Iowa State Department of English-based Journal Wins Prestigious Award

Writing that it “is a journal that will have real staying power and will not lose its relevance once a new literary theory du jour takes over,” the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ) recently named Literature in the Early American Republic (LEAR) the “Best New Journal” of 2010.

The journal is housed in the Iowa State University department of English and is co-edited by its founders, Matthew Wynn Sivils (Iowa State University) and Jeffrey Walker (Oklahoma State University). Published by AMS Press, it is the only scholarly journal devoted solely to the study of the literary culture of the fledgling United States, from the adoption of the Constitution in 1789 to the death of James Fenimore Cooper in 1851.

In selecting LEAR as this year’s recipient, one of the judges, noted literary scholar Ralph W. Mathisen wrote that the journal, “deals with a very significant topic that seems under-represented, and its contributions are all deserving of the epithet ‘learned,’ lacking the jargon and over-blown language that so often characterize literary studies in the modern day.”

LEAR co-editor and Iowa State University Assistant Professor of English, Matthew Wynn Sivils, said, “It is an immense honor to win this CELJ award, which serves not only as an affirmation of our hard work but also of LEAR’s future promise.”

Past winners include Rhetorica, South Central Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Yale Journal of Criticism, Journal of World History, Narrative, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Pedagogy, American Journal of Bioethics, and Contemporary Women's Writing, among many others.

As their website states, “The Council of Editors of Learned Journals, an Allied Organization of the Modern Language Association, is an organization of editors of scholarly journals in all disciplines. As the major national organization dedicated to supporting academic journal publishing, our membership of over 450 editors represents an invaluable collective wellhead of editorial wisdom and experience. Making this fund of expertise available to new and veteran editors alike for discussing common editorial concerns and sharing considered advice is one of our major purposes.”

For more information about Literature in the Early American Republic, visit their website at

http://www.amspressinc.com/lear.html

The CELJ website can be found at

http://celj.org/