THE CEA CRITIC

The CEA Critic (1939 - Present)

The CEA Critic has been in print since 1939, starting as a four-page tabloid titledThe News Letter of the College English Association. In various formats, the journal has appeared in paper ever since. While other journals have gone digital,The Critic, published by the prestigious Johns Hopkins University Press, continues to appear in hard copy three times each year. Not only is the result a permanent part of “the conversation,” almost all authors, when pressed, will cheerfully admit that no online website feels as wonderful as a print copy.

What You'll Find in Our Pages

The CEA Critic seeks scholarly works that, through "close reading" methodology, examine the texts of fiction, poetry, drama, nonfiction, and film studied on the college level. Bridging traditional academic scholarship with practical pedagogy, the journal encompasses a broad range of interests gathered traditionally under English studies: literature, women's and gender studies, speech, composition & rhetoric, minority studies, creative writing, popular culture, film & screen studies, technical communication, and language & linguistics. By focusing on the contextual as well as the theoretical aspects of texts,The CEA Critic provides a refreshingly sharp academic and practical perspective for teachers and scholars alike.

Keeping Current

The Critic has always been attentive to the changing nature of our profession while keeping a close eye on the evolution of our discipline. Here are a few examples:

At the start of the COVID outbreak, The Critic was among the first publications to deliver a special issue about teaching during the pandemic (2020 Vol. 82 No.3).
The Critic has been prescient in considering how our field and profession have evolved. A 1996 special issue explored the debate between multicultural versus international literature.
In 2010, The Critic published an issue devoted to teaching the graphic novel.
In 1990, The Critic considering the place of “Visual Texts in the English Classroom,” and
A 1998 a special issue looked at the emerging genre of creative non-fiction.

And we can’t forget that in 2010, the same year The Walking Dead debuted on the small screen, essays about Zombies appeared in The Critic.

The Critic's COVID Issue is Featured in a 2020 JHUP Podcast

As members of The College English Association prepared for their annual conference last spring, the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic led organizers to a now all too familiar decision: the conference had to be cancelled. CEA Critic Editor Jeraldine Kraver was not only gutted about missing this annual event, but now had another challenge: the journals' third issue each year was normally a proceedings of the annual meeting. Along with everything else going on, she was now without a journal issue. But Jeri did what all talented educators know how to do well: change the plan and pivot accordingly. Within a few short weeks, The CEA Critic put out a call for papers for reflections of educators' and students' experiences teaching and learning during the early days of the pandemic. Join us in a candid and congenial conversation to find out how this special issue, Living the Teaching Life in a Time of COVID-19, came together.

LISTEN HERE

The Critic Supports Emerging Scholars

The CEA Critic seeks to encourage the newest members of our community, whether graduate students or early-career professors. To assist them toward publication, a familiar feature at the annual CEA conference is a round-table featuring the editors of The Critic and the members of the editorial board discussing the publishing process. Not to be overlooked, too, is that The CEA Critic itself routinely seeks to publish essays written by graduate students. Click on the link below for advice on writing a conference proposal/abstract, converting a seminar paper to a conference presentation, and a conference presentation into an article.

ADVICE FROM THE EDITORS

Write for The Critic

The CEA Critic publishes scholarly articles that read closely the texts-including fiction, poetry, drama, nonfiction, and film-that English professors study and teach. The Critic celebrates the importance of literary criticism from a variety of approaches and the value of reading and teaching familiar and unfamiliar literary works.

The CEA Critic will publish only articles by members of the College English Association. Non-members are welcome to submit but must join the CEA in order for accepted submissions to be published. The editors will send submissions to members of the Editorial Board or other qualified reviewers. The editors, however, reserve the right to reject submissions that they consider inappropriate for The CEACritic without sending them out for review. Unrevised conference presentations or unrevised graduate term papers are not appropriate for publication in The CEA Critic.

