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<aburton@uiuc.edu> Beginning in July, 2004, the Journal of Women's History is moving from Ohio State University to the University of Illinois, where it will be jointly edited by Jean Allman and Antoinette Burton for a tenure of 5 years. This is an especially exciting moment for us to undertake the editorship of the Journal. Over the course of almost a decade and a half, the Journal has successfully bridged the divide between "women's" and "gender" history by foregrounding women as active historical subjects in a multiplicity of places and times. In doing so, it has not just restored women to history, but has demonstrated the manifold ways in which women as gendered actors transform the historical landscape. As joint editors, we intend to build upon the journal's impressive legacy of feminist historical work by continuing its tradition of sound and innovative scholarship that at once showcases state-of-the art research in women's and gender history and points to new avenues of historical inquiry. We look forward, therefore, to maintaining the journal's tradition of producing special issues focused on innovative scholarship -- a tradition that we envision incorporating symposia, conferences and ultimately special issues around themes central to the scholarly concerns of faculty and graduate students both in and outside of the United States. Among some of the themes which we hope to coordinate are: prisons and police; gender and environment; feminist working-class history; fashion and politics; queering women's history; and film and television. We also hope to enhance the Journal's consideration of international, transnational, and global issues, from pre-modern times through the recent past. As scholars of regions and subjects outside of Euro-America, our commitments grow out of a belief that the world of women whose histories the journal has been dedicated to making visible must continuously be enlarged, even as new subjects -- both individual and thematic - continue to emerge, and as historians work to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world. We speak here not as advocates of presentism, but as scholars who believe that it is the responsibility of historians to recognize the pressures of the present on the writing of the past, especially in a context where women and their histories are continuously invoked as the bases of new national, imperial and global political agendas. This means, in the first instance, seeking out and nurturing scholarship produced beyond the confines of the Euro-American academy and the discipline of history as traditionally defined. We realize that this is much easier said than done, and that over the years the Journal of Women's History has been at the forefront of academic publications seeking to expand the horizons of readers of women's history. With this announcement (as well as through a variety of other means), we invite submissions from scholars teaching and writing outside of the U.S., including those who operate outside the discipline but whose research and methods engage directly with the problems of "history." We also encourage submissions from practitioners of transnational and comparative histories, fields that have been led by historians of women and gender in ways not always recognized. Finally, we are planning several new occasional sections for the Journal. The "Book Forum" will focus on a well-established monograph, upon which a variety of interlocutors will be asked to reflect from different regional and temporal perspectives. "History Practice" will feature think-pieces that engage questions of the archive, teaching, activism and contemporary political questions as they relate to women, history and women's history -- again, from transnational and comparative as well as national perspectives. After July 15th manuscripts should be sent to: The Journal of Women's History Department of History University of Illinois 309 Gregory Hall 810 S. Wright Street MC 466 Urbana IL 61801 USA
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