The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ journal editors, as the poet might have said, Gang aft agley. This is particularly the case at the moment thanks to the lingering effects of the pandemic.
Readers of Asian Affairs will recall that under the relatively new dispensation, issue 4 of the Journal was, every year, intended to be a special issue dedicated to a particular subject, with its articles usually resulting from a conference. This being the case, its page budget is shorter, and it does not include book reviews.
On account of the continuing disruption, and despite the very best efforts of all involved, the special issue articles were not received in time for publication in this issue. As a result, this issue offers a series of main articles on a broad variety of Asia-related subjects, as is customary for an ordinary issue of the journal, but without book reviews.
In subsequent issues next year, we will be able to publish a number of special sections on particular themes. These include articles derived from a conference on “Citizenship and the Unfinished Business of Partition” held in collaboration between the Royal Society for Asian Affairs and the University of Virginia in April this year under the direction of Professor Neeti Nair, a member of this Journal’s Editorial Board, and also articles on the relationship between Iran and China, put together by Professor Anoush Ehteshami and his colleagues at the University of Durham. Other special sections will also be announced over the course of the year.
As we will be publishing these articles in special sections over the course of the year rather than in just one particular issue, it is our intention to turn issue 4 into an ordinary issue next year, so that from 2022 onwards it will carry book reviews as other issues.
It is through the efforts of many people that the Journal has continued to be published despite the pandemic. I would like to take this opportunity to thank not only the contributors of articles, letters, and book reviews, but also my colleagues on the Editorial Board, peer reviewers, Michael Ryder and Briony Watson in the RSAA office, and the editorial and marketing staff at Taylor and Francis, particularly Gail Hartley and Laurence Goodchild, for their indefatigable work towards the Journal.
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Notes on contributors
Bijan Omrani
Dr Bijan Omrani is the Editor of the Asian Affairs Journal.