Theatre Survey editor Leo Cabranes-Grant talks with ASTR Online editor Charlotte McIvor about the future of the journal and our field.

CM: How would you describe the place of Theatre Survey amongst other journals in the field?

LCG: I see TS as a journal in which the fundamental skills of historiography (accuracy of detail, archival documentation, philological understanding, and a nuanced sense of how past and present concerns inflect each other) intersect contemporary methodological and thematic investigations. Other journals are associated with highly specific materials or conceptual approaches,

but the task of TS is to nurture a space in which different perspectives can meet and talk to each other. ASTR itself hosts a dynamic, diverse group of scholars that are committed, across generations, to foster an interdisciplinary exchange.

Our first issue for 2012 can serve as an example. That issue will include an inquiry about masculinity in early modern England, a survey of potential connections between the development of melodrama and the Marseillaise, a study of the first Swedish production of a Tennessee Williams’ play, and a surprising unpacking of James Baldwin’s attitude towards Method Acting and its impact on racialized perceptions of self. Senior and junior scholars are equally represented too. Our aim is to build bridges between traditional and new tools, ideas, and discourses.

CM: What do you feel the job of an editor of one of the major journals in our field be? What is your vision for yourself in this post?

LCG: I am sure every editor has a personal view of her/his job, so my opinion here is not offered as a prescriptive one. I can tell you which my priorities are. At the most basic level, it’s a question of management: an Editor is like a master of ceremonies, someone that ensures the show is smoothly paced and done in time. At another level, it’s a question of quality control: an Editor defines, to a certain extent, the professional standards and the public identity of the journal and ASTR.

In order to do these two things effectively, an Editor has to scout authors, find reviewers, suggest revisions, and negotiate the relations among copy editors, authors, and the rigorous expectations of Cambridge University Press. I came to TS with a desire to accomplish at least three main goals: to expand the range of the journal’s content into a more global scope; to make the journal an attractive forum both for well established professional voices and younger scholars; and to orchestrate the transition from a bi-annual to a tri-annual publication.

CM: Can you describe your working process in terms of accepting, editing and/or soliciting work for TS?

LCG: I invite authors to submit their work to TS almost everywhere: at conferences, in graduate seminars, online, and by requesting colleagues to share names. One finds materials in the most unexpected ways, and you have to be open to seize the moment. My definition of an interesting intervention is something that enables me to confront my blind spots, something that literally forces me to re-think or re-visit a relation, a fact, a problem. I am not afraid to say that I am also attracted by good stories, articles that present a compelling narrative. Scholars should read more literature and creative non-fiction: there is a lot to learn from Henry James or Joan Didion. (From James you learn how to control a long sentence; from Didion how to write an effective, lapidary paragraph).

Once an article has been submitted, the game changes. At that point you have to figure out if the piece has the potential to grow or not. If a submission reads like a review or a conference paper, I tend to reject them; I also provide those authors with concrete, honest advice. More often than not, though, I ask authors to revise and re-submit before sending their articles to outside reviewers. That improves the work and saves time later. (Occasionally, an author’s revision is not enough and I still have to reject the article, but most writers truly welcome the opportunity to polish their work). Then the quest for reviewers starts: this is the most unpredictable aspect of the job. Some people respond immediately, some people never respond at all, some fields are extremely specialized and prospective reviewers are scarce or extremely busy. All in all, it takes at least 5 or 6 months to cover all these bases. (I stay in touch with authors to let them know that they have not been forgotten). Once an article is selected, it goes to our Assistant Editor and, after that, to the copy editor at Cambridge University Press. And it is only after this long process that I make the final decision. To summarize: at least five readers intervene before an article is fully accepted for publication.

CM: How do the lead editor and associate editor interact over the course of their collaboration?

LCG: Since many of one’s goals as Editor might come to fruition only after leaving the post – two years is not a long time – selecting a good Associate Editor is particularly important. I am lucky: Esther Kim Lee has been a great collaborator and advisor. She has extensive experience as an editor, and she is an award-winning scholar. She is also very savvy with technology. We have been a team from day one, and we look at most decisions together. Many of the things I do now will have a direct effect in how she manages the journal later, so I feel it is imperative that we sail the boat together. We listen to each other, and if we disagree about something – when we do – we see that as creativity, not as conflict.

CM: What do you think will be the effect of expanding TS from 2–3 issues?

