Farewell

This is my last issue as editor of Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses. It has been a fascinating six years, during which we have changed publisher, and as a result have a vastly increased rate of submissions and a much greater online presence. But much has stayed the same. Studies in Religion remains a Canadian journal, representative of Canadian as well as international scholarship. I am impressed by the strength of the discipline in Canada. The reward of editing the journal, moreover, is working with manuscripts, the fine detail rather than broad changes. But an even greater reward, as Chuck Mathewes wrote in his last issue at the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, is the interchange with authors, especially when they appreciate your work! I am immensely grateful to our authors, the editors of special issues, to my predecessor Bill Arnal, for allowing me the occasional grump, to our French language editors, Guy Jobin and Alain Bouchard, for making life civilized and allowing me to write in French, to our Managing Editors, Aaron Hughes and Tim Pettipiece, for enabling the transition between publishers and coordinating each issue – and for being excellent colleagues. I am extremely grateful to Pat Dold, the incoming editor, for taking on this enterprise. Pat edited the first special issue during my tenure, on Tantra, and is a deeply engaged scholar of Indian Temple music, Assamese culture, goddess traditions and much else. She is doubling as secretary of the Canadian Society for the Study of Religion, which makes her life an interesting one. She will indeed make a splendid editor. I can’t say how much I owe to the sagacity and collegiality of the members of the board of the Canadian Corporation for the Study of Religion, especially its presidents, Paul-Hubert Poirier and Theo de Bruyn. Getting to know them has been one of the perks of the job.

I have also appreciated the professionalism and friendship of the magnificent editorial team at SAGE, in the first instance Caroline Porter, whose assiduous courtship and patience during our agonizing hesitations made the transition possible. Caroline was succeeded as senior editor by Anton Viesel and Lisa Johnstone, who attended our January board meeting by Skype, but has remained a constant presence in the background. The rest of the team at SAGE, Christian Bell, Jophcy Kumar, Nell McCreadie, and a superb and attentive copyeditor, have been a joy to work with and kept us on our toes.

It’s always been fun to recruit members of the editorial board, and now that we have regular meetings at the American Academy of Religion, it is possible to get to know them a little. I am thankful to them and to the many referees of articles for the journal over the years. We all know how much time a good evaluation of a manuscript takes, and how immensely useful it is to authors, especially at the beginning of their careers.

Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses, as its name suggests, shifts between worlds, English and French, religious studies and theology, scientific and humanistic interpretations to the discipline. It testifies to the vibrant, self-reflexive and multiform character of our fields, and the occasional conflict between them. The overwhelming impression left me from the last six years is the extraordinary diversity of our interests, the thoughtfulness of our colleagues, and the huge potential of our graduate students, some of whom publish their first articles in our journal. It has been a privilege and a pleasure.