FYI, you can also find me on Twitter now (@JenHoward). I am not, repeat not, @DrJennifer, “licensed psychotherapist, author, personal development expert, relationship counselor, Integrated Energy Healer, and spiritual teacher.” If you want to talk writing, publishing, literature, history, libraries, or archives, though, I’m your gal. When I get the integrated-energy thing down, I’ll let you know…. Read more...
…scholars debated the origins of fairy tales. Did they really spring from oral folk tradition? That debate, which many say was settled in the 19th century, hasn’t completely died yet, but there’s a lot more going on in fairy-tale scholarship now. Read about it in my latest article for the Chronicle Review…. Read more...
In my latest Hot Type column, I ask whether all authors are created equal under Google—under the terms of the proposed settlement in the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers’ lawsuit against Google Book Search, that is. If you’re a professional author, by which I mean one who counts on book sales and royalties for income, you may feel just peachy about what the deal (if approved) could do for you. But a group of scholarly authors, led by a law prof at Berkeley, believes that their book-writing colleagues in academe don’t appreciate how the deal could affect research… Read more...
Got word today that Louisiana’s state budget woes could force LSU Press to close. Supporters are rallying people to the cause, asking them to tell the LSU administration and the state legislature how important the press is to the intellectual life of the university and the state. I took some heat from a commenter on the Chronicle’s news blog about my choice of the phrase “might get the ax” to describe the danger LSU Press faces. I’d say that if a you cut a press’s subsidy with the knowledge that doing so is likely to force it to close, you… Read more...
