FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 18, 2010
New Editor at The Common Review
Changing of the Guard as Magazine Approaches 10th Anniversary
The Common Review, the quarterly magazine of the Great Books Foundation, has named Danny Postel its new editor beginning with the Fall 2010 issue. Postel was previously Senior Editor of openDemocracy, an online magazine based in London, a staff writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education, and an editor for the online magazine of Encyclopædia Britannica.
Postel was tapped upon the recommendation of Daniel Born, the magazine’s founding editor and Vice President for Post-Secondary Programs at the Great Books Foundation. Born resigned his post earlier this month, after accepting a position as an academic chair in Kaplan University’s School of Legal Education.
"It’s been gratifying to keep this magazine going for nine years," Born said. "I am equally thrilled that the magazine will go on with Danny Postel at the helm. He shares our vision of writing about those books and ideas that matter, ones that will stand the test of time because they continue to speak to our time in important ways. Danny has been a strong voice on our editorial board since 2003, and his experience as an editor and author make him a strong choice."
"The Common Review has consistently been one of the best general-readership magazines of the past decade, thanks mostly to the superb editorial work of Daniel Born," said Michael Bérubé, president-elect of the Modern Language Association. "Now comes the news that Dan is handing the keys to Danny Postel -- and that, I think, ensures that TCR will be one of the best general-readership magazines for the decade to come. Like Born, Postel reads everything worth reading, and does so with a keen and discriminating eye. It will be most exciting to see where TCR goes from here."
Launched in 2001, The Common Review was an Utne Independent Press Awards nominee for best arts/literary coverage (2003) and best writing (2006). "Book Coverage is Down, But Not At The Common Review," declared an Utne blog post in 2007. To sit down with The Common Review, which is "wholeheartedly dedicated to all things book-related," is to get the "fix" that you "can no longer find in the daily newspapers."
Among the writers for the magazine are Regina Barreca, Mark Bauerlein, Nancy Carr, Morris Dickstein, Mark Edmundson, David Galef, Gerald Graff, Dana Heller, Nat Hentoff, Phillip Lopate, Tom McBride, Walter Benn Michaels, Earl Shorris, Darryl Lorenzo Wellington, Ian Williams, David Sloan Wilson, and Caroline Zimmerman.
Born, the author of The Birth of Liberal Guilt in the English Novel: Charles Dickens to H. G. Wells, will remain involved with the magazine, as a member of its editorial board. Other editorial board members include the novelist and critic Achy Obejas and former Poetry magazine editor Joseph Parisi.
Afshin Molavi, Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation, hailed Postel’s 2006 book Reading "Legitimation Crisis" in Tehran, which explores the intellectual landscape of contemporary Iran, "a masterpiece of moral and political criticism."
"I’m honored and excited to have the editorial torch of The Common Review passed to me," said Postel.
Born and Postel are co-editing an anthology of writings from The Common Review.
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