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New journals with three years or fewer of publication history are eligible. Applicants must supply copies of two different issues, one of which must be the most current issue. Submissions should include a letter from the editor, no longer than one page, introducing the new journal.
2022, Winner: Journal of Autoethnography
We unanimously decided to offer the award to the Journal of Autoethnography. The jury agreed that it was a fantastic interjection into academic life by providing a venue with an intellectual frame of inquiry that is at once necessarily broad and yet effectively specific. The work presented in the journal cuts across disciplines, while retaining a focus on autoethnography” as a method, allowing for multiple identities, traditions, abilities, and interventions from the large scale to the small scale, and from the public to the personal. The jury also felt it was not only an exciting and accessible publication, but also a sustainable journal, especially as it had 400 manuscript submissions to start, and has multiple issues already.
2022, Honorable Mention: Alon: Journal for Filipinx American and Diasporic Studies
The jury also wishes to recognize Alon: Journal for Filipinx American and Diasporic Studies with an honorable mention. We were impressed with the journal’s thoughtful and important intervention at the intersection of several fields and its welcoming of contributions from diverse authors, including activists, artists, educators, and journalists. We believe that Alon offers an exciting model for open access publishing in ethnic and diasporic studies and congratulate the editorial staff on the choices they have made so far in regard to amplifying its distinguished mission and scope, as well as building partnerships with academic, arts, and community institutions, to launch this important journal.
A special issue from the previous Fall/Winter or current year may be submitted. The journal editor must include a paragraph in the cover letter explaining why the submitted special issue is exceptional. Submissions without the editor’s endorsement will not be considered. A journal may submit only one special issue for this award.
2022, Winner: “Vibrant Ecologies of Research,” the first special issue of Ground Works
The number and quality of submissions for the 2022 CELJ Best Special Issue Award was truly impressive, making adjudication both delightful and difficult. We were inspired by the range of topics and approaches. In making our decision, we considered the clarity of editorial vision, the significance of contribution, whether or not an issue was conceptually interesting beyond a single field, formal and methodological innovation, and evidence of collaborative engagement across individual contributions to the broader project of the issue.
The award review committee found “Vibrant Ecologies of Research,” the first special issue of Ground Works, remarkable among a strong field of contenders. Ground Works is a relatively new online open-access journal that publishes peer-reviewed media-rich articles on research projects at the intersection of the arts and other fields. This special issue makes clear the importance of providing a generative space for work that does not fit in traditional disciplinary journals or galleries. The overall thematic concept and the ways in which it was presented was innovative and insightful. Comprised of five peer-reviewed projects and three invited commentaries, the special issue presents an ‘ecological’ approach to understanding the nuanced interconnections of interdisciplinary research and practice, and the exciting scholarly possibilities of arts-integration. The committee was particularly taken with the interactive and dynamic aspects of the special issue, creative use of visual artifacts, and strong collection of individual articles and commentary.
2022, Honorable Mention: “Graphic Medicine,” a special issue of biography
The number and quality of submissions for the 2022 CELJ Best Special Issue Award was truly impressive, making adjudication both delightful and difficult. We were inspired by the range of topics and approaches. In making our decision, we considered the clarity of editorial vision, the significance of contribution, whether or not an issue was conceptually interesting beyond a single field, formal and methodological innovation, and evidence of collaborative engagement across individual contributions to the broader project of the issue.
The award review committee recognizes “Graphic Medicine,” a special issue of biography on life narratives in the medium of comics, with an honorable mention. The decision to include different genres—both scholarly essays and original autobiographical comics—resulted in a multi-genre issue that compellingly explores the possibilities and concerns raised by living with (and/or alongside) illness and disability. The scope of the articles encompassed a broad but interrelated investigation into the topic, and the editor’s introduction effectively contextualized these articles in relation to the field of interdisciplinary medical humanities while making a persuasive argument about how comics “expose the subjective experiences of health and healthcare systems that may be difficult for both practitioners and patients to understand or explain in either verbal or visual language alone.” We appreciated the wholistic approach taken in developing the issue, with contributions being collectively workshopped as part of the process. Finally, the layout, typesetting, and graphics all contributed to an excellent reading experience.
Contestants must reach out beyond academe and connect with a popular audience in terms of accessible language and attractive presentation. Submit an issue that seeks to achieve the democratic mission of higher education. The journal editor must include a paragraph in the cover letter explaining why the submitted special issue is exceptional. Submissions without the editor’s endorsement will not be considered. A journal may submit only one special issue for this award.
