I heard through the grapevine that they're getting more submissions than they know what to do with these days, so evidently they're accomplishing their goal, as I understand it, to respond to and cultivate intellectual curiosity among Jews in a less highfalutin' ivory tower way, which never seemed to get very far in the past. It's interesting that this should be so in a time when other journals are biting the dust.
See also this post.
do you see a big difference between hakirah and tradition, torah umada journal, etc.?
ReplyDelete"they're getting more submissions than they know what to do with these days, so evidently they're accomplishing their goal"
what is the circulation/readership? i think that's more of an important indicator of its success. is the journal more popular than, say, "on the mainline"? :)
my personal feeling is that there is a wide empty gap in contemporary jewish literature between the highfalutin academic stuff and the popular artscroll variety. (i blame all the MO academics for this, but that's for a different day.) so what i'm getting at, is hakirah attracting readers from those who ordinarily only know about the artscroll-type literature? anyway, the fact that most of their articles are free online is important.
i haven't read that many articles in hakirah, some of them (imho) are quite good, but i remember at least one that i thought was substandard.
I do. For one thing, TUMJ and Tradition are YU-centric. For another, TUMJ is extremely infrequent, and I hate to say it, but Tradition is kind of boring of late.
ReplyDeleteI actually have no idea about the circulation; there is an old chestnut from the '60s (although it probably originated in the '70s): "Not a lot of people saw the Velvet Underground, but everyone who did started a band." I feel the same way about Hakirah. It may or may not be that a lot of people are reading it, but it seems like a lot of people who never dreamed of writing an article for such a publication are doing so. It could be partly a matter of timing and editorial policies for acceptance, but that's what I sense is happening.
I believe Hakirah is far more likelier to draw from the Artscrollish audience than either Tradition or TUMJ.
It's true that some of the articles in Hakirah are substandard, but I also feel that this is an essential part of them avoiding ivory tower syndrome; it's democratizing, it makes people feel comfortable to write and send them submissions. True, there are other pitfalls, such as the simple fact that the paying reader shouldn't be subjected to anything subpar --
I have more thoughts, these were jotted down fast. After schabbes I'll try to do better.
"I believe Hakirah is far more likelier to draw from the Artscrollish audience than either Tradition or TUMJ."
ReplyDeletebecause of content/style or because trad/tumj are official MO-affiliated organs?
"TUMJ and Tradition are YU-centric."
in terms of content or just contributors/readers?
"it seems like a lot of people who never dreamed of writing an article for such a publication are doing so"
this is very important. i'm just curious about the other side of the equation, the reception.
"paying reader"
what's that?
good shabbos
Schabbes? Who the heck spells it schabbes? The OED correct spelling is "Shabbos".
ReplyDelete(Smileycon)
There's no way to know the full readership of Hakirah, but then, there's no way to know the full readership of Tradition or anything either, so it's a wash. Antecdotally I can tell you this. After my piece was published in Hakirah last year, my mother received shopping-aisle -congratulations and "Oh, I saw your son wrote something in Hakirah!" kvelling from people neither she nor I would EVER have expected. I'm talking about from women, from yeshivishe types, from academic types - the gamut.
I applaud Hakirah with full-throated approval, to mix metaphors. Other academic journals have very silly acceptance standards. There is a buult in bias in those circles to be more accepting of articles that cite their peers in academia, even if the citations bespeak little more than rank imbecility. There is also a fetish to inflate form over substance, although I will say there's a happy medium, and I have caught too many spelling mistakes in Hakirah.
It's common for scholars to look down their aquline noses at so-called "low brow" publications, even as those aforementioned publications are read by many more readers. If Hakirah has indeed opened up scholarship to more people, even if some people dont think the scholarship is quite up to their levels, then it has succeeded. Because in my experience, the only reason the greater frum community doesnt "hold" from scholarship is because they're simply not exposed to it. Once they learn it exists, they thirst for it. So if it takes a low brow like Hakirah to do so, wonderful! They will eventually advance to higher forums (by which I dont mean Tradition.)
Having said that, I think the current Hakirah is pretty dull.
DF
How about publishing as a quarterly?
ReplyDelete"Because in my experience, the only reason the greater frum community doesnt "hold" from scholarship is because they're simply not exposed to it. Once they learn it exists, they thirst for it."
ReplyDeleteHear that sound? That's the neo-Haskalah bearing down like a freight train.
S - You are the perfect candidate to write an article
ReplyDeleteYou just want to know my name, don't you? ;-)
ReplyDeleteactually don't care what your name is - you seem to spend much time researching very interesting topics and could probably publish an article in a relatively small amount of time. My guess is the reason you do not reveal your name is that you live in a chareidi community and have expressed views that may harm your standing in the community.
ReplyDelete