If you would like to submit an essay for publication in The CEA Critic, you may e-mail submissions as WORD documents to the editors at criticunco@gmail.com.

Manuscript Guidelines

Manuscripts (as WORD documents) should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words and must be accompanied by a 150-300 word abstract.
Submit two copies of your manuscript, one with the author’s name, affiliation, and email address and one without any author identification. In addition, please include a statement that the manuscript is not under consideration elsewhere.
Notes should be (1) inserted manually (as if with an old-school typewriter) and (2) placed before the Works Cited.
All documentation should follow the most recent MLA edition. Authors are responsible for both the accuracy of quotations and for representing source material fairly.
Authors are responsible for securing any copyright releases involving graphs, tables, or illustrations.

Note: The submission review process normally takes 2 to 6 months to complete (there may be delays if the review period overlaps with a long holiday or Summer/Winter break). We are unable to offer substantive comments on submissions that do not pass our first round of review.

On Being a Reviewer

The Review Process

At The CEA Critic, we know that asking our colleagues to review an essay is a BIG ask. As such, we try to make the process as painless as possible. At the same time, while your review helps us make smart choices, any feedback you can offer helps authors improve their work.

How it Works

The review process begins with a request. Whenever possible, we will send an abstract with the request to help you decide whether you feel able and/or comfortable doing the review. We ask that you try to respond to invitations promptly.

Our “structure” for review is informal. We do have some broad criteria for consideration on our review sheet. However, mostly we are looking to you for an assessment of the content of the submissionn. We are less concerned with the overall quality of the writing. Prior to sending any essay out for review, the editors vet the work for readability.

The Reading

If you’ve received the article abstract, you should have an idea of the aims, key points, and conclusions of the manuscript. As you read through the essay please keep in mind the following:

What is the main question addressed in the piece? Is it relevant and interesting?
How original is the topic? What does it add to the subject area compared with other published material?
Is the argument clear and easy to follow?
Is there sufficient and convincing evidence? Is any of the evidence contradictory?
Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented? Do they address the main question posed?
If the author is disagreeing significantly with the current academic consensus, do they have a substantial case? If not, what would be required to make their case credible?
If the paper includes images, tables, or figures, what do they add to the paper? Do they aid understanding or are they superfluous?

Comments Optional But Appreciated

At The CEA Critic, we do not require extensive written comments on papers that we decline to publish. However, any notes you can offer to the author in terms of the areas for consideration listed above are always helpful. Authors appreciate it when reviewers who find a problem offer suggestions for addressing that problem in terms of other texts or arguments (which is why content expertise is key!) And, because we want to encourage our colleagues, offering praise for what is successful or even potentially successful is welcome.

If you do have time to offer comments to the reader (and the editors) you might consider addressing some of the points below. Although you will have the manuscript, we prefer you make any comments on the review sheet or on a separate sheet.

Is there a clear question at issue? Is that question interesting? Does it contribute something new/different to the conversation?
Does the introduction establish the originality or value argument and place it in the context of recent scholarship? Does the author suggest gaps in current understanding or conflicts in current knowledge?
Does the argument in support of the question—that is, the claims—unfold in a logically organized and easy-to-follow fashion? Are there places where the argument is unclear or invalid?
Are paragraphs developed around topic sentences and evidence that supports both the particular claim and the overall argument?
Is the evidence well and clearly explained?
Are there any factual errors?
Does the essay rely too much on dated sources? (Where older research is seminal then it can be appropriate.)

As noted above, your primary role is judging the essay’s content. Before we send the essay our for review, we will vet the work for readability and coherence in style and presentation. Errors at the sentence level (grammar, syntax, spelling, etc.) will be addressed during the editorial process.

Timing is Everything

When we acknowledge receipt of an essay from an author, we explain that the review process can take from 3-6 months. Although we allow for plenty of time, it is our hope that reviewers can respond with their comments withing 4-6 weeks.

Ready to Review?

Be a Reviewer