2022, Winner: “Political Mythologies,” a special issue of The Hedgehog Review
Our committee believes that "Political Mythologies,” the Spring 2022 issue of The Hedgehog Review, is worthy of the CELJ award for Best Public Intellectual Special Issue for the variety of perspectives it brings to a question being posed in academia and beyond: how “narratives give meaning to our civic lives.” Its axiomatic starting point—that the rationalist program has failed and that human beings need meaning—provokes timely reflections on the nature of political solidarity, and the essays it gathers on this topic establish a wide-ranging dialogue with the reader as well as with each other. From Popper and Plato to Morrison; from the figure of the swarm to the rise of neoimmanentism; from monuments to harm to the small town as a stage of intentionality; from the deep stories told by the betrayed to the silence of the abducted in the genre of oft-told captivity: these ideas spark thought among the specialist and those newer to the conversation. Supplemented by engaging images, these essays share valuable insight on an academic topic while raising deeper questions for a broad audience, thereby achieving the ideal of true public intellectual discourse.
This award recognizes excellence and/or innovation that draws on the particular affordances of the digital. Journals may submit for consideration a single article, a recurrent feature, or a particular innovation of design from the award period; material may be drawn from all-digital journals, digital arms of hybrid journals, or supplementary digital features of print journals. Any material behind a subscription paywall must be made fully available to the judging panel.
2022, Winner: The Abusable Past by Radical History Review
The Abusable Past is a true digital companion to the Radical History Review journal in the best sense: it offers fresh content making great use of digital design in various genres that focus on the praxis of radical history. It considers important timely topics that link history to current events, as well as pedagogical resources, from diverse perspectives to include unconventional scholars, teachers, and activists.
Journals that have launched an effort to revitalize or transform within the previous three years may submit. This award goes to the most improved journal, regardless of its state at the time the renovations began. A weak journal that has become excellent is eligible, but so too is an admired journal that manages to become dramatically better. Submissions must feature significant editorial and/or design change. Please submit the last issue before the launch of the revitalization or transformation and two different sample issues of the revitalized or transformed journal. Submissions should include a letter from the editor, no longer than one page, introducing the journal's changes.
2022, Winner: The Hopkins Review
The Hopkins Review has undertaken a major design overhaul that is visually stunning and inclusive of its locality. The new design opens the journal with an editor's note signed “Love, from Baltimore,” grounding its connection to community. The front cover features local artists with gallery space devoted to an explanation about the artwork and the artist. A new companion website complements the journal with a lively design and extra content that enhances the print journal. The design changes have brought this important arts journal into the social stream of twenty-first-century cultural connections.
Any editor is eligible. The editor must be nominated by the new editor or by a member of the current or past editorial board. Supporting documentation may include any of the following: other letters of nomination by colleagues familiar with the editor's work; a brief CV in narrative format highlighting aspects of the editorship; selected sample issues of the journal illustrating key qualities of the editor's work; any other materials that can demonstrate the editor's influence on the journal's field of scholarship.
2022, Winner: Dr. Tina Chen, Associate Professor of English & Asian American Studies, The Pennsylvania State University.
Founder and Editor of Verge: Studies in Global Asias.
The
selection committee was very impressed by the extremely high quality of
the candidates nominated for the 2022 Distinguished Editor Award. Even
in a crowded and competitive field, however, Dr. Tina Chen was the committee’s unanimous choice. As the creator and driving force behind Verge: Studies in Global Asias,
Dr. Chen has done much more than edit a journal: she has helped develop
a new field of Global Asias scholarship, created an infrastructure for
the maintenance of that field, and developed a host of innovative
frameworks for collaborative work and productive disagreement. The
committee was especially impressed by the conference series, the Summer
Institutes, the live discussions, and the new book series that Dr. Chen
has developed in tandem with the journal. The committee was also
impressed by features such as the “Codex,” “A&Q,” and the “Field
Trip,” which offer what one writer described as “low stakes” entrance
points for generating conversation. Finally, we were struck by the
consistency with which the letters mentioned Dr. Chen’s intense
mentoring of graduate students and her close work with the editors of
special issues. Dr. Chen’s work strikes us as exemplary of what a great
editor can do in fostering the intellectual environment in which new
ideas can flourish.
Posted January 8, 2022
Posted December 1, 2021
CELJ is happy to announce our two new board members:
Vice President: Eugenia Zuroski (term ending January 2024)
Secretary: Sarah Salter (term ending January 2025)
In addition, following her previous term as Vice President, Debra Rae Cohen will assume the presidency of CELJ (term ending January 2024) and (Interim) Mentoring Coordinator Susan Tomlinson has agreed to continue in this position for the coming three-year cycle (term ending January 2025).
