FW: Orbit: Writing Around Pynchon

Mon Jul 11 16:43:59 CDT 2011

This is outside my own ORBIT but I do find it hard to believe that the 
flow of newly minted Pynchon critics is so great as  require another 
journal.

However this little excerpt from Martin Eve's website makes one wonder 
if some kind of revisionism in Pynchon criticism is afoot: (a palace revolt)

"One of the problems with recommending P-Crit is that is has changed. 
The “early” stuff was obsessed with indeterminacy and postmodern, for 
want of better words, nihilism and paranoia. By all means check out the 
old-style criticism, but — and I think it’s fair to say that the authors 
themselves will also acknowledge this — things have moved on. For 
instance: Cooper, Peter. Signs and Symptoms: Thomas Pynchon and the 
Contemporary World. Berkley: University of California Press, 1983.

"f you fancy sampling what’s going on nowadays, I’d recommend my friend 
Sam Thomas’ book: Thomas, Samuel. /Pynchon and the Political/. London: 
Routledge, 2007, which can be hard going for a newcomer, but is a great 
piece of work.

"Finally, keep a look out towards the end of this year for my 
forthcoming book chapter on Pynchon and Wittgenstein . . . ."

A description of the Sam Thomas book on Amazon reads as follows:

"Thomas Pynchon's writing has been widely regarded as an exemplary form 
of postmodern fiction. It is characterized as genre-defying and 
enigmatic, as a series of complex and esoteric language games. This 
study attempts to demonstrate, however, that an oblique yet compelling 
sense of the "political" Pynchon disappers all too easily under the 
mantle of postmodernity. Innovative and unsettling discussions of 
freedom, war, labor, poverty, community, democracy, and totalitarianism 
are passed over in favor of constrictive scientific metaphors and 
theoretical play. Against this current, this study analyzes 
Pynchon's fiction in terms of its radical dimension, showing how it 
points to new directions in the relationship between the political and 
the aesthetic."

But anyway I'm one for letting the "young folks" (Pynchon term) have 
their day.

P

POn 7/11/2011 8:04 AM, Krafft, John M. wrote:
> From: Martin Eve [martin at martineve.com]
> Sent: Monday, July 11, 2011 5:50 AM
>
> Dear all,
>
> In light of Jeff’s recent email [about the upcoming fiftieth anniversary of V.],
> it now seems the right time to unveil
> a project which we hope will enthuse and excite a great number of you.
> We have been working, over the past few months, to put together a new,
> very different, journal of Pynchon scholarship.
>
> The journal aims to publish high quality, rigorously reviewed and
> innovative scholarly material on the works of Thomas Pynchon, related
> authors and adjacent fields, free-of-charge at point of access to
> institutions and independent scholars by being a Gold, Libre Open
> Access journal. We aim to review and publish material received within
> five months by abandoning the traditional “issue” model in favour of a
> rolling system and to, consequentially, fare well under research
> assessment metrics. The journal is entitled Orbit: Writing Around
> Pynchon, with ISSN number 2047-2870 and hosted at
> https://www.pynchon.net  .
>
> The journal is online-only and free at point-of-access. This ensures
> that availability is not a problem given institutional budget
> concerns. It has also been shown, in several studies, that Open Access
> publications obtain higher citation rates because of this openness
> (see:http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html  ), which should
> be of value to anybody concerned about citation metrics in research
> assessment frameworks. We are also abandoning the traditional “Issue”
> format for all but special cases, meaning that we have a Volume and
> Issue number assigned, in advance, and articles are added to the
> current volume as soon as they are ready. In this way, we hope to
> thoroughly review and publish articles within a five month timeframe.
>
> We have several mechanisms in place for archival and safeguarding
> purposes. Once our first “issue” is published, Orbit will be archived
> and preserved through the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe)
> system pioneered by Stanford University. See:
> http://lockss.stanford.edu/lockss/Home  for more info. This distributed
> network of libraries and university systems will each keep a copy of
> every article published in Orbit. Should Orbit cease production, or be
> unavailable for technical reasons, LOCKSS will automatically and
> transparently provide access through institutional catalogues and
> resolvers. In addition, we recommend that all authors lodge a copy of
> their article with their institutional repository. Orbit will
> furthermore deposit articles with the British Library (the UK deposit
> library) as perhttp://www.bl.uk/aboutus/stratpolprog/legaldep/. These
> three backup archival sources, incorporating multiple physical
> locations worldwide, backed by reputable institutions, provide
> continued worldwide reach in the event of folding/downtime via an
> internationally recognised mechanism.
>
> In relation to how this journal will work alongside Pynchon Notes, for
> which we have nothing but the utmost respect and gratitude, we have
> been in touch with Duffy and John throughout. The journals work on
> very different principles; we are online-only, while PN remains in
> print, but we certainly felt, in light of Jeff’s message, that 2013
> would be a good point for the two projects to work together to make a
> positive contribution to this momentous occasion and we remain in
> dialogue on this front.
>
> The sheer volume of material and number of people working on Pynchon
> was the justification for this project in our minds. We hope that this
> excites you. Please find our first CFP below and we hope you’ll
> consider helping us begin by submitting your work for our launch next
> Spring. Likewise, if you are interested in acting as a peer reviewer,
> please get in touch.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Martin Paul Eve, Doug Haynes and Sam Thomas
>
> Editorial Board:
> Hanjo Berressem, Simon de Bourcier, David Cowart, Luc Herman, Zofia
> Kolbuszewska, Sascha Pöhlmann, Birger Vanwesenbeeck
>
>
> Call For Papers
>
> Orbit: Writing Around Pynchon, a new Open Access, peer reviewed
> e-journal of scholarly work pertaining to the writings of Thomas
> Pynchon and adjacent fields, seeks articles, reviews and letters for
> publication.
>
> Thomas Pynchon is an American writer of novels, short stories and
> occasional journalistic pieces whose influence upon the contemporary
> American writing scene is virtually unparalleled, leading Harold
> Bloom, in recent correspondence, to write: “certainly he is still the
> most important writer alive”. Topics for consideration could include,
> but are by no means limited to:
>
>      Comparative studies with related authors
>      Novel theoretical contexts for Pynchon’s work
>      Pynchon’s literary influence
>      Biographical criticism
>      Transatlantic/Transpacific connections
>      The Great American Novel
>      Historiographic meta-/historical fiction
>      Political implications of Pynchon and his contemporaries’ work
>      Gender and sexuality in Pynchon
>      Pynchon’s publishing process/archival work and source materials
>      Pynchon’s music and songs
>      The shape and/or phases of Pynchon’s career and its evolving contexts
>      The Pynchon scholarly community itself, including online
> developments (eg. P-Wiki, PYNCHON-L)
>
>
>
> All submissions will undergo a strict, double-blind peer review
> process and will also be subject to scrutiny from our international
> expert editorial board. Accepted submissions will be made available as
> an online publication (https://www.pynchon.net  ISSN: 2047-2870),
> assigned a DOI number and archived for posterity with both the British
> Library’s online deposit service and, subject to approval, the LOCKSS
> network.
>
> Submissions should be made online, in MLA bibliographic format, at:
> https://www.pynchon.net/submit
>
> To be included in the first batch of articles (Spring 2012), please
> ensure submission by 1st November, 2011.
>
> --
> Martin Paul Eve
> University of Sussex
>
> T: +44 7985235572
> E:m.eve at sussex.ac.uk
> W:https://www.martineve.com
>

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