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AS MANY, MANY CONTRIBUTORS to this journal already know, Denis Dutton (1944-2010), over more than thirty-five years of editing or jointly editing the collective intellectual adventure in humane learning that saw its first issue in 1976, was steadfastly concerned to make room for younger scholars just starting out. It would have been easy for him to give all the space to the established and often very well-known authors he was also publishing, but he saw the mission of Philosophy and Literature in broader terms. Indeed, he wanted it to help both disciplines named in the journal's title evolve. He was marvelously successful: through his work in Philosophy and Literature he helped many shape and then stabilize their scholarly agendas, and the number of books that grew from articles that first appeared here is large.
At the same time, Denis did publish many senior scholars, often bringing them into debates that originated within these pages (on ethical criticism, for example, featuring names such as Nussbaum, Posner, and Booth, among others). But most important, with this journal he helped change what was, at the time of its inception, doubt about the appropriateness of the very conjunction of the two main subjects named in...