Please welcome our new Board! We are grateful to have so many dedicated volunteers who have led this organization through thick and thin across the years, and we are excited by the possibilities that this new board will, no doubt, present to the membership.
Posted October 21, 2021
CELJ will have two open positions on its board, beginning in January 2022, and we invite nominations (self- and otherwise) from CELJ members interested in serving the organization in this capacity.
Nominations are sought for Vice President and Secretary.
The Vice President primarily oversees the awards process and serves for a two-year term that usually rolls over into the Presidency for another two-year term. The Secretary is primarily responsible for member communications and committee minutes and serves for a three-year term. These positions are supported by the Executive Director, as needed. More details about these positions, the required qualifications, and responsibilities are posted at the following links:Those interested should feel free to contact the current holders of these positions.
Posted January 9, 2021
At the 2021 Modern Language Association convention, CELJ Vice President Debra Rae Cohen presented the 2020 CELJ Awards to the following winners (with citations from the judges appended below each):
Zong-qi Cai was the consensus choice for the 2020 Distinguished Editor Award. He has founded (or co-founded) two Duke University Press journals: Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture (established in 2014) and PRISM: Theory and Modern Chinese Literature (established in 2018), serving as editor-in-chief of both. The global impact of Cai’s editorial work is signaled by his efforts to bridge the work of North American and Chinese sinologists. For example, he has consistently promoted and published English translations of key essays by Chinese scholars. Moreover, Cai is committed to publishing interdisciplinary work by early career and senior scholars that brings new theoretical perspectives to Chinese literature and culture. Additionally, in 2014 Cai resurrected a Chinese-language journal, the Lingnan Journal of Chinese Studies, which had been shuttered in 1952. In sum, Cai’s simultaneous work on three journals shows a deep commitment to editing.
In its editorial practices as well as its content, the newly relaunched Simone de Beauvoir Studies truly embodies the spirit of the Phoenix Award. Following a five-year hiatus, what had once been a mostly biennial, paper-only journal limited to a single-author scholarly society has been transformed into an open, hybrid publication reflecting the breadth and vigor of new scholarship around Simone de Beauvoir. The committee would also like to give an Honorable Mention to<<em>Voice and Speech Review>, whose editorial reboot can fairly be called a triumph. While the journal had long been important in its field and had attracted high-quality submissions, its impact was limited by backlog, irregular publication, and limited distribution and searchability. Under new leadership, the journal has been renewed, providing the field of voice and speech in the performing arts and media a crucial, revitalized venue for scholars and practitioners alike.
“Origins of Biopolitics in the Americas” is likely to be of broad interest to academics working in a variety of fields and time periods. Focused on the early Americas, it addresses race, gender, and science in the context of humanities scholarship. The essays go beyond typical scholarship on the early Americas, including research that addresses the experiences of Native Americans, Blacks, and Asians. The special issue builds on important theoretical contributions by Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Achille Mbembe. The editors and authors examine “differential valuations of life” in the early Americas, topics with particular resonance today. Another unique and important contribution of this special issue is that it posits a biopolitics from below and one situated in the early Americas, speaking from the margins instead of the center, and positing the emergence of these important ideas in an earlier era. By translating this body of theory from Europe to the colonies, the editors and authors shift previous theoretical engagement from nation to the larger geopolitical sphere. The special issue concludes with a Forum of shorter, experimental, more speculative pieces, including short essays that address archival issues. The committee was impressed by the theoretical sophistication of this issue, the importance of the contributions to the study of US history, and their potential to significantly shift discussion of biopolitics beyond the field of the early Americas. In conclusion, we found this issue of American Quarterly to be exceptional, setting the highest standards for scholarly excellence in its timely focus on biopolitics in the Americas, a topic of broad academic interest due to its relevance today.
We found the content of this issue compelling, challenging us (in a good way) through the depth and breadth of what each article argues about the role that gene editing can and will play in daily life. The essays in the issue impressively balance accessible public engagement with nuanced, carefully articulated insights into the ethical and philosophical issues around CRISPR technology. Through various complementary approaches, styles, and topics, and by grounding ethical questions and debates in discussions of timely examples from popular culture and media, the issue provides an entry point for a wide array of multidisciplinary and nonacademic readers. The introduction to this issue is remarkably substantial and meets the challenge of providing a cohesive framework for the wide-ranging and provocative pieces that follow.
