Representations is an interdisciplinary journal in the humanities

Humanities

The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....

 published quarterly by the University of California Press

University of California Press

University of California Press, also known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish books and papers for the faculty of the University of California, established 25 years earlier in 1868...

. The journals was established in 1983 and is the founding publication of the New Historicism

New Historicism

New Historicism is a school of literary theory, grounded in critical theory, that developed in the 1980s, primarily through the work of the critic Stephen Greenblatt, and gained widespread influence in the 1990s....

 movement of the 1980s. It covers topics including literary, historical, and cultural studies. The founding editorial board was chaired by Stephen Greenblatt

Stephen Greenblatt

Stephen Jay Greenblatt is a literary critic, theorist and scholar.Greenblatt is regarded by many as one of the founders of New Historicism, a set of critical practices that he often refers to as "cultural poetics"; his works have been influential since the early 1980s when he introduced the term...

 and Svetlana Alpers. Representations frequently publishes thematic special issues, for example, the 2007 issue on the legacies of American Orientalism

Orientalism

Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...

, the 2006 issue on cross-cultural mimesis

Mimesis

Mimesis , from μιμεῖσθαι , "to imitate," from μῖμος , "imitator, actor") is a critical and philosophical term that carries a wide range of meanings, which include imitation, representation, mimicry, imitatio, receptivity, nonsensuous similarity, the act of resembling, the act of expression, and the...

, and the 2005 issue on political and intellectual redress.

Topics covered

• The Body, Gender, and Sexuality
• Culture and Law
• Empire, Imperialism, and The New World
• History and Memory
• Music
• Narrative and Poetics
• National Identities
• Philosophy and Religion
• Politics and Aesthetics
• Race and Ethnicity
• Science Studies
• Society, Class, and Power
• Visual Culture

Anthologies

The UC Press Representations books series has collected and reprinted many essays originally published in the journal, including:

• The Making of the Modern Body: Sexuality and Society in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Catherine Gallagher and Thomas Laqueur
• Representing the English Renaissance, edited by Stephen Greenblatt
• Misogyny, Misandry, Misanthropy, edited by R. Howard Bloch and Frances Ferguson
• Law and the Order of Culture, edited by Robert Post
• The New American Studies: Essays from Representations, edited by Philip Fisher
• New World Encounters, edited by Stephen Greenblatt
• Future Libraries, edited by R. Howard Bloch and Carla Hesse
• The Fate of "Culture": Geertz and Beyond, edited by Sherry B. Ortner

Further reading

• Randolph Starn, "Making Representations", Chronicle of the University of California, 6 (Spring 2004): 160-167.