In metabolic terms, publishing in the humanities is more couch potato than sprinter. An idea can take years to move from light-bulb stage to manuscript to finished book. Add another year, or two or three, before an author can expect to see reviews of that book in academic journals. That slows down an already glutted system.
“It’s just appalling that the average gap between publication and first review is more than two years,” says James A.W. Heffernan, an emeritus professor of English at Dartmouth College. In Charles Dickens’s day, he points out, “compositors were able to get whole novels out in a week or two.” Why, in a wired world, should it take 24 months or more for a 1,500-word review to see the light of day?
[Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required)]