Modernism/modernity’s Print Plus platform was cited for its innovations in digital publishing, including the use of multimedia. Judges commended the breathtaking array of content: peer-reviewed articles from the print journal offered open access as well as peer-reviewed articles exclusive to Print Plus; and blogs and forums on specialized topics in modernist studies and on timely responses to our current moment through the lens of modernism. Print Plus was praised by judges for being innovative, sophisticated, and ambitious, and for fostering a variety of forms of user engagement particularly through the integration of the Hypothes.is social annotation platform. Judges deemed Modernism/modernity’s Print Plus platform to be a model to which print scholarly journals with a digital component might aspire.
Meridians’s “On the Line” feature was cited for its simplicity of design and a streamlined, easily navigable user experience. The range of multimedia offered on the website—which complements the print journal—was commended for the ways in which it uses digital technology to give women of color a voice. “On the Line” was cited as a particularly effective example of a print journal using digital features to complement journal content and grow audience engagement. The feature’s collaborative and interdisciplinary spirit was praised by judges, as was its commitment to reaching new readers with urgently pressing content.
This vibrant journal fills such an important gap among scholarly forums, focusing on ancient, colonial, modern and contemporary Latin American and Latinx visual culture from a range of multi- and interdisciplinary methodologies and perspectives. The scholarship published in the journal engages "aesthetics, history and the culture of meaning" in intriguing ways and through accessible and rigorous examinations of representation across history, regions, cultural spheres, media, and impacts. The committee is especially impressed by the journal’s global reach and boundary-pushing dialogues.
Cheryl Ball, Charlene Villaseñor Black, Christopher Bush, John Duvall, Nathan Grant, Emily Hipchen, Elizabeth Ho, Cassandra Laity, Victoria Mills, Ellen Rooney, J. Blake Scott, Milette Shamir, Susan Tomlinson, Gary Totten
Posted December 7, 2020
CELJ joins a number of other esteemed organizations in becoming a Strategic Affiliate of the Library Publishing Coalition (LPC). Being a Strategic Affiliate helps the organizations facilitate collaboration and provide open communication channels for their respective members. The Library Publishing Coalition (LPC) extends the impact and sustainability of library publishing and open scholarship by providing a professional forum for developing best practices and shared expertise. LPC members comprise a robust network of libraries committed to enhancing, promoting, and exploring the growing discipline and practice of library publishing. The LPC holds an annual forum on library publishing that CELJ members may be interested in attending. If you have questions about this affiliation, please contact CELJ Executive Director, Cheryl E. Ball.
Posted December 2019
CELJ is pleased to announce that Debra Rae Cohen has been elected as the next vice president of CELJ. Her term will begin immediately after the MLA Convention and continue for two years, after which she will rotate into the presidency for an additional two years. Cohen just finished a five-year term as co-editor of Modernism/modernity. Cohen notes that she is
particularly interested in seeing CELJ grapple meaningfully with some of the institutional challenges facing scholarly publishing today, whether in the form of open access initiatives, reduced university support, downsizing of academic publishers, pressures and benefits of digitality, or our own responsibilities vis-à-vis precarious labor. CELJ has long been devoted to mentoring, but I’d like to see that mentorship extended beyond the design of editors speaking with potential authors: we need to discuss and support editorship as an aspect of a scholarly career, and work to mentor our own potential replacements.
In addition to Cohen's election, CELJ is happy to report that the ratification of Janine Utell as CELJ's next secretary and Nora Gilbert as its mentoring coordinator was successful. Both editors began these positions, appointed by the current board, after last year's MLA convention, and each have a remaining two years in their position!
Finally, the votes to update CELJ's constitution to reflect corrected language for its institutional home were unanimously in favor of the change. Those amendments have been made to the constitution effective immediately and the change date noted on the Constitution page of the website.
Thank you to all of the CELJ members who voted in this election! We need your input and your support is invaluable for the excellent running of this organization.
Posted November 2019
Note that your materials will be repackaged for shipment to the MLA warehouse in advance of the conference. Please ship materials to the following address:
Julie Warheit
c/o MLA Exhibit Booth
40 West Hancock Street
Detroit, MI 48201
All materials must arrive by December 9, 2019.
If you have questions, please contact Cheryl or Julie at celj@wayne.edu.
Posted January 2019
Posted November 2017
Note that your materials will be repackaged for shipment to the MLA warehouse in advance of the conference.
If you have questions, please contact Cheryl or her research assistant at celj@mail.wvu.edu.
Posted October 2017
Please review and vote on the proposed constitutional changes by November 1. You can access the new document and voting link here: http://celj.org/documentation-revisions. The current Constitution is located under the "About" tab on the "Constitution" page.
Posted January 2018
Posted January 2017