Editors' Note
I am writing to report the sad news that Raritan will cease publication after the Late Spring 2025 issue, the last under my editorship. The reason is straightforward: I am not willing to let the magazine limp forward after my departure with inadequate funding, a pale reflection of its former self. That, I believe, would have been the consequence of allowing the Rutgers administration to implement its austerity agenda, which would have left us with only one full-time staffer. Comparable journals--Kenyon Review, Yale Review, American Scholar--employ staffs of anywhere from four to seven. I spent most of the past year attempting to negotiate alternative revenue sources with high-level administrators, to no avail. Better to shut the magazine down, I decided, than to accept a prescription for chaos and mediocrity.
We have had a good run. I have been fortunate to have a supportive board and a superb staff, not to mention decades of able and generous contributors, subscribers, and donors. Their loyalty has been the source of our success. Raritan has been the public face of the humanities at Rutgers for forty-four years, a period that in retrospect seems a special cultural moment—one when magazines like this one could still receive sufficient support (however fitful or grudging) from universities. I’ll have more to say about all this in the Editor’s Note to my final issue. For now, I simply want to express my enduring gratitude to all our readers and writers and artists, for granting me this deeply rewarding experience.
Jackson Lears
Furman’s Corner, New Jersey
14 February 2025