ABSTRACT
In recent years, both British and American scholars have worried that the material conditions of scholarly evaluation and publication have led to a situation of “crisis,” or at least serious concern, for literary scholars.1 In the US, a number of prominent critics have addressed in print the “crisis in scholarly publication” caused by the decision of a number of American university presses to reduce severely, or even stop altogether, the publication of literary monographs.2 In Britain, where many presses do still regularly publish literary monographs, scholars worry about the complex effects of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) on decisions about what and where to publish.3 Opinion is divided, however, about whether there is an actual crisis, and there is particular disagreement, especially in the US, on whether the problem is that too many or too few literary monographs are being published each year.4
