About the Journal

diacritics, a review of contemporary criticism, was founded in 1971 by the Department of Romance Studies, under the editorship of David I. Grossvogel. Published by Johns Hopkins University Press since 1977, the journal maintains editorial offices in the Department of Romance Studies at Cornell. Members of its editorial board are Cornell faculty and graduate students who are nominated and elected by the board.

diacritics was one of the first academic journals to bring continental theory to the US. In the 1970s, it published translations of the work of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Hélène Cixous, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Umberto Eco, and articles by Paul de Man, Gayatri Spivak, Edward Said, Fredric Jameson, and Barbara Johnson. Historically its preferred mode has been the review article that analyzes in detail the theoretical arguments and assumptions of the most significant books in the humanities and social sciences. It periodically publishes special issues on topics or on thinkers of great current interest. In recent years, diacritics has published important work in gender studies, cultural studies, queer theory, political theory, literary theory, and psychoanalysis, including articles by Judith Butler, Roberto Esposito, Louis Althusser, Etienne Balibar, Jacques Rancière, and Giorgio Agamben. The redesigned journal (beginning with volume 40) has won awards from the AAUP Book, Jacket, and Journal Show (2014) and the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ, 2014).

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diacritics maintains its role as one of the most distinguished academic journals of theory and criticism, as it continues to embrace a plurality of theoretical approaches and critical perspectives.

Several past issues of diacritics

Editorial offices

Contact:

diacritics

Department of Romance Studies

K 161 Klarman Hall

Cornell University

Ithaca, NY 14853

Email: diacritics@cornell.edu

Karen Pinkus, Editor

Diane Berrett Brown, Managing Editor

Recent and Forthcoming Issues

other althussers (43.2)

Guest editors: Jason Barker and G. M. Goshgarian. Essays by  G. M. Goshgarian, Warren Montag, Alberto Toscano, Jason Barker, and Matthew Lampert, with excerpts from two works by Louis Althusser (translated by G. M. Goshgarian, prior to publication by Bloomsbury). Read and download the full issue at Project Muse.

The prepositional senses of jean-luc nancy (2) (43.4)

Our second issue in this series, edited by Irving Goh and Timothy Murray, with essays by Irving Goh, Eleanor Kaufman, Juan Manuel Garrido, Frédéric Neyrat, and Jean-Luc Nancy. Also an interview with Philip Armstrong, Jason E. Smith, and Jean-Luc Nancy.

Submission Guidelines

Notes for Contributors

diacritics is concerned with the problems of criticism. The journal has no formal policy governing the choice of books to be reviewed or critical perspectives to be explored, and welcomes suggestions and contributions from all quarters. This pluralistic policy does not imply advocacy of critical eclecticism: diacritical discussion entails distinguishing the methodological and ideological issues that critics encounter and setting forth a critical position in relation to them.  Review articles should be conceived as fully developed essays in which the critical reviewing and the presentation of the author’s own insights are integrated by a unifying thesis or perspective. Prospective contributors are strongly urged to choose the review article mode and to take into account the journal’s aim to reach a wide audience interested in the general problems of criticism. We especially welcome review articles that consider very recent books not yet published in English. diacritics  also publishes articles in other categories:

Texts/Contexts

Essays dealing with major theoretical problems or illustrating adventurous approaches to the interpretation of texts.

Response

Rejoinders to articles previously published in diacritics or in other journals.

Interview

Exchanges with well-known critics or, occasionally, with artists that may be either edited transcripts of recorded conversations or dialogues conducted in writing.

Texts submitted to diacritics are reviewed as blind submissions. Solicited articles are subject to the same evaluative procedures and are judged on the same standards as unsolicited material.

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