A Message from the New Editors of ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment

Christina Gerhardt

Jennifer Westerman

We are honored to serve as the new Editors of ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment and are energized by the opportunity to advance scholarship and thinking in the environmental humanities. From 1995 to 2020, retiring Editor Scott Slovic steadfastly guided the journal’s development in tandem with the emerging and now thriving fields of ecocriticism and environmental humanities. We are grateful to Scott for his many years of commitment to the journal, especially for his expansive consideration of what counts as “environmental writing” and to his inclusive welcome of scholars from around the globe to ISLE’s pages. We are indebted to Jake McGinnis, Managing Editor, for his years of service and for his assistance onboarding us as Associate Editors and to Lisa Ottum, Book Review Editor, for her continued service. We are also grateful to our colleagues who have served the journal throughout these many years as managing editors, editorial assistants, assistant editors, book review editors, editorial advisory board members, advisors, readers, contributors, special cluster editors, reviewers, and supporters, and to the journal’s publishing team at Oxford University Press (OUP). We look forward to working with colleagues previously active with ISLE and to welcoming new colleagues and their work into the conversation.

In addition, we would like to introduce the following members of ISLE’s new editorial team. We welcome the new Assistant Editors of Creative Writing: KT Thompson, Assistant Editor, Creative Nonfiction; Charles Waugh, Assistant Editor, Fiction; and Cecily Parks and Jennifer Chang, Assistant Editors, Poetry. We extend a warm welcome and our gratitude to the Editorial Advisory Board members: Stacy Alaimo, Jodi Byrd, Chia-ju Chang, Chelsea Mikael Frazier, Greta Gaard, Juan Carlos Galeano, Bishnupriya Ghosh, Cajetan Iheka, Melody Jue, Salma Monani, Shazia Rahman, and Priscilla Solis Ybarra.

We are committed to stewarding ISLE as a forum for integrative environmental scholarly and creative works, to taking deliberate action and making consistent efforts to include a diversity of scholars, practitioners, and writers in ISLE’s pages, and to upholding rigorous standards for publication in the journal. In these perilous and revolutionary times, it is our hope that ISLE will reflect the necessary and urgent cultural work that is the root of meaningful change. We look forward to working together as a community to accomplish this goal.

Christina Gerhardt
Jennifer Westerman
Co-Editors, ISLE