ABSTRACT
Emphasizing the mediated nature of all periodical elements, from format to market or political positioning, Linda K. Hughes surveys three phases of scholarship devoted to periodicals from 1958 to the present: indexing, theory, and digitization. The first produced the landmark Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals (compiled 1966–1989), which supported new author-centered research on periodicals. Applications of poststructuralist theory to periodical studies followed in the 1980s, led by Laurel Brake among others. As fresh theoretical approaches unfolded, so did newer considerations of periodicals’ materiality and the larger environment of print culture. Large-scale digitization in the twenty-first century, whether commercial or open access, massively increased scholars’ access to remediated periodical content and raised new questions about periodicals’ readability and comprehensibility, and optimal research methods. The chapter concludes with an intersectional sampling of current periodical research opportunities across gender, class, and race, and some key research strategies.
