Editorial

From titles to abstracts to keywords to introductions and opening lines on in, these five pieces speak for themselves. All that is left for me to say is that the pleasures of editing this special issue, like the three creative writing issues that have come before it, have been many. One is the range of subjects I have had the opportunity to learn about, including some (penal colonies in Panama; Jay-Z in the context of the history of public housing; Valerie Solanas) I knew next-to-nothing about before. Another is the range of forms I have had the opportunity to ponder and enjoy (an amalgam of history of fiction; a series of episodes; an actual dialogue with the dead; a carefully controlled cri de coeur about the suppression of historical evidence and the erasure of a historical character; and an explanation of and eulogy for several pages left on the cutting room floor). Most of all (and once again), there is the range of scholars and writers with whom I have had the opportunity to work. If my memory serves me, each of them is publishing in Rethinking History for the first time. My hope is that each of them has five writer friends, in five different fields, at five different stages in their careers, who will now be eager to do the same. There is still room in the first issue of Volume 18, and the first issue of Volume 19 is a blank book.