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Rolling Call for Contributions

We have a rolling call for contributions and are happy to accept them at any time. However, if you would like your piece to be considered for publication in the next volume, which comes out in April, please submit your piece for peer review by September 30.

Several recent publications influence our rolling call. The essays published in Indigenous Textual Cultures: Reading and Writing in the Age of Global Empire (2020) and in The Digital Black Atlantic (2021) emphasize the impacts of decolonial scholarship worldwide, and we are grateful to editors Tony Ballantyne, Lachy Paterson, Angela Wanhalla, Roopika Risam, and Kelly Baker Josephs for these contexts. Similarly, “Libraries and Archives in the Anthropocene” (2020), a recent issue of the Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies edited by Eira Tansey and Robert D. Montoya, interrogates the meanings of archival and library practices in our current cultural moment.

We particularly seek the contributions of researchers from Black, Latinx, and Indigenous peoples; Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people and cultures of the Global South as well as those who have expertise in the histories and literatures of those groups and peoples, including documentary editors, textual scholars, historians, educators, genealogists, family historians, students, librarians, archivists, and community members.

Among others, contributors may explore subjects such as the following:

  • texts by Black, Latinx, and Indigenous peoples, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, women, LGBTQ+ individuals, communities in the Global South, and other marginalized groups;
  • the recovery efforts of small-scale projects and micro-editions;
  • rare or marginal texts;
  • texts that dislodge the single-author model;
  • oral histories and tales;
  • creative works of “rememory”;
  • explorations of ways in which scholarly editions, archives, metadata, and pedagogical recovery projects can promote inclusion, rather than reproducing colonization/marginalization;
  • discussions of the manner in which editors can offer nuance and context to historically famous and canonical figures so that attention is given to their accomplishments as well as the ways in which they violated human rights or ethical norms, or in other ways failed to live up to the representations of them in popular culture;
  • the decolonizing of artistic works, archives, records, and editions for the discoverability of racialized and underrepresented stories and cultural artifacts as well as cautionary advice from communities who prefer to preserve their cultural heritages in their own ways;
  • and the role that new technologies, social media environments, editorial institutes, and other educational initiatives play in advancing all of the endeavors set forth above.

We acknowledge the complex issues related to cultural sovereignty and the ownership and control of texts, stories, and documents of Indigenous peoples, and we recognize that our adoption of a Creative Commons license and open access publication raises questions of colonization and appropriation with regard to micro-editions. We welcome short meditations, provocations, and full-length essays that address these concerns.

We particularly encourage transcripts of conversations and interviews between recovery practitioners; essays on the theory, practice, and pedagogy of recovery; reviews of print and digital editions, digital humanities projects, and the digital tools that enhance recovery; and small-scale editions of the understudied authors, texts, and documents that reflect our diverse and multifaceted cultural heritage.

We are interested in contributions in all disciplines and from individuals at any stage of their career, as well as from those who engage in public history and the advancement of knowledge beyond the academy. We encourage the submission of contributions from all those who are custodians of knowledge.

Essays

Scholarly Editing publishes essays on decolonizing analyses and practices and on the theory and praxis that amplify the work of diverse voices and celebrate the contributions of underrepresented and silenced communities.

Uncovering and Sustaining the Cultural Record

Editing primary sources for publication has extensive origins in multiple disciplines, as is evident from the membership of the Association for Documentary Editing, a multi-disciplinary organization that includes scholars from history, philosophy, literature, and musicology in the United States and abroad. We invite scholars, digital humanists, librarians, students, archivists, educators, and community members from outside these groups to contribute brief essays (1,250-4,000 words) about their experiences of uncovering and sustaining the cultural record as a set of practices, as a field, or as an act of recovery of silenced voices.

In issuing this invitation, we look forward to publishing a set of short essays that will demonstrate diversities of practice, perspective, and emphasis. Our goal is to explore capaciously the contexts of knowledge production as theorized by Roopika Risam in New Digital Worlds: Postcolonial Digital Humanities in Theory, Praxis, and Pedagogy (2019). Central questions include “how projects are designed, how material in them is framed, how data in them is managed, and what forms of labor are being used to create them.”

Review Essays

Scholarly Editing reviews letterpress and digital editions, digital projects, and digital tools that enhance the recovery of and expand access to primary-source materials. In accordance with our Statement of Purpose, we review materials that amplify the work of diverse voices and celebrate the contributions of underrepresented and silenced communities.

While we do not accept unsolicited reviews, we welcome proposals from readers who would like to serve as reviewers as well as recommendations of work that may be appropriate for review. A list of potential projects for review can also be found here.

Email Reviews Editor Shelby Brewster with any questions or to propose a review.

College and University Classroom Essays

We invite all explorations of the intersections between recovery and pedagogy at the university level. Potential areas of inquiry may include theoretical approaches to teaching scholarly editing and other forms of digital recovery, the use of primary source materials in the classroom and in public outreach programs, teaching with print editions and/or born digital projects, and training student members of editorial projects. Collaborative essays are welcome, including those that advance their argument through case studies and with materials such as assignments, course syllabi, and excerpts from students’ work (with appropriate permission).

Voices and Perspectives: Interviews and Conversations

We publish transcripts of conversations and interviews with recovery practitioners. We invite those who wish to propose conversations and interviews to consult the executive editorial team in advance of forwarding their proposals.

Micro-Editions

Scholarly Editing is a home to sustainable small-scale editions of interesting and understudied texts. Such editions may range from a single document to 130 short documents or to two variants of a single text. We encourage those who wish to propose a micro-edition to consult the executive editorial team in advance of forwarding their proposals.

For further information about technical specifications, content, and house style, see the “Contributing” page on our website.

Direct all questions about submission and peer review to Managing Editor Robert Riter at rbriter@ua.edu.

Last updated: 6 February 2024
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© 2024 Scholarly Editing.
ISSN 2167-1257 | DOI 10.55520/6ZH06EW2 | Site version 1.3.1
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