Studies in Scholarly Voice: A note from the Editors
Jennifer Goff and Julia Moriarty
Some are born themed, some achieve themed-ness, and some have themes thrust upon them.
When we set out on this strange idea to create a scholarly journal, we were confused and frustrated by the seemingly opaque publication process. How is it that one achieves publication-level? What is the appropriate tone of voice that will unlock those mystical gates and allow us to stroll through, CV emboldened? Is it really so cynical?
In this, our second issue of Etudes, we have learned that we were not the only ones who felt this way, and we hope to unpack that mystery for ourselves and for others. But more importantly, we have learned how appropriate our name has become. Etudes – meaning “study” in French – are used to develop or demonstrate a particular skill. This issue is filled with scholastic etudes: risks and experiments in historical approaches and synesthetic tissue. Matthew DiCintio utilizes a unique form of subjunctive history in “Three Plays in August” to explore America’s “first” play, a subject that has been relegated to the footnotes due to its lack of evidential proof; Laurel Ann Painter bends time to place herself into a Platonic conversation with Presidents Jefferson and Madison about the state of art today in “Jefferson and Madison Enter Upstage Center”; Danny Devlin rereads some of the most famous American comic book heroes as figures of identity performance for their creators in “Secret Origins of the American Superhero!”; Loren Hiser accuses society of hypocrisy as she compares the much criticized original Spring Awakening to its lauded, but tamed, musical update in “Sex Sells Some but Abstinence Advertises More Attractively”; Nicholas Fesette studies the performance of zombie in its cinematic representation and its cultural popularity with “Performance, Prison Strike, Zombie”; and Camila Gonzalez Ortiz documents the changing protest techniques of Chile’s student movement in “Choreographing Meaning.”
These articles, while varied in their techniques and subject matter, all reach to the heart of what Etudes set out to be: a place where scholars can experiment with form, while challenging, and even redefining, what research means.
We hope you enjoy this issue of Etudes. Its historiographies are insightful and intriguing. Its explorations of the political nature of performance are provocative and powerful. Its celebration of scholarly experimentation is challenging and inventive. All of that with just a hint of zombie. It is almost Halloween, after all.
When we set out on this strange idea to create a scholarly journal, we were confused and frustrated by the seemingly opaque publication process. How is it that one achieves publication-level? What is the appropriate tone of voice that will unlock those mystical gates and allow us to stroll through, CV emboldened? Is it really so cynical?
In this, our second issue of Etudes, we have learned that we were not the only ones who felt this way, and we hope to unpack that mystery for ourselves and for others. But more importantly, we have learned how appropriate our name has become. Etudes – meaning “study” in French – are used to develop or demonstrate a particular skill. This issue is filled with scholastic etudes: risks and experiments in historical approaches and synesthetic tissue. Matthew DiCintio utilizes a unique form of subjunctive history in “Three Plays in August” to explore America’s “first” play, a subject that has been relegated to the footnotes due to its lack of evidential proof; Laurel Ann Painter bends time to place herself into a Platonic conversation with Presidents Jefferson and Madison about the state of art today in “Jefferson and Madison Enter Upstage Center”; Danny Devlin rereads some of the most famous American comic book heroes as figures of identity performance for their creators in “Secret Origins of the American Superhero!”; Loren Hiser accuses society of hypocrisy as she compares the much criticized original Spring Awakening to its lauded, but tamed, musical update in “Sex Sells Some but Abstinence Advertises More Attractively”; Nicholas Fesette studies the performance of zombie in its cinematic representation and its cultural popularity with “Performance, Prison Strike, Zombie”; and Camila Gonzalez Ortiz documents the changing protest techniques of Chile’s student movement in “Choreographing Meaning.”
These articles, while varied in their techniques and subject matter, all reach to the heart of what Etudes set out to be: a place where scholars can experiment with form, while challenging, and even redefining, what research means.
We hope you enjoy this issue of Etudes. Its historiographies are insightful and intriguing. Its explorations of the political nature of performance are provocative and powerful. Its celebration of scholarly experimentation is challenging and inventive. All of that with just a hint of zombie. It is almost Halloween, after all.
- JG & JM