Foreword by the Editor-In-Chief

Abstract

Foreword by the Editor-In-Chief Rosa de Jorio It was with great pleasure that I assumed the role of editor-in-chief of Mande Studies in January 2019, following the nomination of the MANSA leadership. This appointment allows me to build on the accomplishments of a strong lineage of previous editors, namely Stephen Belcher, Ariane Deluz, and Peter Mark. I was quite familiar with Mande Studies already. One of the pieces I published earlier on in my career appeared in Mande Studies. Stephen Belcher was back then the primary editor for English manuscripts, and his commitment to encouraging the contribution of young scholars and professionals left me with an enduring impression. I also have fond memories of Ariane Deluz, with whom I later had the opportunity to discuss the memorialization of colonization during Mali’s democratic period. More recently, I had the pleasure to work as associate director of Mande Studies under Peter Mark’s leadership, and I’d like to thank him for welcoming me on the editorial team and sharing his insights into the craft of editing. I would like to recognize some of the people who have worked with me on the production of volume #21, which has been truly a collaborative endeavor. I remain, of course, fully responsible for any shortcomings in the final product. I am profoundly grateful to Joseph Hellweg for his editorial expertise and intellectual generosity. Joseph’s contribution to the management of the journal, from working on authors’ guidelines to identifying potential contributors and discussing editorial matters, was crucial. I could not have done this without him. Many thanks go also to Stephen Belcher, whose encyclopedic knowledge and critical skills have been invaluable in the peer reviewing process. Also, I am grateful for Sten Hagberg’s participation in this volume and for his encouraging an unprecedented contribution by African scholars to this issue of Mande Studies. I also wish to thank our anonymous reviewers and the growing number of fantastic copy editors our journal has been able to identify. In this regard, I wish to thank Nicolas Médevielle and Jacques N’goran Kouacou for their superb work in copy editing the French manuscripts. Thanks also to Trish Lewis and Marcia Lynne Tiede for their help with English copy editing. I am particularly grateful to Meridith Murray for her generous and insightful copy editing of my own contributions to this volume. Finally, we would like to thank Indiana University Press, particularly Sherondra Thedford and [End Page 3] Michael Regoli for their kind and informed support and willingness to accommodate our shifting deadlines! We would like to conclude by inviting MANSA members and, more generally, scholars of the region to consider submitting their work to Mande Studies. We welcome special issue proposals, but we make the firm commitment to always carve out a space for individual contributions, which will be published in the section General Contributions. We also welcome methodological reflections on ongoing research projects (Research Notes), shorter pieces on contemporary events, interviews with authors who have changed our field, and book or film reviews. We also hope that more members will consider contributing in other perhaps less visible but equally critical roles such as peer reviewing, mentoring younger scholars, and encouraging scholars who are not yet members of MANSA to contribute. [End Page 4] Copyright © 2019 Mande Studies Association