American Imago

Beginning in January, 2023, American Imago will have a new Editor. She is Jane Hanenberg, a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and currently an Associate Editor. Jane, who is a painter with deep knowledge of the history of art, will be the first woman to edit this journal since the original Imago was founded in 1912 and since it became American Imago in 1939. Many readers might say, “It’s about time!” We have worked together for many months and she is both prepared and eager to take the helm.

For me, editing American Imago has been a privilege and a labor of love. Since the 1970s, I have been fortunate periodically to publish my own writings here, and I have always valued the journal’s consistent interdisciplinary scope and depth spanning over a century of psychoanalytic and cultural (often controversial, at times violent) change. Five years ago, I made two promises to Anton (“Tony”) Kris, who enticed me to accept the editorship: that I would do the job until the age of 80, and that I would bring the journal closer to its Boston roots. Now I can say, “Mission accomplished!”

Editing a journal of interdisciplinary works requires unusual forms of collaboration and draws on the expertise and judgment of colleagues from many disciplines. I extend thanks to my predecessors Peter Rudnytsky and Louis Rose, and to William Breichner, the Journals Editor at the Johns Hopkins University Press, for their support and cooperation. My Associate Editors, Vera J. Camden, Jane Hanenberg, Vered Lev Kenaan and David Willbern, have unstintingly contributed their knowledge and advice, as have the many Editorial Board members who review submissions and suggest other reviewers who bring fresh perspectives to the evaluation process. I am grateful to our managing editors, Melissa Skepko, Rebecca Wishnie and Paulina Cossette, and to Mary Muhler at the Johns Hopkins University Press for keeping American Imago [End Page 591] 99.9% error free. Special issues were inspired and brought to life by Beverly Stoute, Stef Craps, Vera Camden, Frederika S. Tevebring, Alexander Wolfson and Vered Lev Kenaan. They conceived innovative topics and burnished the intellectual quality of American Imago. I am grateful also for the scholarship and imagination of the journal’s increasingly diverse authors; they have expanded its geographic reach and subject matter. With the commitment of this community, my time as Editor has been intellectually rewarding and deeply satisfying. Even in these troubling times, I am confident that American Imago will continue to be a generative force for “Psychoanalysis and the Human Sciences.” [End Page 592]