The University of Iowa has announced the launch of Addressing the Crisis, a new open-source online journal that takes inspiration from the work of sociologist Stuart Hall. The journal is housed at Iowa, and is hosted by Iowa Research Online, a service of the University of Iowa Libraries dedicated to preserving and providing open access to the research and creative scholarship of the university.
In short, sophisticated essays, digital films, and art aimed at a wide audience, authors engage in the journal with the complexity of culture and of everyday life, including the historical and contemporary factors that shape social and political relations. The editors are especially attuned to the urgency of creating critical, diverse, and multi-genre work that takes advantage of the journal’s digital format. The journal provides a digital space for scholars and artists to publish quality projects that contribute to their fields.
The first issue includes pieces on moral panics, policing and surveillance, higher education, labor, environmental activism, critical sport studies, and medieval studies. The pieces are written by Deborah Elizabeth Whaley (American Studies and African American Studies), Loren Glass (English), Kathy Lavezzo (English), Naomi Greyser (American Studies and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies), Doris Witt (English), Chris Henderson (American Studies/Sport Studies), Greg Rosza (American Studies), Thomas Oates (American Studies and Journalism and Mass Communication), Travis Vogan (Journalism and Mass Communication and American Studies). In addition, it features a digital film by Wylliam Smith (English and Creative Writing). The editors of the journal are Deborah Elizabeth Whaley and Mark Anderson (Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio).
About Stuart Hall
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Stuart Hall was a Rhodes scholar and the influential founder of British and Black cultural studies, and taught at the University of Birmingham UK and Open University. He extended the work of theorists who came before him and of those who were his contemporaries, and he championed the work of his students and mentees. Hall was an Ida Beam Visiting Professor at the University of Iowa in 1985. He died in 2014 at the age of 82.
In honor of Hall’s work, Addressing the Crisis will publish short, interdisciplinary pieces (1, 500-2,000 words)—directed to an educated, mass audience—that engage with Hall’s previous writings and his building of cultural studies infrastructure. Multimodal and multi-genre pieces and projects will articulate how Hall’s work remains significant to a broad spectrum of fields.
The editors invite queries, submissions, and pitches for special issues; they should be sent to address-the-crisis@uiowa.edu.