LCG: First of all, the expansion will give us more room to showcase the work of writers in general and ASTR members in particular. It will also allow us to address contemporary debates and controversies more frequently, and to diversify the methodologies and the philosophical perspectives represented in the journal. Starting in 2013, TS will be publshed three times each year in January, May, and September. And we will have more latitude to integrate ASTR events to the journal’s activities too. From now on, TS will sponsor a Working Session at each conference. The goal of this Working Session is to sponsor and develop publishable articles related to specific topics. During the summer and early fall, the articles selected by the editors of TS will be revised and reviewed, and at the conference, the authors will share this process with the audience and each other. The whole point is to help writers to prepate their articles for submission not only to TS but to other journals as well. Our inaugural topic will explore the links between translation and performance.

CM: How would you describe the interrelationship among the different components of this particular journal: the lead articles, “Critical Stages,” “Re: Sources,” narrative articles on the state of the field, and, of course, the book reviews?

LCG: The relation among all these sections is prismatic: each section stands for a shade of color within a common ray of light. While the lead articles set the tone by tackling specific areas of inquiry, every section mobilizes a different professional angle. The purpose of sections like “Critical Stages” (Patrick Anderson) and the always morphing “What Are You…?” (Kim Solga) is to offer a more informal - but no less intense - space in which our readers can express their worries and enthusiasms. Sections like “Re:Sources” (Beth Kattelman) and the book reviews (Kim Solga) call attention to new research possibilities and contributions. The effect of each issue should be dialogical: when you open an issue of TS, you are joining a multilayered, interactive chat room.

CM: As ASTR expands its available content for members through ASTR Online, what do you see as possibilities for the future of the relationship between ASTR Online and Theatre Survey?

LCG: Reading the recent biography of Steve Jobs, I realized that he defined his work as an activity taking place at the intersection of technology and the humanities. For him, the humanities were primarily the realm of intuition and rule breaking. In other words: Jobs saw the humanities mainly in terms of artistic freedom, not expertise. TS is, of course, an academic journal, and our intuitions have to be supported and articulated by our expertise as scholars and historians. But technology can provide us with an enhanced capacity to reach a global audience and to produce a more flexible and efficacious relational network. Technology is also enabling new archival resources and increasing the accessibility of pre-existent ones. Electronic literacy is becoming a fundamental instrument for our research.

For me, the most relevant distinction to be pondered is the following: are we conceptualizing our technology as users, or as doers? I would like to see how technology can empower us to deploy things that were not possible before. Can we energize our work with unprecedented doings - unprecedented interactions through new media, long-distance communications or viewings of performances in real time, online conferences in which colleagues help each other to translate materials or organize events? What kind of ethnographies can be attempted online? Is there any room for a fully interactive version of Theatre Survey? The answer is simple: technology is about circulation, not storage. We are getting close to be able to have hand-held libraries and fully wired archives. ASTR Online can become its own ecosystem, a meeting site for scholars. Two quick possiblities come to mind. ASTR Online can provide a resource center in which scholars post their questions. For example: “Where can I find documents about Oscar Wilde in the United States?” And somebody responds: “Go to UCLA.” (That was an easy one, but you get the picture). Another option is to have a quarterly editorial intervention in which contemporary voices from around the globe can be heard and responded to. Anything that facilitates links and produces new materials - materials that can then be refined and improve upon by other hands all over the world - will be more effective than reproducing information that is already made. If we are going to be a download cloud, we should float in many directions at once.

CM: Over the last several years, much of the conversation about the state of our field at ASTR’s annual meetings and in our individual institutional contexts has centered on the realities of budget cuts, institutional downsizing and the shrinking job market. Given our current situation in theatre and performance studies, and in the humanities at large, what role do you think academic journals can play in negotiating this difficult terrain and advocating for our profession?

LCG: To what extent can academic journals make themselves more visibly linked to what is happening in the classroom? With the arrival of online teaching, and the resultant pedagogical overhaul it’s becoming harder and harder to explain to students and parents how our research molds our teaching. A lot of people wonder why professors are necessary when you can get all the information you need on the Internet. What is being missed, evidently, is the fact that we produce knowledge - we are not only epistemic channels, but also epistemic engines. How can a journal like TS contribute both to translocal, worldwide online teaching and to localized, campus wide class discussions? Academic journals will advocate for our profession more successfully if they find ways to intercept, intervene, and help students and professors to refine their daily work. Once again, the challenge here is to imagine something unprecedented.

