Preface to the Modern Language Association's 2022 collection Publishing and Scholarly Communication in the Humanitie

MLA Modern Language Association

Humanities Commons

Publishing and Scholarly Communication in the HumanitiesPREFACE© 2022 Modern Language AssociationPublished by the Modern Language Association of AmericaCC-BY-NC-NDhttps://doi.org/10.17613/kp93-3b77Publishing and Scholarly Communication in the Humanities is a collection of essays initially available on demand and then made discoverable on the Profession website, with links to the essays archived in the MLA Commons CORE repository. Profession publishes articles, news, and resources to sup-port the work of Modern Language Association members. In this collection, members share their expertise in current practices in humanities scholarship.i© 2022 Modern Language Association http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/8t6b-xp26PREFACESCHOLARS IN the humanities share their work in vari ous ways: writing and peer-reviewing journal articles and books, creating digital proj ects and editions, developing courses and curricula, presenting at conferences, teaching, organ izing public programs, curating exhibits, and participating in communities online and in person. This exchange of ideas among researchers and teachers  today encompasses more than just traditional forms of publishing and is often referred to as scholarly communication, which the Association of College and Research Libraries defines as “the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for  future use” (“Princi-ples”). Far from a fixed system, however, scholarly communication is a pro cess for shaping how ideas are devel-oped and exchanged. Publishing and Scholarly Communication in the Humanities grew out of conversations with and questions from MLA members at the MLA convention, among other venues. It aims to share humanities scholars’ insights into scholarly communication, not to prescribe a set of best practices but to gather individual reflections on scholarly communication that  will help define what scholarly communication means for the hu-manities and provide a resource for colleagues looking to learn more.Scholarly communication takes place within a complex ecosystem in which authors and creators work alongside the publishers, libraries, scholarly socie ties, and granting agencies that engage in work like facilitating peer review, editing and producing publications, operating repositories for sharing and preserving scholarship, and funding digital infrastructure to create opportunities for scholarly proj ects. The many ideas about how to sustain this ecosystem are driven by a few core values— notably, that scholarship and the pro cesses and ecosys-tem supporting it should have integrity; that works of scholarly communication should be discoverable, accessi-ble, and preserved; that scholarly communication should sustain the intellectual and professional needs of its creators and the community they work in; and that scholarly practice should challenge systemic inequities that affect who is able to create, publish, and access scholarship.The essays in this collection discuss mechanisms for sharing scholarship, incentives for certain types of sharing, and pro cesses for developing work and successfully reaching par tic u lar audiences. They provide practi-cal guidance as well as context that illuminates the histories and values that inform  these practices. At a time when so much is in crisis, such reflection can help us consider how to make our pro cesses more transparent and equitable, how to engage with new audiences and collaborators, and how to advocate for recognition and sup-port for the humanities.In the first section, “The Role of Scholarly Communication in Building a  Career,” Stacy Hartman consid-ers a realm for self- presentation and connection with colleagues: the academic conference. Hartman’s essay outlines not only effective practices for presenting scholarly work but also ways to connect with other scholars through less formal conversations that happen in hallways, exhibit halls, and social gatherings.The second section, “Establishing a Public Voice,” explores how scholar ship can happen outside the tradi-tional forums for academics, engaging a broader public. Micah Vandegrift and Erin Rose Glass outline ways of making scholarship more open, from sharing the pro cess of creating scholarship publicly to collaborating with community groups and  others on scholarly proj ects. They argue that the values of open scholarship are particu-larly crucial at a time when humanities fields and higher education are devalued and defunded. The question of advocacy for the humanities comes even more to the fore in Beatrice Gurwitz’s essay, which describes national ii© 2022 Modern Language Association http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/8t6b-xp26advocacy in the United States, conducted through the National Endowment for the Humanities and state hu-manities councils, and highlights proj ects where scholars partner with K–12 schools or community groups as models.The essays included in the section “Peer Review in Practice” discuss the practices of peer review, respond-ing to reviewer feedback, and serving as an editorial board member. Luís Madureira gives historical context for the current practice of peer review and calls for the scholarly community to address biases. Deepika Bahri pro-vides guidance for authors receiving readers’ reports, describing best practices for making sense of this feedback and for corresponding with an editor about revisions. Anjali Prabhu’s essay reflects on the experience of serving on an editorial board, outlining the kind of work involved and the ways it expands the editorial board member’s own perspectives as a writer and scholar.The final group of essays covers a number of practices and genres of scholarly work. Sandra Jamieson and Rebecca Moore Howard draw on their experiences to share insights into collaborative writing practices, high-lighting some key decisions to be navigated, from the conceptual to the practical. Simon Gikandi writes about publishing in journals, discussing how to select a journal for submission, the genres published in a journal, and the pro cess of getting published in a journal. Gaurav Desai reflects on how a scholar might approach book proj-ects differently across the course of a  career. Janet Poole, Kelly Y. Jeong, Christopher P. Hanscom, and Bruce Fulton offer insights into another kind of engagement with a text: translation. Their essay makes the case that translation not only deepens a scholar’s understanding of a text, which can benefit their research, but also ben-efits their teaching, making available a new text for classroom use. Sylvia Fernández Quintanilla writes about how digital proj ects can model ethical practices in collaboration, data collection, and proj ect design.In this collection of essays, scholars reflect on the practices that structure scholarly communication, in-cluding sharing scholarship through publication and engaging audiences, public and scholarly. The authors of  these essays write to peers, elaborating on practices that may not always be transparent. The audience for  these essays may be students, early- career scholars, or experienced scholars looking to learn more about certain as-pects of scholarly communication. The perspective in the essays often reflects a location in the United States and a Global North anglophone experience; readers publishing elsewhere may find that practices vary geo graph i-cally, linguistically, and culturally.WORK CITED“Princi ples and Strategies for the Reform of Scholarly Communication 1.” Association of College and Research Libraries, American Library Association, June 2003, www . ala . org/ acrl/ publications/ whitepapers/ principlesstrategies.

Publishing and Scholarly Communication in the Humanities: Preface

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Humanities Commons