aspeers is the first and currently only graduate journal for American studies in Europe. Embedded into the American Studies Leipzig MA Program, its first issue will be available online and in print in April 2008.

• To find out more about aspeers, please read our mission statement or, to learn more about the project's background and the current editors, refer to our project page.
• To learn more about the upcoming issue, please see our Call for Papers and the submission guidelines.

aspeers will appear annually with a call for paper issued in the summer and the submission deadline in the fall. Individual volumes are available in print through our online store, and online on this webpage.

Why Print?

Academic publishing, it seems, tends to go from analog to digital in recent years. Why have we decided that aspeers should be available in print? There are five major reasons that have prompted us to take this step:

• Printed copies give young scholars a chance to present their works to others. If you are published in aspeers, you can actually give a copy of your work to other people when you meet them--at a conference, after a lecture, or by mail.
• aspeers will be a hybrid journal, meaning that it will be available in print and online. Some content will even have to be available online only.
• Hybrid journals give their contributors a better citation rate. We hope that this will prove true for aspeers as well.
• The aspeers project is part of the professional skills development at American Studies Leipzig's MA program, and preparing a paper journal encompasses a wider range of skills for participants to practice.
• It's just more exciting to see your own work on paper :) - and it is just more fun to make a print journal.

In addition to that, it seems that there currently exists a broad continuum of more or less formal online platforms for various kinds of exchange among students. Being available in print underscores aspeers's exceptional position as a peer-reviewed journal of outstanding work.