News from Nowhere? A Re-Introduction

Mark Fettes

Over three decades ago, the Esperantic Studies Foundation was created as a modest bridge between the Esperanto-speaking world and the English-speaking academy of North America. Eleven years ago, its newsletter was launched. In the meantime, ESF has grown and the world has changed. The Internet, in particular, has transformed the market in information and ideas, even if a myriad of inequalities remain. The nation-state no longer furnishes the only widely shared conception of a language community. Readily available reference works are no longer inevitably filtered through the selection process of the public or academic library. The global Esperanto community itself is in transformation. A new approach to ESF’s original mission seems warranted.

This reformed newsletter represents one dimension of that new approach. While retaining something of the flavour of the old Esperantic Studies, the new version will place much greater emphasis on portraying the world of Esperantic scholarship beyond North America. You will find notes on new publications, dissertations, research projects, conferences and other initiatives around the world. Commissioned articles will summarize current research trends, while occasional interviews with authors and researchers provide added depth. In this aim we will work closely with the informative Esperanto bulletin Informilo por Interlingvistoj, with the editors of the journal Esperantologio/ Esperanto Studies, and with the Center for Research and Documentation on World Language Problems, an inter-national network of interlinguistic researchers.

A further innovation with this issue is the change in editor. The old ES was put together by the Foundation’s Board of Directors; the new series will be edited by Dr. Paul Hopkins, a linguist whose research specializations are in Slavic and Germanic languages. Dr. Hopkins and the Board welcome reactions to anything published in ES, as well as proposals for new questions and topics to be covered. We look forward to an exciting and productive exchange of views and information.

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