EDITORIAL
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Roxana Preda
The Ezra Pound Society relies on its journal, Paideuma, to publish high-profile scholarly essays in the field of Pound studies. At present, Paideuma is a print annual publication, presenting work on Pound in the context of modernist and contemporary poetry scholarship. Its high standards of selection, its book-like appearance and slow rate of publication ensure that the best contributions in the field enjoy both the privilege of specialist interest and the continuity that the print medium affords.
Additionally, the society officers believe that the organisation would benefit from a little magazine, a publication that would be strongly connected to its immediate activities: a place to highlight participation in conferences, promote the society awards, showcase prominent scholars and review new publications in Pound studies. It would ideally have an integrative function, coordinating news about initiatives, events, and publications all over the world, including those in foreign languages. Contributions will be welcomed from scholars, artists, and general readers. This digital publication will aim to inform scholars of what is new, promote the society, and entertain by a combination of text, image and multimedia.
The term “Little Mag” was chosen to explain the one column format and the availability of this publication for longer, more detailed reviews and slightly larger clusters of materials like the portrait of Eva Hesse featured in the present pilot issue.
The magazine will take the form of a digital quarterly, published within the society website and available exclusively to members. It is designed to follow the round of the events and activities in which the society traditionally participates: the cycle of conferences in the USA and in Europe as well as its book and article awards.
The little mag will have focus articles/reports on the relevant conferences and include abstracts of the conference presentations. Conference information will also be available on the website in free access.
It will contain reviews of all recent publications in Pound studies, including those that are not considered for the award (like conference proceedings, multiple contribution volumes, new editions of Pound’s poetry, monographs in foreign languages, translations). Additionally the mag will contain summaries of chapters on Pound in books about modernism in a more general sense – these are particularly important as recontextualizations of his work from the perspective of new emergent fields and topics in modernist studies.
The editors will follow the articles published on Pound for the current year and publish summaries, even if the articles are not derived from the submissions to conference panels organised by the society.
The magazine will seek to include portraits of prominent Poundian scholars as a way to outline a tradition in the field and establish the axes of reference in our discipline.
All members and non-members can contribute notifications of all sorts: books they published, courses they taught, as well as personal websites they put up.
The magazine will include reports on locations significant for Pound studies. Creative work in the form of poems, music, image, multimedia will be welcome.
The magazine will contain information on the society officers, administration, and elections.
It will support the society scholarly projects through calls for sponsorships and will report on the progress of these projects to members.
The little mag takes over this repertoire of information from the tradition of its long-established journal Paideuma, to whose creativity, scholarly energy and inventiveness this publication is indebted. It seeks to honor its founding members and fosters a sense of continuity in our community of Poundians.