Editor's Note
Good news! Public Culture has been awarded the “Best New Journal of the Year” award by the Council of Editors of Learned Journals. The journal was honored in an awards ceremony at the December meeting of the MLA. The Editorial Collective is proud of this recognition and wants to thank the University of Pennsylvania and the many people who have supported the journal, especially Serena Shanken Skwersky .
Other news: Public Culture is now published by the University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Society for Transnational Cultural Studies (STCS). In the fall an agreement was reached to transfer the responsibility for production and marketing to the press professionals, who are more equipped to deal with the wide range of issues involved in producing a journal. The Executive Committee of STCS and members of the editorial group of Public Culture look forward to a mutually beneficial relationship between the journal and the University of Chicago Press.
Not everyone was in agreement about losing the freedoms that come with being an independent journal whose editorial group has editorial control as well as production and marketing responsibilities. Some saw Public Culture as an example of “guerrilla publishing” or as a (desktop) cottage industry, both of which they valued. Others recognized that it was too labor intensive to reinvent the world of professional publishing with humble resources. Like a small business, Public Culture was always in search of money, time, and energy, not to speak of imagination. We could not promote the journal as widely as it deserved, and we did not have the resources to cover all our bases legally, financially, or managerially. Let’s face it: it in a post-Fordist age, publishing Public Culture independently soon became anachronistic.
Public Culture grew and it continues to grow. In some areas it has become field defining, and by focusing on the relationship between public spheres and global cultural flows, Public Culture has created a space in which to shape what we might call the “new cultural studies.” Given all this, we needed a publisher, not just a printer. That is a good thing.
The first benefit of the relationship between the press and the journal is the addition of a third issue each year. Our calendar year has run from fall to fall, and will continue to do so. However, in this new arrangement, you have just received the second of three issues in volume 5. Because of the transition to the press and to a third issue, we are running behind schedule. The third issue this year, featuring nationalism, television, and advertising in the third world, should arrive in June. Please look for it. Starting with volume 6, you will receive three issues of Public Culture during the academic year: in October, January, and April. When you renew, remember that the increase in price is in large part the result of the addition of a third issue of the journal as well as the increased size of each issue.
I would also like to point to Public Culture’s new look. I think it is terrific and I hope you do too. For the past four years, Public Culture has been produced on a Macintosh and thus had a desktop-published look. As such, the journal sported visually engaging covers that were witty and politically concerned, but the inside of Public Culture has remained visually flat. Credit for the new appear- ance is owed to Toni Ellis, whom I would like to thank. I would also like to thank Julie Steffen, the assistant production manager at the University of Chicago Press, and Janelle Taylor, an editorial intern, for their support in the double transition that has been underway this fall: the move of the editorial offices to the University of Chicago and the move of the journal to the press. Others at the press who have been generous with their support include Susan Constantin, Paul Dembowski, Michele Freiler, Orlie Higgins, Patricia Scarry , and Estelle Stearn. For knowing how to get things done during the early weeks when we were dealing with the many frustrations of getting the material conditions of production right, I thank John Whaley and Connie Cheung; for his many generosi- ties at the time of our move, I thank Sheldon Pollock; for her assistance with fund-raising efforts, I thank Johanna Schoss; for his single-mindedness in facilitat- ing the relationship between the press and the journal, I thank John Comaroff; for their willingness to bet on Public Culture, I thank Morris Philipson and Robert Shirrell; and finally for his amusement with our inexperience, I thank Kevin Perky for teaching us most of what we know about publishing.
This issue represents another first for Public Culture. It has a guest editor, Benjamin Lee, who gave the issue its thematic focus, “Going Public.” Ben is a member of the Public Culture Editorial Collective and director of the Center for Psychosocial Studies based in Chicago. These essays have been the basis for discussion at meetings of the Center’s Multiculturalism Group, and Greg Urban’s essay was sufficiently puzzling for some members of that group that it seemed appropriate to ask Marilyn Ivy and Michael Fischer to comment on it. Public Culture not only reports on debates in the world outside, but recognizes debates within its own collective. This issue represents the fruitful coordination of the networks of the Center for Psychosocial Studies and Public Culture. Public Cul- ture looks forward to establishing working relations with other such collective projects. One such collaboration in the works that you will not want to miss is the Winter 1994 issue, which will focus on “The Black Public Sphere in the Reagan and Bush Era,” with essays by Regina Austin, Houston Baker, John Brenkman, Manthia Diawara, and Carla Kaplan, and others. Similarly, please look for the lively discussion of Aijaz Ahmad’s book On Theory in the Fall 1993 issue, with comments by Tala1 Asad, Akhil Bilgrami, Partha Chatterjee, Vivek Dhareshwar, Marjorie Howe, Marjorie Levinson, R. Radhakrishnan, and Peter van der Veer.
One last first is the section on “genealogy/etymology” for the terms “public,” “publicity,” and “public opinion.” Please let us know what you think.
Finally, there are now four Associate Editors of Public Culture: Arjun Appa- durai, Manthia Diawara, Dilip Gaonkar, and Marilyn Ivy. I owe a special thanks to all of them and have relied most heavily on Dilip Gaonkar.