English Language Notes wins Phoenix Award
English Language Notes, a revived and revamped journal edited by the University of Colorado’s Department of English, has won the 2008 Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.
The award was presented during the Modern Language Association’s conference in December. The Phoenix Award honors the labor involved in the rejuvenation of an established periodical as well as the revitalized journal that effort produces.
The judges were “succinct and emphatic” in their decision to honor ELN, writing: “We feel that this journal has been significantly improved, indeed transformed—inside and out. The journal is ready for the 21st century.”
Karen Jacobs, an associate professor of English and ELN’s managing editor, said the award is, for many reasons, gratifying.
J. Wallace Donald, who began working for the journal in 1971, passed away last year after a long and productive career in the Department of English. The journal he edited appeared quarterly for more than 40 years, and he developed a subscription base broad and committed enough to make ELN self-supporting to this day, Jacobs says.
“The Phoenix award could never have been possible had Wallace Donald not left us with such an extraordinarily strong foundation to work with, and I like to think that the award commemorates his work as well as the work of those of us who took over the journal after his retirement from it in 2005,” Jacobs says.
Katherine Eggert, chair of the English Department, is “delighted” that its journal has been recognized, and she is particularly pleased with Jacobs: “Along with organizing special issues edited by a team of faculty from English, Karen has singlehandedly redesigned the look of the journal, from the look of its typeface to its new cover and logo.”
Jacobs is also gratified that the new intellectual and aesthetic vision of the journal has been recognized. She notes that the journal’s six-member editorial board has agreed to transform ELN into a semiannual journal devoted exclusively to special topics in all fields of literary and cultural studies. “ELN is dedicated to interdisciplinary and collaborative work among literary scholarship and fields as disparate as theology, fine arts, history, geography, philosophy and science.”
ELN has secured a new funding source by making its content available on-line, Jacobs says. “These funds have allowed us to think beyond the necessarily modest goals of self-maintenance toward the possibility of playing a more active role in the intellectual community of the university.”
The journal will use these funds to support projects tied to each special issue's theme. These projects may be culminating events, or events intended to generate potential content for a particular issue. Events may include exhibitions, mini-conferences, team-taught graduate classes, essay prizes, speaker series or guest teaching.
“ELN is poised, in other words, to take on what we hope will be a critical role in reshaping and supporting interdisciplinary work, and scholarly and creative collaboration, across the arts and humanities at CU and beyond,” Jacobs adds.
The first issue to take advantage of the tie-in budget was William Kuskin's "Graphia: Literary Criticism and the Graphic Novel" (ELN 46.2 fall/winter 2008). ELN, in collaboration with other funding sources, sponsored a free lecture at Macky Auditorium in January by renowned American graphic novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner Art Spiegelman.
Professor Kuskin also created a month-long gallery exhibit at the University Memorial Center that presented comics and graphic novels, including rare comics from the private collections of the Front Range community. A full-color exhibition catalogue makes a permanent record of the event and introduces ELN's perspective on literature and the arts to a broader public in an accessible way.
The award was presented during the Modern Language Association’s conference in December. The Phoenix Award honors the labor involved in the rejuvenation of an established periodical as well as the revitalized journal that effort produces.
Karen Jacobs
The judges were “succinct and emphatic” in their decision to honor ELN, writing: “We feel that this journal has been significantly improved, indeed transformed—inside and out. The journal is ready for the 21st century.”
Karen Jacobs, an associate professor of English and ELN’s managing editor, said the award is, for many reasons, gratifying.
J. Wallace Donald, who began working for the journal in 1971, passed away last year after a long and productive career in the Department of English. The journal he edited appeared quarterly for more than 40 years, and he developed a subscription base broad and committed enough to make ELN self-supporting to this day, Jacobs says.
“The Phoenix award could never have been possible had Wallace Donald not left us with such an extraordinarily strong foundation to work with, and I like to think that the award commemorates his work as well as the work of those of us who took over the journal after his retirement from it in 2005,” Jacobs says.
Katherine Eggert, chair of the English Department, is “delighted” that its journal has been recognized, and she is particularly pleased with Jacobs: “Along with organizing special issues edited by a team of faculty from English, Karen has singlehandedly redesigned the look of the journal, from the look of its typeface to its new cover and logo.”
Jacobs is also gratified that the new intellectual and aesthetic vision of the journal has been recognized. She notes that the journal’s six-member editorial board has agreed to transform ELN into a semiannual journal devoted exclusively to special topics in all fields of literary and cultural studies. “ELN is dedicated to interdisciplinary and collaborative work among literary scholarship and fields as disparate as theology, fine arts, history, geography, philosophy and science.”
ELN has secured a new funding source by making its content available on-line, Jacobs says. “These funds have allowed us to think beyond the necessarily modest goals of self-maintenance toward the possibility of playing a more active role in the intellectual community of the university.”
The journal will use these funds to support projects tied to each special issue's theme. These projects may be culminating events, or events intended to generate potential content for a particular issue. Events may include exhibitions, mini-conferences, team-taught graduate classes, essay prizes, speaker series or guest teaching.
“ELN is poised, in other words, to take on what we hope will be a critical role in reshaping and supporting interdisciplinary work, and scholarly and creative collaboration, across the arts and humanities at CU and beyond,” Jacobs adds.
The first issue to take advantage of the tie-in budget was William Kuskin's "Graphia: Literary Criticism and the Graphic Novel" (ELN 46.2 fall/winter 2008). ELN, in collaboration with other funding sources, sponsored a free lecture at Macky Auditorium in January by renowned American graphic novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner Art Spiegelman.
Professor Kuskin also created a month-long gallery exhibit at the University Memorial Center that presented comics and graphic novels, including rare comics from the private collections of the Front Range community. A full-color exhibition catalogue makes a permanent record of the event and introduces ELN's perspective on literature and the arts to a broader public in an accessible way.