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Tradition and transitions

In fall 2010, antiwar activists in the Traverse City area of northwestern lower Michigan invited a retired United States Army colonel and decorated former State Department official to address a local audience. The speaker was known for her outspoken opposition to the Iraq war and her involvement in three Gaza “freedom flotillas.” The morning after her speech, she and local activists had breakfast in downtown Traverse City. I was unable to join them, but my wife, Mary Heffron, brought a recent copy of Critical Asian Studies to give to her as a gift. I selected an issue that featured an antiwar theme on the cover and in the content. It was an issue that I was particularly proud to have produced. When handed the issue, the visitor’s one-word assessment was, “slick.” Granted she had not examined the content and with other calls on her attention around the breakfast table, her remark may have been more flippant than she would otherwise have intended. Nevertheless, this is the way one dedicated antiwar activist described the undeniably polished-looking journal she was given. I don’t open this report on my tenure as editor of Critical Asian Studies with this story to strike a defensive or apologetic tone. But as we consider the growth of our journal from the 18-page mimeographed CCAS Newsletter (first published in May 1968), through the later Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars (1969–2000), down to today’s 160-page Critical Asian Studies, the “slick” reaction does strike a nerve, echoing as it does, questions our editors pondered in earlier times: Have we sacrificed anything (in political terms) by working on “the establishment’s terrain, the terrain of universally applied scholarly standards and of academic professionalism”? What price have we paid in opting to produce such a polished, professional-looking journal, especially one now published by a large commercial publisher? For those of us who have been directly involved in the editing and production of Critical Asian Studies, these questions are never far from our minds. As we have labored to improve the quality of the content and appearance of the journal, as we have struggled to ensure the financial stability of our nonprofit organization, the drone-like challenge from the Greek chorus just offstage has been insistent: are our efforts still true to the CCAS Statement of Purpose first articulated fifty years ago?