In the early 1970s, an energetic band of journal editors expanded the purview of the Conference of Editors of Learned Journals, a small group that had gathered for informal, mutually supportive talk at occasional MLA conferences beginning in 1957. Among the founders of this reconceived organization were Arthur Kinney, Mark Spilka, R. G. Collins, Marilyn Gaull, Caroline Eckhardt, Anne Paulluci, Ralph Cohen, William Schreick, and William Schaeffer. During the first decade of its life as an MLA allied organization devoted to the interests of scholarly journal editors in the humanities, CELJ established a strong public presence: sessions at the annual MLA convention drew robust audiences and offered, among other services, training for new editors and mentoring for authors; the publication Editors' Notes was founded by Gaull; and officers took part in the National Enquiry into Scholarly Publication as well as congressional testimony on copyright.
In 1980, CELJ drafted a new constitution under the leadership of Cohen and Kinney, and Edna Steeves (University of Rhode Island) accepted the editorship of Editors' Notes. The constitution provides for the usual offices of President, Vice-President, and Secretary-Treasurer; it also gives the past President an active role in the ongoing business of the organization, and it establishes Regional Directors in areas corresponding with regional MLA organizations. In 1989 the organization changed its name to the Council of Editors of Learned Journals, which more accurately reflects the association of member editors. In 1991 CELJ achieved not-for-profit status. (For more detail on the council's early history, read Arthur Kinney's 1999 MLA keynote address, "Historicizing CELJ," available for download in our online "Newsletter Archive" [see the "Fall 1999/Spring 2000" newsletter]).
The succession of Presidents from the early 1970s to the present illustrates, among other things, the wide range of literary disciplines from which CELJ has been able to draw: Arthur Kinney of English Literary Renaissance (1971–74), Mark Spilka of Novel (1974–76), R. G. Collins of Thalia (1976–78), Marilyn Gaull of the Wordsworth Circle (1978–80), Ralph Cohen of New Literary History (1980–82), Arthur Kinney (1982–84), George Simson of Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly (1984–86), John Stasny of Victorian Poetry (1986–88), Evelyn Hinz of Mosaic (1988–90), Michael Marcuse of Literary Research (1990–92), John Coldewey of Modern Language Quarterly: A Journal of Literary History (1992–94), R. A. Shoaf of Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies (1994–95), Holly Laird of Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature (1996–97), Craig Howes of Biography (1998–99), Roy Flannagan of Milton Quarterly (2000–2001), Michael Cornett of the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (2002–2003), David Hanson of Nineteenth-Century Studies, and Jana Argersinger of ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance and Poe Studies/Dark Romanticism.
Every year CELJ sponsors two sessions at the MLA Convention. The first is devoted to the presentation of CELJ's annual journal awards and to a keynote address that speaks to a topic of particular relevance to journal editors. The awards ceremony recognizes distinguished achievement in two divisions: one for scholarly journals and the other for creative-writing journals. In the "Scholarly Achievement" division, a winner and runner-up receive plaques or certificates for each of five, usually hotly contested, competitions: Best New Journal, Best Journal Design, Best Special Issue, the Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement, and Distinguished Editor. In the "Literary Achievement" division, three categories rotate on a three-year cycle: the Parnassus Award for Significant Editorial Achievement, Best New Literary Journal, and Distinguished Literary Editor. Recent keynotes have featured Robert Spoo and Harold Orlans on current copyright issues, Ian Lancashire on the computer's influence on scholarship and publishing, Peter Vandenberg on editorial transition, and Beth Luey on the professionalization of journal editing. CELJ's second session takes up a topic of special interest to journal authors and editors alike, often in the form of a roundtable discussion. Past topics have included, for example, the advent of electronic journals and their implications for writers, readers, and sponsoring agencies; and journal refereeing and/as gatekeeping. Recent lively panels have focused on forms of support for academic journals; issues of electronic publication, storage, and retrieval; the vetting process; matters of interdisciplinarity; and the nuts-and-bolts of journal editing. A separate meeting covers the council's business, including reports from the officers.
In some years CELJ has sponsored sessions at regional MLA meetings (as in 1985 at the PAPC meeting in Santa Barbara), and sometimes it has jointly sponsored extra sessions with another allied organization (as in 1990, when it joined with the Council of National Literatures to arrange a symposium titled "The Future of Scholarly Journals in the Humanities: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives").
Another regular service CELJ provides for its members is an annual booth in the MLA convention exhibition. Editors can send several copies of their journal for display at the booth, and it has proven to be a very popular means of promotion. Members attending the MLA convention volunteer to help a local graduate student oversee the exhibit, and many use it to meet with past and present contributors. At the 2000 convention, CELJ drew a great deal of attention by turning the booth into a space for journal editors and authors to meet and discuss authors' individual concerns about journal publishing. The new program, "Chat with an Editor," served over a hundred authors in succession throughout the conference. The event was written up by the Chronicle of Higher Education (see the 12 Jan. 2001 issue, in the "Hot Type" column, available online to subscribers). In 2007, CELJ added a successful version of "Chat" for creative writers.
In 1985 CELJ reached an agreement with the Times Literary Supplement: members are invited to advertise, at special rates, in a section of TLS devoted entirely to journals each November. TLS sends hundreds of copies of that issue to distribute free to MLA members at the annual exhibit.
In 1992 CELJ struck up an arrangement with the Society for Scholarly Publishing at the University of Toronto so that now CELJ membership includes a free subscription to the Journal of Scholarly Publishing, perhaps the best-known and most widely distributed journal of its kind in the world. In 2002, JSP began publishing the council's MLA keynote addresses as a regular yearly feature (see bibliography).
One service CELJ offers extends beyond its member editors: an adjudication process to help mediate disputes between journals and authors, no matter which party is aggrieved. The adjudication process has been used only a few times in any given year, but it clearly has met a strong need within the profession.
Future plans for the organization include new advocacy initiatives for the recognition of editors, workshops for aspiring editors, the development of guidelines for evaluating publication in online journals, and the updating and enhancement of this web site.
