Northwestern Libraries published a new research journal, Northwestern University Studies in Russian Philosophy, Literature and Religious Thought, debuting it Monday afternoon in University Library.
The journal is the first from the NU Research Initiative in Russian Philosophy, Literature and Religious Thought — and a culmination of the Initiative’s work — said Editor and Co-Director Randall Poole.
“(The journal) represents an important initiative in digital humanities in Russian thought and culture,” Poole said. “In a difficult environment as a result of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, despite that, we are very gratified that the research initiative has been a very big success since we launched it.”
The journal is joining the Initiative as one main branch of their work, Poole said. He highlighted the Initiative’s online forum, where field scholars, graduate students and undergraduates can contribute ideas.
Additionally, the Initiative has also hosted a number of conferences since its founding in 2022, including two at NU, Poole said.
“We’ve done a lot of conferences, but this was really a chance to show that we’re making a serious and long-lasting academic contribution to our field,” said Associate Editor and fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in Slavic Languages and Literatures Bradley Underwood.
Underwood said he was in a “bit of despair” at the beginning of the project because it wasn’t clear where to begin. However, when he reached out to Media and Design Studio web developer Sergei Kalugin and Digital Publishing and Repository Librarian Aerith Netzer, the project became a true collaboration between these three NU departments.
The journal is not just a first for the Initiative — Kalugin said this is the first time Media and Design Studio has designed a journal. He said that as its designer, he worked to ensure the high caliber of work was matched in its form.
“It was meaningful to work on this,” Kalugin said. “These people are world-leading experts on the subject matter, and it has to be presented accordingly.”
Netzer then worked on the technical side, “harmonizing” Kalugin’s designs to the digital version of the journal, she said.
Netzer said this is the second project of its kind that the library has taken on. She said she was excited that the project is proof of NU Libraries’ potential to digitally publish in-house, and she hopes to continue expanding on this.
“The library spends, like, eight figures on journals every year,” Netzer said. “If we can get even 10 percent of that down, that is like billions of dollars in research funding across the country.”
Netzer said that professors affiliated with NU can reach out to her with any requests for an open access journal. From there, Netzer can take a design template and clone it into a website adaptation within a few months.
On the Initiative’s overall vision, Poole said that the directors and himself take a “broadly, universally human approach” to the subject matter of Russia.
“We try to universalize Russian culture as much as possible to make it clear that even if you’re not particularly interested in Russian history, the study of Russian thought and culture has broadly human relevance that because of the peculiar circumstances of Russian history, namely an autocracy that continues to do this day,” Poole said.
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