History and objective of the journal

History of the journal

Elseneur was founded in 1983 by Pierre Barbéris. For 40 years, it has been advocating for an open approach to literature or literary artefacts, seen as the expression of “man’s awareness of his own time”. Drawing on the meditations of the young humanist prince Hamlet on the terrace at Elseneur, this journal reflects on “the world, power, desire, life, death”. The epistemological contributions by the human sciences to the study of literature (history, sociology, linguistics or psychoanalysis) are supported. It is published annually by the Presses universitaires de Caen and is associated with the interdisciplinary research team at LASLAR (literature, performing arts and Romance languages). It was edited by Alain Goulet until the year 2000. It was then expanded to a joint management system led by Brigitte Diaz and Laure Himy until 2017, and currently by Marie-Gabrielle Lallemand and Marie-Hélène Boblet.

Objectives of the journal

Originally, the journal’s focus was on literature in history and its reflection on history, in the wake of Pierre Barbéris’ works and reflections on Modernity. Then a new approach emerged, based on literary enunciation, the subject who writes and writing about oneself. Indeed, the issues append themselves to the research carried out by members of the team and are aligned with the intellectual horizon collectively defined. These diverse issues are now open to the exploration of writing practices as well as the authors’ imagination, to themes and to forms of writing. Therefore, Elseneur is open to the study of authors as well as reflections on poetic and thematic questions over a large historical span, from the Middle Ages to the present day.

Editorial policy

The team

The journal is managed by two co-editors who are members of the research team at LASLAR, EA 4256. They are assisted by an editorial board and an advisory board. The editorial board consists in equal parts of university lecturers and researchers from the university of Caen Normandie and other French or foreign universities, all specializing in French language and literature. It meets twice a year, helping the issues’ editors and the authors to communicate effectively. It monitors the evaluation process (anonymization of the articles) as well as the articles’ editorial quality and the online publication process of the issues.

The advisory board is international. Notably, its members certify the transfer of research authority to the issues’ editors, correct the editorial line of the issue and suggest contributors. They are then requested to approve the projected table of contents before the texts are written by the prospective contributors.

Each article published in Elseneur is referred to the appropriate review board consisting of experts whose anonymous opinions are final.

Editorial process

As a general rule, there is a call for contributions for each issue. It can happen that a seminar will act as preparation for an issue of Elseneur, which will feature the texts from that seminar. The editor for his issue will select the most relevant of contributions offered to him. The length of the articles varies between 25.000 and 35.000 characters. The editorial standards are those of the Presses universitaires de Caen, which are available online on the PUC website (https://www.puc-ed.fr/info/?fa=text41), in the section “Informations aux auteurs” (Useful information for the authors).

The evaluation of the texts follows a process called “double blind assessment”. The issue’s editor submits pre-anonymized articles to the expertise of two scholars French or foreign and selected for their authority and reputation on the subject. These two assessors are also anonymous all through the process. Each one assesses the article according to criteria outlined in a specific document. Following the opinions (favorable as is / favorable with corrections / unfavorable), the text is published either as is, refused, or amended by the author before publication. One single unfavorable opinion is sufficient for the rejection of an article. If the corrections requested to the author are not effective or insufficiently taken into consideration, the editors for the issue reserve the right to refuse the publication of the article.