Is Limn Obsolete? | Limn

 The founding editors reflect on the journal’s origins

by Christopher M. Kelty, Andrew Lakoff, and Stephen J. Collier  

Is Limn obsolete? Or is it a replacement for something that is—or should become—obsolete? With the launch of this issue and the transition to a new set of voices and ideas, the former is clearly not the case. Limn is set to be more vibrant than ever, the editors firmly committed to the innovative, the untried, but also the careful, the reparative aspects of maintaining something. If the latter, though, what might Limn displace, repair, or supersede?

When Limn started in 2010, it emerged out of two puzzles of obsolescence. On the one hand, it was a puzzle why existing modes of research and writing in the interpretive social sciences remained committed to models and methods that seemed mismatched with contemporary problems. On the other hand, it responded to an obsolete publishing model by means of the technical and practical possibilities then emerging.

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