This is not the first case of censorship at Frontiers of Literary Studies in China. I know of multiple instances of authors who have had their essays censored or who have pulled their essays because of censorship. Yes, one might expect censorship from a China-based publication, though that doesn’t make it any less disappointing or wrong, and I am sympathetic to the good people working at the journal who do the best they can do produce quality scholarship. But when you load the editorial board and the editorship with scholars working in universities outside of China and when the journal is distributed through Brill, the expectation is that the journal will conform to certain standards of academic freedom. I’m glad that Jasmin Lange at Brill “will not hesitate to take any necessary action to uphold our publishing ethics.” I hope that we as an academic community can also uphold our ethics and speak out against this censorship.
Kirk Denton <denton.2@osu.edu>