Articles on EMD, choosing the next SITM logo, and proposals for the 2016 SITM Conference.Dear members of the SITM,
Last week I had a very pleasant talk with Guy Carney, who is responsible for us at Brepols. Let me start with the good news first:
I. EMD
Brepols is quite willing to renew the contract with SITM concerning EMD. We have not lost our journal. The conditions under which the contract will be renewed are:
- The publisher needs one person who signs the contract and is responsible for it for a longer time. I said that I am willing to do so. In three years’ time, when we have a new SITM president, I will certainly cooperate with him.
- The board of editors should remain the same: Jelle (general editor), Lenke and Katell. I will support the board in the acquisition of papers.
- There should be one volume of EMD per year. We have the SITM conferences, the branch meetings, the SITM sessions at Leeds and Kalamazoo to fill them, but we might also accept individual papers. Since we are one volume late, we have to publish one volume this year and two next year. Since Mario has already fixed a contract with ROMARD to publish a volume on Eastern European drama with them, I would like to appeal to all participants of the Poznań conference and all those who couldn’t come, but had a paper prepared for it: If your Poznań paper dealt with Eastern European drama and theatre, please send your manuscript to Mario Longtin (mariolongtin@sympatico.ca). If it dealt with other theatre and drama, please send it as soon as possible to Jelle Koopmans (J.Koopmans@uva.nl). The deadlines for handing in your manuscripts for the next EMD volumes are: October 15th and December 15th, 2013.
- EMD will accept papers in English and French, but also in German (with an English or French abstract). This is mainly because of the German/Austrian/Swiss SITM branch meetings, where all the papers are held in German.
- We should return to the original idea of SITM and include both drama AND all various kinds of performance, (semi-)theatrical and ritual presentations, processions, dances, show fights, tournaments, etc.
- We stick to the middle ages. The 16th century should be the definite end of our scope. But we might include articles on medievalism – if it’s more than a mere positivist approach to phenomena of modern reception of medieval theatre.
- We will revive the section “reviews” in EMD. We should especially review research on non-English drama, published in foreign languages that not so many of our members understand, so that via the review (in English or French language) we learn about research which is otherwise out of our reach (for example Eastern European research). – If you know any book that you’d like to review for EMD, please tell us!
- We should try to have one article giving a general review of the drama/theatre research in one certain field or country in each volume – not in the next two ones, but in those for which we have some more time. – Please, if anyone of you is willing to write such a general paper, please contact us!
- We will keep the name of “EMD”, but we will add a subtitle to it which refers to cultures of performance. Brepols will suggest a formulation for that.
- We will reduce the Advisory Board to c 5 persons (including some younger colleagues) who represent different fields of theatre research, but we will keep all the others (and add some more) on a hidden list of blind peer reviewers. I will contact the individual board members separately.
- We should seriously consider moving all SITM papers from open websites to a pass-word protected site for members only, so that we neither have a full pre-publication of the articles online nor conflicting versions online and on paper. We may certainly keep abstracts on open access. I know that the general assembly has decided that there should be an option of either having it public or hidden. I cannot break the general assembly’s decisions, but I would strongly appeal to all of you to consider whether you really need the publication online one year prior to the publication in a peer reviewed journal, which is much more valuable than an online publication. Please make your individual decision for the NE-England conference 2016 accordingly. All old articles will be moved to the protected side, once it is established.
- We should promote EMD on our website, which clearly needs to be refurbished. This is exactly what we had said at the general assembly.
- We will also promote EMD on conferences such as Kalamazoo and Leeds. Brepols will support us in doing so.
- Brepols asks whether we wouldn’t like to give EMD free to our members, including the costs of it in the membership fees. The publisher needs to calculate how much it will cost, but beforehand, it would be useful to know whether you’d be willing to pay c. 45-50 Dollar membership fees per year instead of 15 Dollar in order to receive EMD. Could we please have a first vote on it as a doodle-vote. Please follow the link: http://www.doodle.com/2mh5kdikwemaswnk. You can vote “yes” and “no” and/or write a commentary. If the vote is positive, I will ask Brepols for the definite price, and we will then have a second and definite vote on it.
II. SITM Logo
In the last newsletter I told you that we are looking for a SITM logo. Today I may offer you two options: (1) the Groningen SITM logo (by Femke Kramer):
or (2) the SITM logo of our facebook page:
May I ask you to vote on either of the two, following the link: http://doodle.com/43y5px8shzvgthai
III. The next SITM Congress
Durham (John S. McKinnell, Diana K.J. Wyatt, and Barbara Ravelhofer) and Hull (Pavel Drabek and Philipp Crispin) are preparing their proposals and it all looks very good. By the end of October we will have something to vote on.
Best wishes!
Cora Dietl
