Connotations: A Journal for Critical Debate is an academic journal first published in 1991. It wants to encourage scholarly communication in the field of English literature (from the Middle English period to the present), as well as American and other literatures in English. Connotations is an international, refereed journal which focuses on the semantic and stylistic energy of the language of literature in a historical perspective and aims to represent different approaches.
Connotations is published twice a year by the Connotations Society for Critical Debate and by Waxmann Verlag Münster/New York. Each issue consists of articles and a forum for discussion. The forum presents, for instance, research progress, critical hypotheses, responses to articles published in Connotations or elsewhere, as well as to recent books. All contributions are available (for free) online in the WWW. Articles usually do not exceed 12,000 words and follow the MLA Handbook. Responses and other contributions to the forum usually do not exceed 4,000 words.
Current editors of Connotations are Inge Leimberg (University of Münster), Matthias Bauer (Tübingen University), Burkhard Niederhoff (Ruhr University Bochum) and Angelika Zirker (Tübingen University).
Connotations is a member of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ). Contributions are indexed, for example, in the MLA Bibliography, the World Shakespeare Bibliography and the IBZ/IBR. Private subscribers are invited to join the Connotations Society for Critical Debate. Members receive the journal as well as invitations to the Connotations symposia.