On the edge of scholarly-publishing relevance, a new journal that I’ve been building with Jamie Cohen-Cole and Philippe Fontaine—History of Social Science—has launched its first issue. The journal is published for the Society for the History of Recent Social Science (HISRESS) by Penn Press—with a good no-embargo green self-archiving policy and the aspiration to join Project MUSE’s successful subscribe-to-open program.
From the launch editorial:
Our goal for History of Social Science is to create a platform for historians of varied approaches and training. The idea is that the journal will host a conversation among historians of science, intellectual historians, and disciplinary historians—in other words, stand as a publishing complement [End Page 9] to the nascent and fruitfully polyglot community already in formation. Our conviction is that the three subcultures may continue to learn from one another. Historians of science have shown the value of foregrounding tools and practices, including their travels across disciplinary boundaries. The significance of social and cultural context—how the social sciences are embedded in and affect the societies that they study—is in turn a lesson reinforced by the example of intellectual history. Finally, disciplinary historians bring their own deep knowledge—some of it tacit, earned through training—of their specific fields. Some members of these three subcultures are already reading and citing each other, to their mutual benefit. History of Social Science intends to encourage even more cross-field sharing. With that goal in mind, the journal welcomes submissions that reflect these distinct and spreadable strengths.