In terms of researching online journals, I appreciated this assignment since it made me take my head out of books and PDFs and look where people might actually be interacting in a timely fashion. I found a quite a few non-scholarly journals [and one site that is a lot like the one I want to build: www.woostercollective.com].

There are a *lot* of American Studies journals outside the US, because the discipline was initially begun [e.g., funded] in Europe after WWII by certain interests [the US State Dept. being one] who wanted to ensure the primacy of US Culture during the fearful times of the Cold War. All that to say, knowing that American Studies emerged into a critical, interdisciplinary field with many departments, each with it’s own particular focus, leaves looking for journals a little overwhelming.

Focusing in on scholarly journals that are Americanist, interdisciplinary, and produce work at the nexus of arts/cultural production, political analysis, and social justice, I found the following:

Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Has a list of online issues dating back a decade, as well as ability to buy print issues [via Justseeds artists collective], but has no clear Peer Review process, a smallish editorial collective that looks like it’s changing over, and no clear interactive sites to speak back to the writing.