Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to share with you some exciting news from the Society for the Study of Women and Gender.
On July 1, SSEWMG will become the owner of Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal. For several years, we have wanted a more formal relationship with the journal, so this meets an organizational goal. When we take ownership, the journal will move to the University of Chicago Press Journals Division, effective with Volume 16, Issue 1 (Fall 2021). We are delighted that the current editors, Bernadette Andrea (University of California, Santa Barbara), Julie Campbell (Eastern Illinois University) and Allyson Poska (University of Mary Washington) will remain as editors for three more years. We are confident that our outstanding editors, supported by the resources of the Press, will enable EMWJ to build on its strong foundation.
As part of our relationship with Chicago, the Press will manage our membership; a subscription to the electronic version of the journal will automatically be included as a benefit of membership, along with electronic access to the full archive (back to Volume 1, Issue 1) and e-Book editions of all future issues. (Print copies will carry an additional charge.) Instructions for accessing the journal online through SSEWMG membership will be provided this summer. Furthermore, SSEWMG members will have a 30% discount on book and e-book purchases from University of Chicago Press.
As we discussed this new move, we looked at our dues, which have not changed for many years, and decided that we will increase our dues. We’re not sure, but this may be the first increase since 1993! Our new dues will be:
| Regular Dues | $50/year |
| Student/unemployed (including retirees and independent scholars) | $20/ year |
| Lifetime membership | $500 |
We are currently pausing new memberships and renewals as we transition our database to Chicago’s system. Current memberships (including multi-year and life memberships) will transition to this system, and you don’t need to do anything. We will notify everyone when the new membership site is open.
Finally (if you haven’t had enough excitement for one day) we have signed up with Amazon Smile. This enables you to support the work of SSEMWG while purchasing from Amazon. Note: if you search for us by name, they will still list us under our old name (Society for the Study of Early Modern Women): the IRS has been informed of our name change, but it hasn’t registered in the database that Amazon uses!
I am grateful to all those who helped us in this complicated process in the middle of a pandemic. The Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies has passed on to us a prize-winning journal, and they have made this process about as easy as it could be. The journal editors and members of the SSEMWG Executive Committee pitched in as we wrote a Request for Proposals, and as we vetted proposals from presses. The process has been collaborative and supportive throughout, a wonderful reminder of the amazing community of scholars in SSEMWG.
Yours,
Susan