A new year, a time to look back at where we have been and to look forward to where we are (and could) be going. As exciting as I find the many superb special issues published in Disability Studies Quarterly, I am always equally excited to present (and read) one of our general issues, as they demonstrate the many different perspectives, concerns, and methods, working in dialogue, in our field. This issue is filled with so many fascinating articles and other kinds of writing, from close reading of literary classics not typically associated with disability (such as Truman Capote's perennial A Christmas Memory) to complex examinations of poetic form as embodiments of a poet's particularly "disability-inflected" form and style (Larry Eigner) to a documenting and analysis of the work the visual arts can do in bringing communities to greater understanding of disability experience, as well as providing access for artists with disabilities (such as the critical curatorial analysis at Davidson College and in the film The Station Agent) to the valuable, one might say necessary work done at the intersections of the social sciences, media studies, and grounded research, including content analysis of far-reaching media outlets, such as The New York Times, the United States' "newspaper of record," and Saturday Night Live, which might arguably be viewed as our national platform for comic treatment of public issues, as well as the rich, qualitatively-based work on Facilitated Communication, work that draws together traditions of survey of scholarly literature with the experiences of individuals who are involved with the implementation of this form of communication in "everyday life."
And, speaking of "everyday life," I begin a new paragraph to draw readers' attention to a number of special elements in this issue. The phrase "everyday life" is, in scholarly circles, perhaps most associated with the eminent 20th-century sociologist Erving Goffman, whose Stigma had its 50th anniversary in 2013. While we are a month "belated" in our acknowledgment of this landmark date for a text that remains central in its influence in disability studies, we are delighted to include both an individual article on Goffman, which invites us to reconsider this seminal figure and his place in our field, and a forum of recent writing by major scholars in the field about this particular text. We also feature a "report from the field," providing the collective reflections of a group of disability studies scholars who participated in an important conference in Brazil, bringing "home" what is going on at sites of international, multicultural dialogue. Finally, it is a particular honor to publish Cassandra Hartblay's Zola-winning essay, "A Geneology of (post-)Soviet Dependency: Disabling Productivity," a fine study of recent Russian disability history, as well as contribution to the growing scholarship critiquing neoliberalism from a disability studies perspective.
The first issue of a new year is also time for welcoming newcomers, thanking those who provide continuity, and bidding a farewell (if premature by one issue) to those who have served the journal well and are now moving on to other work. Let me begin with the last: I wish to thank Margaret Price and Amy Vidali, the outgoing Reviews editors, for managing and editing their section with a high standard of quality and more-than-generous collegiality and goodwill, especially during the various transitions of editorial team in the past year or so: one could not have asked for better colleagues in this venture, and I am extremely grateful for all you have done—their work as editors is featured in this issue (and will be in the April essay, which is a special issue on emerging voices in disability studies, guest edited by Alison Kafer and Michelle Jarman). Beginning with the June issue, the new reviews editor will be Ann Fox of Davidson College, who will bring her wealth of knowledge and experience to the position.
I also welcome JulieAnn Scott, of the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, as Associate Editor, who will focus on social scientific and applied research for the journal through the end of this team's editorial term. She brings to the journal an impressive array of her own original scholarship in the performativity of gender, professionalism, and disability: you can read one of her pieces of original research in this issue—a manuscript that was accepted for publication before she accepted the invitation to take on this new role.
I also want to acknowledge and thank the people who provide continuity in the journal, making the process much more smooth and manageable than it might otherwise have been. The libraries at the Ohio State University continue to support, through the donation of the labor and resources, the production of this journal: I must single out Laura Seeger, who is unflappable in responding to the myriad complexities of producing the journal, and Melanie Schlosser, who is a constant reminder that librarians are not simply "curators" of that which has been published, but essential agents in thinking through how best to make information accessible and available to readers. Also, I wish again to acknowledge the work of Brenda Brueggemann, also of OSU, for establishing and building the foundation for this ongoing relationship between journal and library/publisher: without her work, this relationship would not exist.
Lastly, I want to thank members of the Editorial Board (both continuing and newly-added members) for their always professional, thoughtful, and generous service to the journal and, hence, to the future of disability scholarship. As you may have noticed, our Editorial Board is close to double the size it has been in the past: submissions have increased at such a rate and in such volume that, after consulting with the SDS Board, I put out a call for new EB members. This was not because the then-current board was not doing their work; rather, it was an attempt to solve the dilemma of an embarrassment of riches. Both continuing and new members have demonstrated consistent loyalty to the journal, often, I am certain, setting aside some of their own work in order to help the journal make decisions about what to include and how best to guide authors in creating the best possible work they can. In addition to the formal EB members, I wish to thank the many "ad hoc" reviewers, who have been willing to step in and review a manuscript that may fall in their very specific area of expertise and for which we may not have an immediately logical "go-to" person on the permanent board. As cliché as it may sound, the journal would not exist without the work of all of these people.
As mentioned above, the next issue, April 2014, will be a special, guest-edited issue. I look forward to reading what "emerges," and will return for the July issue (which already has some exciting contents in formation).
Bruce Henderson
Editor-in-Chief
