Editor's Note

Abstract

The present number of Soviet Studies in Literature opens the second part of a two-part collection of articles on contemporary Soviet sociology of literature edited by William Mills Todd III, professor of Russian literature at Harvard University. The first part, published in the summer 1989 issue of the journal, addressed methodological problems in the field and the dissemination and reception of Soviet literature and contained an extensive introduction by Professor Todd, to which the reader of the present issue is referred. The second part offers examples of Soviet scholarship on representation, gender, and genre. It was originally planned for publication in the Fall 1989 issue of Soviet Studies in Literature, but production considerations necessitated its appearance in two issues; additional articles, together with a selected bibliography prepared by Professor Todd covering a wide range of Western and Soviet sources on Soviet sociology of literature, including both general collections and surveys of the field and specific works in the areas of methodology, publishing and dissemination, reading and readership, authorship and the literary process, mass literature, and representation, will be published in the Winter 1989-90 issue of the journal. Together, these three issues will constitute the second collection in a larger project sponsored by the Joint Committee on Soviet Studies of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council that is intended to provide readings for use in college and university courses in the Soviet field. Future special issues in the series will treat such topics as the younger generation of Soviet writers, the new Soviet cinema, and religious themes in Soviet literature and society. A selection of essays by the prominent Soviet critic Lev Anninskii will also appear in the series.