Humanities Publishing at the MLA: Digital and Posthuman

By JENNIFER HOWARD

"How many of you want your first book to be electronic?" asked W.J.T. Mitchell, longtime editor of the journal Critical Inquiry, after a panel on "Professionalization in a Digital Age" at the Modern Language Association's annual convention in Chicago.

Mr. Mitchell, a professor of English and art history at the University of Chicago, directed the question at an audience largely made up of graduate students. Nobody put up a hand. While that group has good reason to be drawn to digital