<i>RSR</i> at 50—Whither and Why?

Our first two issues celebrating 50 years in print featured essays on RSR by my predecessors, who, as executive editors, long, and short review editors, have deftly led the journal over the past two decades.1 As the current (and soon retiring) Executive Editor, it is my turn to offer comments on this, our third anniversary issue. I want to focus on three things: First, my own experience as Executive and Long Reviews Editor over the past 9 years; second, where RSR stands today; and third, what perils and promises, the future holds. Of course, given its unique character as an all-review journal, RSR's past, present, and future are intrinsically linked to the book review as a genre of academic writing. Needless to say, book reviews and reviewing play an important role in religious studies. But, puzzlingly and perplexingly, they also have a dubious status in our field. While writing them may garnish one's CV, they unfortunately have little cash value for career advancement. No one, I would guess, has ever been rewarded tenure or promotion because of the number of excellent book reviews they have written. Rarely, if ever, are book reviews considered as a key part of one's scholarly productivity. They usually are treated as a trifling, or, at most, “service to the field,” with negligible value. This seems true across the board in the humanities. One journal editor, Franklin Obeng-Odoom, sums it all up glumly, noting: “Book reviews don't count”; “they are pushed to the margins of academic activity”; and “they do not seem to be anyone's priority” (2014, 78). Adding more salt to the wound, other journal editors sadly lament that “book reviews are often seen as a burden rather than an opportunity” (Gibbs et al. 2024, 9). Oliver S. Crocco and Jill Zarestky reveal the harsh truth that the question is this: “Why write a book review when you could work on a peer-reviewed journal article or grant proposal?” (2024, 152). As we all know, what's most valued in academia is producing original research. We either publish or perish.2 But here lies the rub: How we value scholarship is by peer review. Before publication, a book is typically vetted for the publisher by anonymous reviewers. After publication, the book merits assessment by the wider scholarly community. The silence is deafening if a book gets no reviews. Authors shout with joy when getting a “good review” but may howl with anguish when they don't. Book reviews can be powerful: They can fuel or derail a scholar's career. For example, the Professional Standards Committee at my university typically uses peer review, including book reviews along with citation data of a candidate's work, as a part of the tenure and promotion process. So, on the one hand, book reviews are inconsequential—who cares about how many you've written? On the other hand, book reviews can be extremely consequential because they are a key metric for judging the quality and originality of scholarship. They can assess the academic quality of research, serve as a public venue where the scholarly community can keep track of new scholarship, and can advance the field of study by offering a critical perspective. So, discussing what makes a good review good, why reviews are crucial for our field, and RSR's vital role in this enterprise is the focus of what follows. I came up through the ranks, starting as an RSR networker in 2001, writing short reviews, being promoted to East Asia Editor from 2003 to 2015, and finally to Executive and Long Reviews Editor when RSR moved to Rice University in 2015 after the dissolution of CSSR. My tenure began with a key editorial meeting at Rice University with our managing editor at the time, Elias Bongmba (2015–2018). Bongmba wanted to revitalize RSR so we redrafted its by-laws and rethought the organizational framework, publishing format, and types of content we wanted to include in our pages. This fortuitous meeting helped begin a new era for the journal.3 Our current team consists of three officers (Managing Editor, Executive/Long Reviews, and Short Reviews Editors) along with a Coordinator who runs RSR's office at Rice.4 This leadership structure has served us well by creating stability and efficiency. Together in this past decade, we have faced big challenges—from transitioning RSR to its new institutional home at Rice's Department of Religion to managing the hundreds of new titles flowing into the office for review, digitalizing RSR's webpages and editor/journal interface, and streamlining article production using ScholarOne. The journal has expanded its coverage while dramatically increasing both content and readership. Until 2016, we were the only all-review journal for religious studies.5 I have to admit that what originally attracted me to RSR was receiving free books. At the very least, I thought, serving as a reviewer might pad my resume in terms of professional standing and service to the field. But, as time passed, I grew to love writing short book notes and working on larger projects—special issues, book symposia (often developed from AAR's “author meets critics” panels), and the like. RSR's editorial meetings at the annual AAR meeting are also a great opportunity to meet colleagues and friends. I found myself in awe at my fellow editors—major scholars in their own right—who passionately dedicate their time to review books in their own areas of expertise. Some areas, like Theology and Christian Origins, review scores of books annually, and I still do not know how they manage, given that they all have day jobs. Editorial meetings allow us to hear about the fascinating books coming out from across the disciplinary spectrum and debate over new initiatives for themed and state-of-the-field essays. The question always in the air is what reviews are most relevant and impactful for the field of religious studies as a whole? My own reliance on reviews is another key reason I signed on. Back in my graduate student days, I relied on RSR