50 Years of Russian Literature: Mapping, Mixing, and Queering Slavic Literary Studies

Russian Literature turned fifty this year. In this editorial contribution, editor-in-chief Ellen Rutten reflects on the journal’s past, its current profile, and future editorial plans. As Rutten argues, Russian Literature has three distinguishing features. First, the journal has always generously invited other disciplines on board – and its transdisciplinary inclusivity has increased in recent years – while maintaining a steady gaze on Slavic literary studies. Second, the journal acts as a transnational and transcontinental scholarly contact zone – a status that cannot be isolated from our choice to publish both Anglophone and Russophone analyses. And third, Russian Literature brings together a range of scholarly voices and genres that is unusually broad for a scholarly periodical, through a strategy of active editorial outreach to young talents and leading experts in the field. Rutten concludes with a few words on upcoming volumes and plans, including new archival publications and volumes-in-the-making inspired by recent shifts in thinking about geopolitics, gender, and health and environment.