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Editor's Column

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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With The January 1981 issue, PMLA began soliciting essays under a revised statement of editorial policy, one that may well be in effect in 1984, when the journal celebrates its hundredth birthday, just a year after the association's own centennial. (Our Committee on the Centennial, chaired by former PMLA editor John Fisher, has wisely decided to make 1983–84 the MLA's anniversary year.) If it has the impact we hope for, the new policy may even be in existence by the journal's bicentennial. The realist in me, however, doubts that it will be, since the statement, like all its predecessors, is quite clearly not carved in adamant but written in the sands of time. The needs of the profession change, decade by decade, and our journal should reflect these alterations, even when they are not especially dramatic. The new statement, in fact, represents only a shift in emphasis from the one that has been in effect since 1973, though this shift could have a substantial influence. The central difference? We no longer insist that every essay be of significant interest to every MLA member, but instead we announce, less ambitiously, that we welcome essays “of interest to those concerned with the study of language and literature.” Implicit in this wording, of course, is the hope that our journal will stimulate discussion and debate among a wide readership, but we acknowledge the incontrovertible fact that not every essay we publish will appeal to every member.

Information

Type
Editorial
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1981