaeology) and is also the authoritative archive
of BMCR's publication
from 1990 to the present. In its latest posting (September 2009), it reviews
ten books published in 2009, eight from 2008, and two from 2007.
Our first hundred reviews. To launch this project, we have
commissioned just over one hundred reviews of books published in 2009 on
English and American literature of the nineteenth century. After posting over
fifty of these so far, we aim to post the rest by April of 2010.
Our reviewers. Ranging from doctoral candidates to chaired
professors and emeriti, our reviewers constitute a cross section of specialists
in literature. We strongly appreciate their exceptional contributions to this
project and hope you will enjoy reading their work.
BooksAnnounced and Topical Index. Every book that we review or plan to
review is listed with its reviewer in the Books Announced list, which is
alphabetical by author’s surname. We also furnish a topic index to all the
books reviewed.
Institutional Support. At Dartmouth College, the English
Department, the Dean of the Humanities Division, and the Office of the Provost
have generously funded this project through June of 2010.
Technical Support. Built by Geethmala Sridaran of
India, an M.A. candidate in Computer Science at Dartmouth, this site is
technically managed by Samuel Lloyd of Sydney, Australia, Dartmouth College
Class of 2011. We greatly appreciate the expert work of Geethmala and the
continuing help of Sam, who has made himself indispensable to this project.
Advisory and Editorial Boards. For the Advisory Board and Board of
Editors, see the Masthead. We are enormously grateful to our
advisers and editors for the indispensable part they have played in launching
this review.
Thomas Luxon, Associate Editor for Technical Guidance
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CONFERENCE ON THE CASE FOR LAUNCHING
AN ONLINE REVIEW OF BOOKS ON
LITERATURE
August 1 and 2, 2008
REVIEW/ WEBSITE EDITORS:
George Landow, Professor of English,
Brown University; Editor, The
Victorian Web
Laura Mandell, Associate Professor
of English, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio; Founding Editor of Nines, website for studies in nineteenth-century English
and American culture
UNIVERSITY PRESS DIRECTORS AND EDITORS
Phyllis Deutsch, Editor in Chief, University Press of New
England
Philip Pochoda, Director, University of Michigan Press
William P. Sisler, Director, Harvard University Press
REPRESENTATIVES OF GRADUATE PROGRAMS IN ENGLISH
AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
Pericles Lewis, Department of English, Yale University
Marianne Hirsch, Professor of
Comparative Literature, Columbia University and former editor of PMLA.
DARTMOUTH PARTICIPANTS
James Heffernan, Emeritus Professor of English, Dartmouth
College
Jeff Horrell, Librarian, Dartmouth College
Julie Lirot, Adjunct Professor of Spanish and Portugese
Elizabeth Kirk, Associate Librarian
for Information Resources, Dartmouth College Library
Thomas Luxon, Department of English,
Cheheyl Professor and Director, Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of
Learning
Adrian Randolph, Leon Williams
Professor of Art History and Director, Leslie Humanities Center, Dartmouth
College
David Seaman, Associate Librarian
for Information Management, Baker-Berry Library, Dartmouth College
Thomas Summerall, President, Media-Lab
Mark Williams, Associate Professor
and Chair of Film and Television Studies and Founding Editor, Journal of
e-Media Studies.
