The University of Roehampton’s Fincham Press is today launching two open access, peer-reviewed online journals.
RoundTable, run directly by research students in the Department of English and Creative Writing, features a mix of creative and critical work, academic articles and book reviews. The International Journal of James Bond Studies (JBS) is dedicated to publishing innovative and original interdisciplinary research and reviews on all aspects of Ian Fleming’s James Bond franchise.
The first issue of RoundTable is dedicated to the theme of ‘Journey’ and features contributions by authors from the UK, the US, and Canada. it also offers an interview with David Rudd, who recently retired as Professor of Children’s Literature and Director of the National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature at the University of Roehampton. In his first interview since then, Rudd offers an intriguing insight into his own ‘academic journey,’ as well as reflections on Higher Education and the wider field of Children’s Literature. The issue has been edited by University of Roehampton PhD researchers Denise Saul, Sinéad Moriarty, and Anne Malewski.
The JBS journal is edited by Dr Ian Kinane, Lecturer in English Literature at the department. It is dedicated to publishing innovative and original interdisciplinary research and reviews on all aspects of Ian Fleming’s James Bond franchise, and aims to develop contemporary critical readings of James Bond across literary, filmic, and cultural history, for both Bond scholars and casual fans alike.
‘Given the critical respectability that Sam Mendes and the Bond producers garnered for both Skyfall and Spectre, the time is right for a more sustained critical engagement with the James Bond franchise as a whole,’ says Kinane. ‘More than any other fictional series, the Bond franchise has marked the social, cultural, and political changes in modern British history from the middle of the twentieth century onwards.’
Kinane hopes that the launch will consolidate academic scholarship in the field and attract postgraduate research students. The editorial board is made up of renowned Bond scholars such as Jeremy Black, Tony Bennett, and James Chapman; Bond documentarian and historian John Cork, and a number of contemporary Bond scholars such as Lisa Funnell, Claire Hines, and Monica Germana.
