Biography wins 2017 Best Special Issue Award

Cover of Biography volume 39, number 3
Image courtesy of the Center for Biographical Research at UH Mānoa

Please join us in congratulating the editors and contributors of Biography vol. 39, no. 3 on winning the Council of Editors of Learned Journal’s 2017 Best Special Issue Award!

The Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ), an Allied Organization of the Modern Language Association, is the major national organization representing more than 450 editors of scholarly journals in all disciplines.

Biography vol. 39, no. 3 is the journal’s special issue on “Indigenous Conversations about Biography,” and it was guest edited by Alice Te Punga Somerville, Daniel Heath Justice, and Noelani Arista.

As detailed in the editors’ Introduction, the special issue started here in Mānoa Valley:

This is a conversation about Indigenous lives, the ways we understand them, the ways we represent them, and the responsibilities that come from doing this work in a good way. And this is just a beginning. We are honored to welcome you to this special issue of Biography, and to the Indigenous scholars, artists, and visionaries who come together in community on the topic of Indigenous biography. Some of this diverse group of Indigenous thinkers came together in person in Mānoa Valley on the Hawaiian island of O‘ahu, traveling from the Indigenous territories claimed by New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the United States to take up the challenges, questions, concerns, and possibilities of representing Indigenous lives.

The complete table of contents and contributors for this issue may be viewed online at Project MUSE.

Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly is published by University of Hawai`i Press for the Center for Biographical Research (CBR) at UH Mānoa. The journal is coedited by Cynthia G. Franklin, Craig Howes, and John David Zuern. Managing editors for vol. 39 were Stanley Schab (emeritus) and Anjoli Roy. Read about CBR’s staff here.

Each year, Biography publishes a special issue that explores a topic of emerging critical interest, often centered around a CBR seminar. This year marks the second time Biography has won the CELJ Award for Best Special Issue, as coeditor Craig Howes explains:
Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly has actually received this award once before, for our “Posthuman Lives” issue. That was the first one resulting from our invited seminar in Honolulu process. Alice, Daniel, and Noelani made a number of innovations, including commissioning the two responses to each longer contribution, which created an articulate and powerful community of voices. Their decisions have also strongly influenced how we have conducted the three seminars (!) we have held since then–in Honolulu, and in London.

Contact us to order a single copy, subscribe online, or read the full-text of this issue at Project MUSE (institutional or individual electronic subscription required).

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