Announcement and Call for Expressions of Interest
The October 2022 Spenser Review will be the final issue overseen by Jane Grogan and Andrew Hadfield as editors. The Spenser Review has, under their dynamic editorship, taken on an even more central role within the Spenserian community, as a place for innovative and experimental work on and related to Spenser, and for extended and engaged book-reviews.
In order to continue and expand these essential activities, we are announcing a reorganisation of the editorial structure of The Spenser Review, and we invite expressions of interest from scholars at all stages of their careers, for several different roles.
Rather than appointing new editors to take over from Andrew and Jane, temporary editorial custodianship of The Spenser Review will be assumed by the editors of Spenser Studies – Susannah Monta, Bill Oram, and Ayesha Ramachandran. The plan is for a guest editor or editors to be appointed for each issue of The Spenser Review; the guest editor(s) will then work with the Spenser Studies editors on their issue, taking the lead intellectually while receiving collaborative support. We hope that the guest editors will vary in career stage, geographical location, and methodological orientation. The plan is for this arrangement to remain in place for approximately two years, at which point new, longer-term editors will be appointed.
In order to ensure that as many voices from our community as possible are represented in The Spenser Review, we also plan to constitute a board of contributing editors to actively engage in discussions during this two year period, and to help formulate longer-term plans for the journal. Contributing editors may also serve as guest editors for a specific issue.
Finally, we hope to appoint one or two additional Book Review Editors, to work with Tamsin Badcoe in continuing the crucial work she has done in this area. The wider landscape for academic book reviews is shrinking, and The Spenser Review will only become more important as a prominent venue for serious reviewing, so it is crucial that this activity be fully supported.
If you are interested in serving as a guest editor, a contributing editorial board member, and/or a book reviews editor, please write to cbarrett@lsu.edu, sending a one-page CV and a 250 word statement explaining your interest in the role(s) in question.
If you are interested in acting as guest editor, you do not necessarily need to have a specific theme in mind – the Spenser Studies editors will be happy to discuss further – but it would be useful to know roughly when within the next two years you would be available to edit an issue. We are particularly keen for proposals that will maintain, and indeed build upon, the ways in which The Spenser Review has become a space for experimental, risk-taking work that varies in format and approach.
We look forward to working with and hearing from a wide spectrum of the Spenserian community as The Spenser Review enters this new phase of operation.
Tamsin Badcoe (Book Reviews Editor, The Spenser Review)
Wendy Hyman (ISS Spenser Review Working Group)
Joe Moshenska (President, ISS)
Ayesha Ramachandran (Editor, Spenser Studies)
Comments
It is anticipated that this arrangement would last for about two years before new, longer-term editors are recruited.
Link / ReplySo cool and awesome. Thanks for sharing this one.
Link / ReplyThis changes seem to have worked for now! I really like the Spenser editorial team
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