By Jennifer Cox

    If we judged magazines solely by their covers, the American Scholar would be a strong contender for America's most boring magazine.
     The quarterly, the official publication of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, contains no glossy pages, no photography and no color except on the cover. Not exactly the sort of thing you'd snatch off the newsstand--if you could ever find it at a newsstand.
    But while it may never rival Talk on the New York Observer's Heat Index, The American Scholar is able to generate excitement where it counts. 
    The 70-year-old quarterly built enough buzz this year to score three National Magazine Award nominations from the American Society of Magazine Editors, including one for the coveted General Excellence Award.  National Magazine Awards will be given out by ASME today.
    Three nominations--not bad for a magazine whose very name seems calculated to induce sleep in a lecture hall full of over-caffeinated Ph.D. candidates.
    Appearances to the contrary, editor in chief Anne Fadiman says that the American Scholar is not intended for adherents of the cloistered academic life.
    "We are not a magazine by or for scholars," she says.
    Indeed, she says the magazine's crusty-sounding name is, in fact, a rakish jab at intellectual elitists who take themselves too seriously. The title is a reference to a short story by Ralph Waldo Emerson in which he wrote "Life is our dictionary," a rather anti-academic statement for the time.
    That said, though, The American Scholar is decidedly not edited for the Maxim crowd.
    The magazine totals 160 pages every issue and in appearance resembles less a magazine than a paperback book, with pieces sometimes running more than 60 pages.
    "We do not have readers with short attention spans," says Fadiman. "And we will never capitulate to the sound bite."
     Fadiman, who became editor of The American Scholar three years ago, says the mission of the magazine, which publishes essays, reviews and poems exclusively, is to "further the genre of the essay."
     "We want to show the essay in all its variety," she says. "Short, long, serious, funny." Subjects range from highbrow fodder to quirky topics like supermarkets, jigsaw puzzles and boxing.
    "American journalism has gone to glitzier designs and interest in the timely at the expense of the timeless," she says. "Other magazines write about what’s cool today and dead tomorrow. We talk about things that are cool today and alive tomorrow."
    The two essays nominated for ASMEs are both part of a series titled "At Large and At Small," which appears in every issue.
    "Mail," authored by Fadiman, focuses on both mail and email and discusses the history of the British Postal Service.
    "Narrow Ruled," written by Nicholson Baker, author of the recent book "Double Fold," focuses on a series of narrow ruled notebooks the writer jots down favorite literary quotes in.
    Both Fadiman and The American Scholar have been nominated before.
    Fadiman, who helped found Civilization magazine, won a National Magazine Award (or Ellie) for reporting in the '80s.
    The magazine won an award two years ago for feature writing and was also nominated for general excellence that same year.
    Fadiman points out that contributors are not lured with the big bucks, recalling the time the publication paid John Updike $50 for a poem.
    "We don’t have any trouble getting great writers, but everybody gets a pittance," she says.
     Fadiman says the magazine is sustained by a slew of part-time editors, who also work diligently for small salaries.
     The magazine only employs two full-time editorial staffers in its Washington, D.C. office, housed in the Phi Beta Kappa national headquarters building.
    Fadiman works via phone, fax and email from her home in Massachusetts, while other part-timers also work from remote locations.
     "Working for this magazine is very different than working for a magazine with a lot of money," says Fadiman of her staff’s dedication. "We are all similarly obsessed with our mission."
    Although circulation differs from issue to issue, Fadiman estimates The American Scholar’s average circulation is in the low-20,000 range, with over 90 percent of its magazines sold through subscriptions, half of which go to Phi Beta Kappa members.
    The magazine, which has never turned a profit, accepts advertising, with most of its ads coming from university presses promoting new books.

May 2, 2001 © 2001 Media Life

-Jennifer Cox is a staff writer for Media Life.

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