ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830 is a free access, interactive, scholarly journal, launched in 2011 by the Aphra Behn Society with the support of the University of South Florida. The journal focuses on gender and women’s issues, and all aspects of women in the arts in the long eighteenth century, especially literature, visual arts, music, performance art, film criticism, and production arts. The journal also aims in its scholarly focus to offer a place for the discussion of pedagogy, and electronic research techniques and findings, which the editors believe fills a gap in the online academic community.
ABO is peer-reviewed journal, indexed by the Modern Language Association International Bibliography, and included in the Directory of Open Access Journals. ABO is a member of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals and holds a Creative Commons License.
Like other respected journals, ABO carries excellent and timely scholarly articles and book reviews. Its unique pedagogy section offers fresh ideas and analyses regarding teaching the long eighteenth century at the undergraduate and graduate level. “New Media/Women on the Web” is a section is dedicated to better understanding how digital resources can help us approach and understand the work and lives of eighteenth-century women. “Notes and Discoveries” is a unique online research depository to help widely separated scholars share resources, identify areas of similar research interest, and contribute shreds of evidence which might otherwise remain buried. These submissions will take the form of notes, and they will be archived for continued availability over time. “Ask Aphra” takes up the spirit of Eliza Haywood’s The Female Spectator, offering professional and scholarly advice and social commentary on our world in an anonymous forum. It will provide a place to ask questions that require a broad synthesis of ideas, such as “Is the all-female-authors dissertation viable?” and “What is the appropriate etiquette for correspondence related to conferences?”
ABO invites interactivity among scholars. Essays in every section of the journal have a comment feature, for scholars to respond to the work, share information, and challenge ideas. The editors are also building a Pedagogy Sharing Center, a section closely associated with the Pedagogy section, where authors provide tangible examples of what can work in the classroom.
In keeping with the feminist philosophy of the Aphra Behn Society, our editorial policies cultivate responsive, supportive academic work, highlighted by an open review process. In this peer-review, the submissions are blind, but the reviews are signed and intended to offer constructive criticism and feedback. On rare occasions, when a submission’s anonymity is not possible (e.g., when the submission revolves around the author’s personal or professional identity), ABO will make an exception with the author’s permission, and the review process will be conducted in a completely open manner. ABO operates with the assumption that scholarship is best produced in a collaborative environment of generosity and mutual learning. The Journal welcomes submissions that are lucid and appropriately engaged with the best available research. ABO seeks to promote greater understanding of women’s lives and work and related gender issues from the long eighteenth century.
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