from Medieval Academy News

On Speculum book reviews, articles, covers . . .
by Richard K. Emmerson

My report in the September 2001 issue of Medieval Academy News discussing delayed Speculum book reviews and detailing the steps undertaken to address this problem elicited more responses than anything I’ve written for the newsletter—or, for that matter, anything I’ve ever published! Clearly this is an issue of great interest to members of the Medieval Academy.

Several e-mails arrived soon after we mailed the newsletter, and their messages varied from recounting their authors’ disappointment that their books had not been reviewed, to apologizing for late reviews currently under way, to wondering if the comments were directed at them for past delays. In fact, the report was aimed at no person; it was simply a way to let our members know that we have a problem, are aware of it, and are doing our best to solve it.

One encouraging result has been the submission of a number of overdue reviews. We realize that many factors may delay a review and are pleased that reviewers accept our system of reminders and understand the need to speed up the review of books. To accomplish that goal, Jacqueline Brown, Associate Editor, has worked to edit more reviews per issue than we have published in recent years, which explains the larger size of the past few issues of Speculum. The number of pages, not including advertisements, increased in 2001 by about 15% over 2000. This is a trend we plan to continue for future volumes.

Another quantitative indicator of our commitment to book reviews is the record-setting number of books that Mary-Jo Arn, Book Review Manager, catalogued in 2001: 941. This is 432 more books than catalogued in 2000, an 84% increase accomplished by much hard work and a new database system that seems finally to be running smoothly. To our knowledge, this is the largest number of books in the journal’s history to be entered into the book-review process. The previous record was 827 books catalogued in 1991; the average number between these two records has been 668 books per year.

This focus on book reviews does not mean articles are receiving less attention. I take great pride in Speculum’s reputation as the leading journal of medieval studies and am committed to publishing the highest quality articles in all periods and areas of the Middle Ages. I’m pleased by the topics, periods, and disciplines represented by the articles we published in 2001. These range from Janina M. Safran’s “Identity and Differentiation in Ninth-Century al-Andalus” and David A. Warner’s “Ritual and Memory in the Ottonian Reich: The Ceremony of Adventus,” to Andrew Taylor’s “Was There a Song of Roland?” Anne Dunlop’s “Masculinity, Crusading, and Devotion: Francesco Casali’s Fresco in the Trecento Perugian Contado,” and Theresa Coletti’s “Paupertas est donum Dei: Hagiography, Lay Religion, and the Economics of Salvation in the Digby Mary Magdalene,” just to cite five articles representing five different centuries and five different geographic areas.

If it is harder to say how many disciplines are represented by these five of the sixteen articles included in volume 76, that is in part due to the blurring of disciplinary boundaries. This seems to me to be a healthy development. Although I plan to increase the number of articles we publish in each volume of Speculum, it will be impossible in any given year to include an article in each of the many disciplines represented by scholarship on the Middle Ages. Thus it is crucial that we publish articles that will be attractive to medievalists working in a variety of disciplines. Our submission guidelines—published on the back cover of each issue and available on our Website (http://www.MedievalAcademy.org)—are designed to encourage the submission of such articles. When writing for Speculum, it is important to keep in mind its large and varied audience of medievalists.

I hope such cross-disciplinary work and the variety of subjects and approaches represented by our articles will also help modify long-held notions about the kinds of articles Speculum publishes. Shortly after I was appointed incoming Editor, a historian asked me, “Does this mean Speculum will publish even more articles on Chaucer?” Somewhat surprised, I responded by telling him that when Ronald Herzman and I published our Speculum article in 1987, a literary scholar exclaimed, “I’m glad you broke the historians’ stranglehold on Speculum.” More recently, an art historian wondered if the journal will end its “policy against publishing visual materials.” Needless to say, there has never been such a policy any more than there has been a “stranglehold” by any discipline. And although Chaucer is one of my favorite authors, no author, text, period, or discipline will be given preference.

Nevertheless, I worry about comments implying we don’t publish articles in this or that area, because even though misinformed, they can become self-fulfilling prophecies: if scholars think we don’t publish in particular areas, they won’t submit articles, and then we won’t have articles to publish in those areas. We want to publish the best work in all areas of medieval studies, but we can’t publish what we don’t receive.

In the spirit of the “first shall be last,” I conclude with the covers of Speculum. We are now in our third year of publishing on the covers works of medieval art from North American collections, a feature we hope our readers enjoy. In 2000 we printed roundels from a book of hours depicting the appropriate labors of the month for each issue, and in 2001 we focused on stained glass. In 2002 we will publish works in various artistic media exemplifying the variety of medieval art, beginning with the eastern Mediterranean flask decorating the cover of the January issue, which everyone should now have received.

We are now planning the covers to be published in 2003 and invite your suggestions for interesting works that will photograph well. We particularly want to bring little-known medieval works from smaller North American collections to the attention of our readers, but we need your help. I look forward to hearing from you with your recommendations as well as your responses to these editorial musings.