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Rutgers’ Raritan Quarterly celebrates 25 years

By

Alice Roche Cody

Date

May 8, 2007

Managing Editor Stephanie Volmer, who has been on the journal's staff since 1995, with Jackson Lears who took over as editor in 2002. Donna Kornacki Green (not pictured) has served as the journal's administrative assistant for 22 years.  
Courtesy of Vic Tulli

In the current media climate of quick sound bites looping continuously on cable news channels that never quit, there’s a need for thoughtful and provocative writing that delves into topics slowly, deliberately, and with staunch independence.

Rutgers provides that forum through Raritan Quarterly, a literary journal that for the past 25 years has explored the arts, poetry, literature, science, and, more recently, politics.

Jackson Lears, Board of Governors Professor of History and Raritan’s editor for the past five years, has worked to maintain Raritan’s place as a journal for literary and artistic critique, while also responding to the current political climate. The recent spring 2007 issue marks the culmination of the journal’s 25th anniversary year. These four seasonal volumes have addressed life in a post-9/11 world, including such issues as persistence of hubris in the United States foreign policy and the pattern of official deception used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

“We don’t have enough people raising these issues in public discourse; we have such a bland and compliant press these days that the role of the independent quarterly is more urgent than it used to be,” Lears said. “In this age of rampant blogging and instant debates on the internet, I believe that there’s an enduring interest – even among people in their 20s and 30s – in reading reflective prose that takes a longer view.”

With a circulation of more than 2,000 subscribers, Raritan includes the works of poets, critics, and artists, featuring such prominent writers as Robert Pinsky, William Kerrigan, Adam Phillips, Joyce Carol Oates, and Annie Dillard. Dore Ashton’s recent essay, “On Constantin Brancusi,” was selected for inclusion in the Best American Spiritual Writing 2006 anthology.

While Raritan has the same feel as it did when Richard Poirier, Marius Bewley Professor of English emeritus at Rutgers, edited the quarterly, Lears has managed to make the journal his own.

A renowned American literary critic, Poirier was an editor at The Partisan Review, which came to Rutgers from New York University in 1963. This was an independent journal that highlighted literary, intellectual, and cultural topics. After the Partisan Review moved to Boston University in 1978, Poirier started Raritan three years later.

His aim was to create a journal different from the rest. As he told Scriblerus, a Rutgers student publication, in 2001 “…we want to represent a person thinking. We’re not representing a person’s thoughts.” In that vein, he barred writers from using footnotes to keep the writing accessible to those outside academia.

With a circulation of more than 2,000 subscribers, Raritan includes the works of poets, critics, and artists, featuring such prominent writers as Robert Pinsky, Joyce Carol Oates, and Annie Dillard.  
When Poirier retired in 2002, Lears was offered the editorship as an incentive to remain at Rutgers and reject an offer from Harvard. Lears, who had always aspired to be a “man of letters,” like Poirier, welcomed the opportunity.

“Dick Poirier was capacious in his vision of what the journal was about and that vision was appealing to me,” Lears said. “I intend to put my own stamp on it. He’s a tough act to follow, so the thing is to come up with a different act, but not so different that it changes the nature of the journal.” Lears said he tries to steer the journal in the direction of history, politics, and the popular arts, including film and music without losing the strength of the magazine’s literary and cultural criticism.

Lears's stamp on the Raritan has included bringing in new writers, reaching out to new readers, and diversifying the subject matter, said Stephanie Volmer, managing editor at Raritan. “Jackson Lears has given new life to the magazine,” she said. “He’s held onto Raritan’s core values and mission, while providing independent, rigorous  thinking with engaging and clear writing.” Volmer, who is completing a doctorate at Rutgers in 18th- and19th-century American literature, has worked at Raritan since 1995.

Under Lears’s leadership, fiction is now occasionally included, as is a color frontispiece in every issue. In addition, Raritan published its first photo essay in the spring 2006 volume titled, “The River People,” by Margaret Morton. The photos depict homeless men living in shanties along the East River in New York City in the early 1990s.

Recent aesthetic changes to the quarterly include changing the color of the cover every issue and keeping a blank, colorful inside cover free of advertisements. Lears' artist wife, Karen Parker Lears, associate editor, has been responsible for the aesthetic enhancement of the magazine, including the selection of artwork for the frontispieces.

“I’ve tried to make the magazine not only a collection of stimulating writing, but also a beautiful thing,” said Lears. “I’m proud of our ability to chart new directions without jettisoning the valuable cargo that we’ve been carrying.”