to get up to speed by reading its timely reviews of individual books, and I especially appreciated the journal's special themed and topical essays. Memorable examples of such include, for example, David Chidester's “Michel Foucault and the Study of Religion” (RSR 15: 1–39) and Larry D. Shinn's “Who Gets to Define Religion? The Conversion/Brainwashing Controversy” (RSR 19: 195–207). Long reviews (2000–6000 words typically) are still essential to RSR's mission today. The reason why is that extensive reviews have the potential to galvanize a field of study through critique, thorough literature review, and offering new perspectives based on original research and analysis.6 I have learned about many topics in religious studies and have used RSR reviews to get up to speed in areas of scholarly interest. For example, I teach a survey class on Buddhism. What better way for me to prepare for teaching this class than to read RSR's “On Pedagogy” essays on “Using Buddhist Textbooks in the Classroom,” which was edited by our area editor of the time, Brooke Schedneck (RSR 47-1, March 2021, 53–60). Commissioning essays is what I enjoy doing the most as an editor. But I also oversee the overall content-operations of the journal. This involves supervising over 40 editors who make up the volunteer staff as well as being in regular contact with our publisher, Wiley. My job includes collaborating with area and guest editors in developing special issues, leading our annual editorial meeting at the AAR, drumming up contributors presenting at AAR/SBL panels, instigating new editorial initiatives, and so on. Like the area editors affiliated with the journal, I write my share of reviews, badger friends and colleagues to write them, and I have learned how to edit effectively. The minus is constantly worrying over publishing deadlines, which are always hovering over the horizon—RSR publishes four issues a year. I mention this because I think one of the keys to RSR's success is our deep well of experience because of this on-the-job training. RSR editors all know a good review when we see one and how to find the right reviewer for the job when a book needs reviewing. Only rarely do we publish unsolicited reviews, and when doing so, our editors, and in some cases, outside specialists scrutinize the piece carefully. Editorial professionalism is what distinguishes us from other venues that assess scholarship often informally on listservs, on-demand review sites allowing open access and opportunities for all to review. We are selective—we choose our editors carefully, we train them, they, in turn, build their own networker teams of professional scholars to review works, and all make up a larger community of scholars at RSR who envisage their work as part of a larger field of religious studies. RSR has grown tremendously from its humble beginnings in 1975. Harold Remus, the first managing editor, notes in his essay, “RSR at 25,” that its founders were “considerably less assured” than the authors of Genesis that there would be a second or third day of the journal. Now, 50 years later, with no day of rest in sight, the journal continues to thrive. It is a testament to the founders' vision of an all-review journal of service to scholars (Remus 1999, 328). The first full volume in 1976 totaled 248 pages with 15 review essays and 401 booknotes. RSR today is a much bigger enterprise—Volume 49 had 61 long reviews and 567 booknotes, totaling 739 pages. In 1975, you got your personal subscription by sending a postcard stapled to the issue and were encouraged to convince your library to subscribe (1975, 64). Today, through Wiley Press, over 6560 institutions around the world have access to RSR content either through licensing or traditional subscriptions—2907 in Europe, 886 in the USA. and 190 in the UK, 170 in Australia, 131 in Japan, 141 in China and so on (Wiley 2023, 11). In 1999, Mary Gerhart, then Editorial Chair, questioned whether RSR had “a future beyond its silver anniversary?”—especially given the emergence of the Internet. And yet, she saw that RSR was a journal that fit well with the new information age. Perhaps, she opined, the journal might expand its scope to do something new, becoming “platform for reader-response critics even after the article on which it is printed becomes obsolete” (1999, 334). While her vision has only been partially realized today, she largely envisaged what became our reality: RSR, like many journals today, has primarily a digital presence. Readers nowadays typically download RSR content online—either through one of Wiley Online or through the EBSCO database (Wiley 2023, 11). And yet, despite the move to digital media, RSR still hews to its original mission as outlined in Remus' “Postscript” to the first issue in 1975. They should include a balanced summary of the work's contents and context within current scholarly debates, noting the work's intended audience and briefly evaluating the major strength/s and/or weaknesses of the work academically. Such notes should include attention to the potential use value of the book for both research and teaching and some contextualization within current scholarly conversations. (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/17480922/homepage/forauthors.html) Given their brevity, this is a tall order. The demand is that book notes go beyond the bounds of the genre, which often amounts to a terse content summary without much in the way of evaluation (See Obeng-Odoom 2014, 80). However, the guidelines emphasize the need for germane criticism. No how evaluation is essential for our who are not only to keep of new but also who want to their One of me that in the days, RSR when to the book at the AAR it fit into a Today, of course, we can it Wiley Online library can be on one's third for RSR is but not coverage of We do not review book in the field, which is We also do not include a that we have for reason not to review. 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