Birger Vanwesenbeeck, associate professor of English, and Stephine Hunt, a current graduate student in English, launched the first of five prospective “gatherings” slated to appear in the pioneering open-access journal Electronic Book Review (EBR) over the next few months.
Prepared by Ms. Hunt during her stint as an English graduate assistant this past spring semester, the gatherings bring together scholarly essays previously published by EBR in an electronic cluster around a chosen theme.
The gathering just published, which focuses on the theme of “logical positivism,” serves to accompany the publication of a forthcoming review in EBR by another Fredonia alumnus, Andrew Lindquist (B.A. English, ’10; M.A. English, University of Colorado, ’15), that explores the impact of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein on contemporary American fiction.
Via the gathering, readers of Lindquist’s essay will be able to immediately access previously published EBR essays related to the topic of his review, thus spurring further scholarly dialogue and conversation. Hunt said that the experience compiling the gatherings provided her with valuable writing skills and editorial practice.
“Creating collections of Electronic Book Review (EBR) articles with Dr. Birger Vanwesenbeeck introduced me to a plethora of scholarly and theoretical work that helped expand my knowledge of English as a field. I found myself entering conversations that sometimes spanned decades as I searched for common threads between articles,” Hunt explained.
“As a bonus, I further developed my ability to navigate online databases and archives, practiced editorial work, and introduced myself to the wonderful resource that is EBR,” she added.
A link to the gathering and review may be found at: http://www.electronicbookreview.com/. Future gatherings prepared by Dr. Vanwesenbeeck and Hunt to appear in EBR will focus on such diverse issues as eco-criticism (to accompany a forthcoming EBR review in November by Fredonia Professor Jeanette McVicker of the Department of English) on mourning/memory, ekphrasis and world literature.