CM: Do you have any thoughts about how the future of digital publishing will affect and is affecting knowledge production in our field, in the context of the academic journal and beyond? Over the course of your career, what discernible changes have you noticed, and how would you assess their effect on your own scholarship and that of your colleagues and graduate students?

LCG: Will journals follow the same path already followed by the music industry? Is the iPad the model for the next library? The dominant tendency right now is to use less space and to provide more speed. (Our sense of Time is somehow dancing a global salsa between these two demands). Digital publishing manages to address all three: less tangible books, faster circulation, and more time to work elsewhere, and at our own leisure.

I don’t see this electro-scape as a catastrophic event, but it will certainly create its own standards and enforcements, as the printing press did centuries ago. There is still a bias against online publication in certain circles, but that will disappear soon enough. Journals can be fully electronic as far as they remain peer reviewed and their credentials are reliable. A global scholar will always profit from digital archives and connections.

Maybe my main concern is that students are reading more textual fragments and less complete books. It is easier today to get sound bites and citations, but reading in a particular way – paying attention to the gradual unfolding of an argument – is becoming less popular. Published work can travel online and be received far away in ways that were unthinkable just ten years ago, and we can find colleagues in remote areas that were ignored in the past.

What is not being addressed yet – at least convincingly – is the fact that questions like the one I am responding to right now basically assume – incorrectly – that digitalized experiences are normative for all humans. Economic disparity and political and/or religiously motivated censorship are still active obstacles for online influence. In certain ecologies of learning, books are still cheaper – or easier to hide – than computers.

CM: Finally, for those within ASTR who may be interested in one day working as journal editors or in some capacity with TS, what advice do you have about professionalization strategies?

LCG: Being the editor of TS has been a formidable opportunity for me. I have been able to help other colleagues to see their work published. The editorship has exposed me to the full spectrum of interdisciplinary projects taking shape in our fields of study today. The vigor and diversity of our intellectual pursuits is nothing less than impressive. I am a much better scholar, mentor, teacher and a reader because of TS.

I am still an Associate Professor, and in the past the editorship of a journal like TS has been mostly held by full or senior professors. If you are in the early stages of your career, editing a journal can slow down your tenure clock; if you are writing your next book - which is my case - you need to exercise a delicate sense of timing in order to balance your act. But the advantages of editing TS while in mid-career are almost irresistible if you are involved in interdisciplinary work. Here you are, taking the pulse of your profession, expanding the bandwidth of your critical skills, and hunting for other people’s best work. And precisely because you are in mid-career, you are looking forward as much as you are looking back – which is exactly the right location to create exciting research and enlightening historiography, the two things TS appreciates and aspires to publish.

In today’s world the speed of change and adjustment has accelerated so much that we have to re-train ourselves almost constantly. In a way, we are now in mid-career all the time. New scholars profit the most from placing themselves at the crossroads of different fields and methodologies. Nietzsche and Gramsci were philologists; Diana Taylor has been a theater director and a social activist among Mayan women; Gayatry Spivak is a philosopher, a translator and is also doing community building in her own country; Richard Schechner walks the tightrope between anthropology and performance; Marvin Carlson is nothing less than a Renaissance wizard (he is always ahead of all of us); Catherine Cole is both a dancer and an Africanist; Antonio Negri is now writing plays as part of his theoretical excursions; Christina McMahon is both an ethnographer and a theorist. And Latinos -like Jorge Huerta- have done everything. Hyphenated careers are here to stay. You need to find the hyphen(s) that work for you. Editing a journal is a perfect spot to figure that out.

To emergent scholars I humbly recommend two things. First, be sure your research is the result of a highly personal choice in which your own passion motivates your rigor. Second, remember that your work is relevant due to the critical quality of your own voice, not merely the topic you choose. Although it is true that some fields are apparently more marketable than others, in the end what makes your work count is your capacity to tell a story persuasively. In order to enjoy this type of work, you have to be willing to be open minded and pragmatic at the same time. And that’s good training not only for a professional career, but for life itself.

For Theatre Survey submission guidelines, click here.

Leo Cabranes-Grant is an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the editor of Theatre Survey. His book Los usos de la repetición en la obra de Lope de Vega was published by Pliegos in 2004. His articles have appeared in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Celestinesca, Profession (MLA); Theatre Research International, and Theatre Journal. He is also an award-winning playwright.

Charlotte McIvor is an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Santa Clara University and is the editor of ASTR Online.