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[sleepdeprived]

I looked around and found plenty of info on the sciences, but how do you determine what are the top-ranked journals in Literature?  If there's no official list or "impact" study, what would they be in your opinion?  What is the holy grail of publishing?  PMLA?  How does your department weight publications in T&P decisions?

How would you rank the following journals?  Which are the best?  Which are the most prestigious?  (Not nec. the same thing!)

American Literature
American Quarterly
Modern Language Studies
20th Century Literature
Journal of MOdern Literature
Modern Fiction Studies
American Literary History

Thank you!

[paddington_bear]

I have no idea. What you've listed seem pretty good. I think that for African American literature (which must not be your field or you would have listed them), I'd include Callaloo and African-American Review, I guess.

paddington

[crowie]

If your library has access to the MLA database, each periodical listed in it has an entry with information like circulation, how often it is published, how many submissions they get a year and how submissions are accepted, how long it takes from submission to publication etc.  That could be a way of sorting out which ones are more or less prestigious and selective in their publishing.

Depending on what version of the MLA database your library subscribes to, you can find the periodical's listing by various means.  In one that I've used you can search for the periodical title under the category 'periodical title phrase' and it will bring up the listing with all this info.

I just starting thinking about this myself recently and figured this out.

[untenured]

Where does the Paris Review stand in the literary pantheon?  Just curious.

Untenured

[crowie]

If your library has access to the MLA database, each periodical listed in it has an entry with information like circulation, how often it is published, how many submissions they get a year and how submissions are accepted

I missed the editing window and I would usually let it lie but to make it clear, it should be 'how many submissions they get a year and how many submissions are accepted'

[mended_drum]

I'm amused that you didn't list PMLA, which was sometimes held out as a holy grail for publications when I was in grad school; the turn around time and its tendency to avoid my specialty altogether meant I never bothered with it.

Decide who your four or five favorite scholars in your field are; do a search and see where they're publishing. 

[collegekidsmom]

You can send an email to the subject specialist librarian for literature at your institution. The person that does collection development for the subject area in the library will know if there is any new core list that's recently been published, or any new metric or other way of ranking journals.

[pandora]

Well, the very top-rated journals are the ones that don't accept unsolicited manuscripts (e.g., Critical Inquiry? I think it begins with a "C").  But I imagine that doesn't help you out much here.

This list frankly differs significantly depending on your field of specialization, although Berkeley's Representations has been (and continues to be?) the holy grail across periods and fields since they first started publishing in the '80s.   PMLA. . . ?  Good solid journal, great to have on your c.v., but I don't think it quickens anybody's pulse.

[watermarkup]

A European initiative to rank journals put out 11 initial lists for various fields a while ago. Four more fields, including literature, are scheduled for release real soon now. It has been highly amusing to watch the date of their release repeatedly postponed for the last eight months. Tune in here and you can watch too:

http://www.esf.org/research-areas/humanities/research-infrastructures-including-erih/erih-initial-lists.html

[tom74]

What would I know its not my field...

but

From an outsider perspective Modern Fiction Studies is definitely the best... it kind of looks distinctive in the shelves and it has articles which are about books which i have read.

[dundee]

Of course, it depends on your specialty, such as period, nationality and genre. Comparative Drama might be great, but I really wouldn't know, since I'm not a drama specialist. PMLA is very hard to get published in, but most lit. people I know don't read it, and with good reason. The style of scholarship they favor and the subjects they publish on don't appeal to many people.

Modern Fiction Studies is excellent.

Untenured, The Paris Review is a prestigious outlet for creative writing, rather than criticism.

[untenured]

Untenured, The Paris Review is a prestigious outlet for creative writing, rather than criticism.

Ah, thanks.  Some former colleagues of mine spoke in respectful tones of someone else in the department who published there.  Now I know.

I now know just enough to be dangerous.  The next English research-oriented faculty I meet, I'll just huff and snidely ask if they've published in the Paris Review.  When they say no, I'll just roll my eyes as if my laundry list could wind up in that journal.  Hee hee.

Untenured

[seniorscholar]

We have to have a ranked list when we send people up for promotion or tenure; we provide it for the dean, the college and university committees, etc. AND we have the most senior person in the candidate's subfield put it together, with a word or two of justification, since the medievalists don't have a clue what's good in post-colonial, the American Lit and British Lit people don't know each other's journals even if they're in the same century, and the creative writing people have entirely different lists for fiction and poetry. The "in Literature" question is too global to have any meaning, and (as has been said) no one actually reads PMLA, though if a grad student has a reasonably convincing article I advise 'em to submit it, since PMLA does still give pretty thorough readings and most of the board members feel it's one of their responsibilities to give helpful advice to beginners.

[rodentmind]

It depends on your field. For "18th century," Eighteenth-Century Studies is probably best (for instance).

If "narrative" is your thing, then Narrative is the journal to go to.

If you're thinking about umbrella journals, publishing all fields, ELH is a good one.

PMLA--not really the holy grail. People don't really read the articles. We know that the essays have to make it through so many members of the editorial board that any essay that gets printed will be now lacking much of what would have made it exciting in the first place.

[sleepdeprived]

Thanks for the replies.  This is very good info.  I didn't know that about the MLA database and will have a look...