Religious
History Association, President’s report: 8 June 2017
The RHA was well
represented at the Wellington meeting ANZAMEMS (association for medieval and early
modern studies), 7-10 Feb, and then at a specialist international conference in
Dunedin on medieval political theory in honour of Cary Nederman,
by both myself a President, and Jason Taliadoros, one
of the two hard working editors of the Journal
of Religious History. The publicity brochure, produced by Wiley, was of
great value in being included in the publicity bag of the ANZAMEMS conference,
a practice we want to see continued at any conferences relating to religious
history, including the upcoming AHA conference at Newcastle, to which is
attached a special symposium on the history of marriage.
In January 2017, shortly
before the Wellington conference, a sub-committee meeting was called relating
to examine the finances of the JRH.
It was attended by Katharine Massam, myself and the
two editors, with Fotini Toso
(who had worked for Wiley) as offering specialist advice. The treasurer had
observed that increases (announced by U of Sydney) in the pay of Anna Haunton
threatened to exceed our income. The meeting was called to consider approaching
Wiley to renegotiate the terms of our 10 year
contract, which allowed for $22K (with allowance for regular increases) towards
costs of running JRH supplemented by
royalties.
Also discussed at that
meeting was the practical issue of disbursement of the $10,000 allocated to the
editors and editorial board to defray travel/accomodation
expenses incurred in promotion of the journal overseas. It was agreed that
adequate notice of such requests should normally be given to the Treasurer, for
the sake of regulating finances.
Following a meeting with our Wiley
representative, Rosie Duffy (by myself and the two editors) on 15 April 2017,
we learned that there was no realistic opportunity of renegotiating the
contract, but we did learn that there
had been a significant increase in subscriptions and backorders for the journal
(from China in particular) and that through paid
subscriptions, licenses and philanthropic initiatives, the journal is available
in over 11,000 institutions globally. Usage of JRH content
increased to over 56,000 full-text downloads in 2016, while
royalty payable to the RHA for the year was AU$14,123. This is basically very good news, meaning
that we are able to cover our commitments for employing Anna Haunton, at least
in the medium term.
Independently of this, I was also approached by Lisa
Johnstone of Sage Publishing UK (a private family owned company, specialising
in journals), whether we might like to meet up with Caroline Lock, Publisher of their Humanities
and Social Science Journals Team, when she was visiting Melbourne. Jo
Cruikshank and myself met her on 3 April, to listen to her present what Sage
could offer. They are a significant player, in the top five firms, controlling
humanities journals. Our sense was that Wiley is still a larger outfit, and
that while it was of interest to learn about what they offer, JRH may stick with Wiley at least for the
immediate term, prior to renegotiating our contract in 2021.
The other major development to report is following up our decision last November to release up to $5000 to holding a PATS (post grad advanced training seminar) relating to religious history. Rather than announce a call for PATS, it was decided to go ahead with a PATS and Symposiumn event on 18 August, jointly at Monash and then at Pilgrim College, on Devotion, Gender and the Body in the Religious Cultures of Europe 1100-1800. The event will bring together various scholars, together, with a view to creating a special issue of the JRH:
Dr Lisa Beaven (Centre for the History of the
Emotions, University of Melbourne)
Assoc. Professor Erin
Griffey (Dept of Art History, University of Auckland)
Dr Claire Walker (Dept of
History, University of Adelaide)
Prof. Claire Waters (Dept
of English, University of California at Davis) [who is happening to be visiting
Melbourne at this time]
Prof. Constant Mews (Centre for Religious Studies, Monash University)
Bursaries have been advertised to
assist attendance of postgraduates and early career researchers. It is to be
hoped the RHA can continue to assist postgraduates while also promoting the
interests of the JRH. It will be
important to cover in the future all aspects of religious history, from ancient
to contemporary Australia.
Professor Constant J. Mews FAHA
President, Religious History Association