This is a “beta” version of what I hope will be the new folio: completely electronic. Most academic journals today have an online version (or are completely online) and I would venture to say that most academics access journals now almost entirely through e-journals rather than paper editions. I want folio to move into the late 20th century. Beyond keeping up with the Joneses, why are we moving online?
1) I love books but I see no need for innocent trees to be killed in order to produce print versions of academic journals.
2) This site will eventually contain the entire folio archive, organized by volume, “unit number”, WCT module, and most importantly, searchable. Always wanted to find a Unit 1 essay from Peter Vail’s old WCT module? NOW YOU CAN!
3) My hope is that if writers are amenable we might also publish drafts of essays published in folio so that we can all see the embarrassing process of revision first hand.
4) I also hope that moving folio online will increase the readership of folio both within USP and beyond our beloved concrete home.
There are more reasons, but those are the key ones. Finally, this site will allow me to occasionally post unrelated literary gems to inspire you with the hope that you too can one day achieve a certain unsatisfying immortality. Here is the first, from my more recent reading:
“From the safe shore thir floating Carkases [ 310 ]
And broken Chariot Wheels, so thick bestrown
Abject and lost lay these, covering the Flood,
Under amazement of thir hideous change.
He call’d so loud, that all the hollow Deep
Of Hell resounded. Princes, Potentates, [ 315 ]
Warriers, the Flowr of Heav’n, once yours, now lost,
If such astonishment as this can sieze
Eternal spirits; or have ye chos’n this place
After the toyl of Battel to repose
Your wearied vertue, for the ease you find [ 320 ]
To slumber here, as in the Vales of Heav’n?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the Conquerour? who now beholds
Cherube and Seraph rowling in the Flood
With scatter’d Arms and Ensigns, till anon [ 325 ]
His swift pursuers from Heav’n Gates discern
Th’ advantage, and descending tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linked Thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this Gulfe.
Awake, arise, or be for ever fall’n.“
folio 