Why Publishing Now?

Abstract

Abstract This essay is a response to the eight essays collected under the title “Literature and Publishing, 1945–2020.” In this response, I consider the timing of such a collection: Why publishing now? Why should we be reimagining literary history through the lens of publishing at this particular moment? I suggest that we can only fully grapple with the relationship between literary studies and publishing in the present moment by attending to the relationship between literary studies and the university. In the midst of twin labor crises inflected and exacerbated by questions of race, class, and gender, we must recognize the parallel conditions of those working in publishing and those working in higher education. This project’s timely interest in the institutions that shape the contemporary literary field—publishers, agencies, distributors, prizes, etc.—comes as our toehold on our own institutions (that is, the endurance and relative autonomy of university literature departments) seems increasingly tenuous.