With publication of this volume, begins a new stage in its existence: the move from Johns Hopkins University Press to the University of Minnesota Press is accompanied by a change in focus. In its first incarnation provided a forum in which established notions of reading, writing, and criticism could be questioned and explored. Since then, the greater currency of such concerns has brought with it new problems and priorities. Setting aside the battles of the past, the new looks ahead - to confront historical issues and to address the institutional and pedagogical questions emerging from the contemporary critical landscape. Each volume in the new series is organized around a specific issue. The essays in this first volume explore the relations between the practice of reading and writing and the operations of the institution. Though their approaches differ from one another, the authors of these essays all recognize that the questions of the institution - most notably the university - points toward a series of constraints that define, albeit negatively, the possibilities for change.