''New Literary History: A Journal of Theory & Interpretation'' is a quarterly

academic journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and ...

published by

Johns Hopkins University Press The Johns Hopkins University Press (also referred to as JHU Press or JHUP) is the publishing division of Johns Hopkins University. It was founded in 1878 and is the oldest continuously running university press in the United States. The press publ ...

. It focuses on the history and theory of literature, and key questions of interpretation. The journal has received six awards from the

Council of Editors of Learned Journals The Council of Editors of Learned Journals emerged from a series of informal gatherings of editors at the Modern Language Association of America (MLA). The gatherings were concerned with the same issues that are the subject matter of the organizatio ...

. From its inception in 1969, through 2008, ''New Literary History'' was under the editorship of its founder, Ralph Cohen. , it is edited by

Bruce Holsinger Bruce W. Holsinger is an American author, novelist, and an academic and literary scholar. Currently, he is professor of English at the University of Virginia. Academic career He is considered an expert on the use of parchment in medieval Engli ...

(

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...

History

''New Literary History'' was established as part of the Sesquicentennial Celebration of the

in 1969 by Ralph Cohen. At the time, according to Cohen, there was no "English literary journal devoted to critical theory or to a reconsideration of literary history, its nature and possibilities. ''New Literary History'' was conceived as a move against the critical current; its aim was to inquire into the theoretical bases of practical criticism and, in doing so, to reexamine the relation between past works and present critical and theoretical needs." The journal publishes

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

s that deal with the nature of literary theory, the aims of literature, the idea of literary history, the reading process, hermeneutics, the relation of linguistics to literature, literary change, literary value, the definitions of periods and their uses in interpretations, the evolution of styles, conventions, and genres, as well as articles from other disciplines that help interpret or define the problems of literary history or literary study. ''New Literary History'' played a crucial role in expanding the concerns of literary criticism beyond the close reading of individual literary texts, characteristic of the

New Criticism New Criticism was a formalist movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as ...

, and in introducing British and American scholars to methodologies and theoretical approaches to literature from continental Europe. According to

Wolfgang Iser Wolfgang Iser (22 July 1926 – 24 January 2007) was a German literary scholar. Biography Wolfgang Iser was born in Marienberg, Germany. His parents were Paul and Else (Steinbach) Iser. He studied literature in the universities of Leipzig and ...

It was Ralph Cohen's editorial policy to raise issues that were not in the orbit of the discipline when the journal was launched, such as: What is Literature, History, Interpretation, Criticism, and to what extent does the exploration of these issues require a theoretical approach? Thus basic presuppositions and assumptions of the study of literature came under close scrutiny which, in turn, had to be contextualized in order to trace the provenance of what has been posited in the theoretical approaches concerned.Wolfgang Iser, "Twenty-Five Years ''NEW LITERARY HISTORY'': A Tribute to Ralph Cohen," ''New Literary History'' 25, no. 4 (Autumn 1994): 733-734.

The journal was characterized by "an attempt to bring Anglo-American criticism into a close interrelationship with Continental approaches to literature and culture; it gave ''New Literary History'' a unique profile." In 2001, ''New Literary History'' became "the first English-language literary journal to be printed in Chinese", with a selection of its essays translated and published in Chinese annually.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://newliteraryhistory.org Literary magazines Publications established in 1969 English-language journals Johns Hopkins University Press academic journals Quarterly journals