What Readers and Critics are Saying:

"With superior intelligence and wonderful energy, Paradoxa is the most exciting new journal to take up the serious problems of popular writing and reading that I have yet encountered."

-- Samuel R. Delany

"The active mixing and merging of so-called genres, this reinvention of fiction, this rich confusion will only get richer, re-embodying and further complicating the ways in which we all tell stories. Paradoxa will be a very useful skein to follow into this labyrinth."

-- Ursula K. Le Guin

"Paradoxa is certainly one of the most interesting new journals anywhere."

--John Cawelti, University of Kentucky

"I read through Paradoxa and found it fascinating. Thank you for producing a most useful and readable publication."

-- Andy Sawyer, Foundation, University of Liverpool, England

"Paradoxa is a literary breakthrough in that it discusses literatures embedded in contemporary discourses which are not necessarily recognized by these discourses or the academy itself. Paradoxa opens new worlds for inquiry.

-- Keyan Tomaselli, University of Natal, Durban, South Africa

"I was desperately trying to find a scholarly journal specializing in topics such as terror, fantasy, and science fiction, among others. . . Finding Paradoxa was almost heaven-sent."

-- Edwin Astacio, University of Puerto Rico

Reviews and Responses

"Paradoxa: This new [journal] of comparative literature boasts a truly international editorial board and an equally broad taste in literature. Each issue contains 15-25 relatively short essays (5 to 15 pages), almost all of them grouped around a topic, e.g., "Cities of the Future," "Explicit Writing About Sex in its Paraliterary Contexts," or "Censorship in Children's Literature." The writers are mostly English professors and doctoral candidates, though such luminaries as Ursula K. Le Guin, Samuel R. Delany, and Bruce Sterling have appeared in these pages. Whether because of exceptionally clear writing or because it deals with popular literatures, this scholarly journal should find a broad readership in undergraduate and larger public libraries as well as institutions supporting research."

-- Library Journal (January, 1997)

On the "Uncanny" issue (vol. 3, no. 3-4):

"A solid collection of well-written articles and interviews, as well...useful for classroom adoption."

-- Council of Editors of Learned Journals, Jan '99

"Paradoxa has produced an extraordinary issue around the theme of the 'Uncanny.' Touching high and popular literature and culture, exploring multiple aspects of the psychoanalytical interpretation of uncanniness in visual and textual discourse, this collection of essays stands as an excellent introduction to the most interesting contemporary work on this slippery concept that represents the modern 'unhomely' in all its anxiety and ambiguity."

-- Anthony Vidler, author of The Architectural Uncanny, MIT Press

"This superb collection of essays comes as a tonic antidote to those who would dismiss the value of psychoanalytic film scholarship out of hand. The agreeably diverse group of authors employs Freud's classic text as a point of departure for a compelling investigation of the uncanny's generic signatures (notably in weird cinema), as well as an interrogation of an essential uncaniness residing within the medium itself. On the latter score Lesley Stern's "I Think, Sebastian, Therefore ... I Somersault" is alone worth the price of admission. The insights here and elsewhere are plentiful, acute, and -- apposite to the subject -- often unsettling. The writing crackles with lively intelligence."

-- Harvey Roy Greenberg, MD

"Focusing on cinema, literature, and DoubleMint gum, this double issue of Paradoxa explores diverse dimensions and manifestations of the 'uncanny' in essays both rigorous and graceful. Indeed, to borrow upon one of my favorite pieces (Lesley Stern's wonderful essay on an acrobatical moment when movies take our breath away), the collection performs 'somersaults' around the uncanny: celebrating and illuminating its essential importance in our everyday lives as well as our aesthetic experience."

-- Vivian Sobchack

On the "Transformations in the Romance Genre" issue (vol. 3, no. 1-2):

"I am very excited ... I think that what you have done is create the best academic look at romance to date - and you found a nifty way of opening a dialogue between scholars and writers through the interview format. CONGRATULATIONS. Your issue of Paradoxa will become a classic for study in the field."

-- Jayne Ann Krentz

"The Romance issue is a winner - I read it straight through, finding each piece carrying on a useful and highly entertaining conversation with all the others. The journal gets better and better."

--Ursula K. Le Guin

"I thought the Romance issue was just great, worth the price of subscription all by itself."

-- Bruce Sterling

"The Romance issue was FANTASTIC!! You should be really proud."

-- Vivian Sobchack

On the "Censorship in Children's Literature" issue (vol. 2, no. 3):

"... Vibrant and stimulating. [The Censorship in Children's Literature] issue of Paradoxa is excellent in its own right and the journal would be rewarding reading for what has already been published and for what is planned in the future."

-- Reading Time (February, 1997)

"Perhaps the most valuable aspect of this special issue is in its inclusion of articles about censorship (governmental and otherwise) in other countries, for example, Midori Todayama's report on censorship in Japan: "The first result [in 1931] was quite subtle and consisted in a group of 'specialists' in children's education and literature banning 'vulgar' books. Writers of more serious books welcomed the movement at first, then found that they were the next target." Coverage also includes Australia, Greece, New Zealand, Sweden, and Germany; more local topics focus on M.E. Kerr and Lois Lowry. The writing (and thinking) throughout is provocative, learned but not pedantic, and attentive to the various kinds and degrees of limitations upon intellectual freedom for the young."

-- The Horn Book (Sept/Oct 1997)

"Paradoxa is a noted international journal in the field of literature. This issue, edited by A.P. Nilsen and H. Bosmajian, focuses on the complex and ever-present issue of censorship.... The articles are authoritative, well written; [it] is a valuable resource for teachers, and teacher librarians in particular, and I recommend you include it in your professional reading."

-- Ashley Freeman, THE NETWORK, Charles Stuart Univ., New South Wales

Accolades

William Paul's essay "Uncanny Theater" (from Paradoxa 3.3-4), was recognized for its outstanding scholarship in film and media studies by the Society for Cinema Studies, who commended it with honorable mention for the 1998 Katherine S. Kovacs Essay Award.

The CELJ (Council of Editors of Learned Journals) announced at the 1995 MLA convention that Paradoxa was runner-up in the competition for Best New Journal of the Year.

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