Special issues
Since 1990 MLQ has periodically coordinated special issues dedicated to complex areas of literary history. Edited by MLQ's editor or by a guest, special issues present multiple perspectives on their topics, with essays invited from leading authorities and innovative scholars.
| 2020 | What Is and Isn’t Changing: Critique after Postcritique. Edited by Lauren M. E. Goodlad and Eleni Coundouriotis |
| 2019 | Literary History after the Nation?. Edited by Peter Kalliney |
| 2018 | Chinese Encounters with Western Theories. Edited by Marshall Brown and Wang Ning |
| 2017 | Milton and the Politics of Periodization. Edited by Rachel Trubowitz |
| 2016 | Scale and Value: New and Digital Approaches to Literary History. Edited by James English and Ted Underwood |
| 2016 | Historical Poetics. Edited by Michael Hansen, Joel Calahan, and Colton Valentine |
| 2015 | Inevitability. Edited by Ryan Vu and Sharif Youssef |
| 2014 | Lessons from the Past: The History of Academic English. Edited by Marshall Brown, Leigh Dale, and Jennifer McDonell |
| 2013 | What Counts as World Literature?. Edited by B. Venkat Mani and Caroline Levine |
| 2012 | Peripheral Realisms. Edited by Joe Cleary, Colleen Lye, and Jed Esty |
| 2011 | Literary Value. Edited by Marshall Brown and Joseph Luzzi |
| 2009 | Romancing Scotland. Edited by Marshall Brown |
| 2009 | Performance and History: What History? Essays in Honor of Herbert Blau. Edited by Marshall Brown and Herbert Blau |
| 2008 | Influence. Edited by Andrew Elfenbein |
| 2008 | China in the Twentieth Century. Edited by Wang Ning |
| 2007 | Globalism on the Move. Edited by Marshall Brown |
| 2006 | Genre and History. Edited by Marshall Brown and Barbara Fuchs |
| 2004 | Postcolonialism and the Past. Edited by David J. Baker and Barbara Fuchs |
| 2004 | Feminism in Time. Edited by Marshall Brown and Margaret Ferguson |
| 2003 | National Literary Histories. Edited by Marshall Brown and Brook Thomas |
| 2001 | Periodization: Cutting Up the Past. Edited by Marshall Brown |
| 2000 | Reading for Form. Edited by Susan J. Wolfson and Marshall Brown |
| 1997 | Pierre Bourdieu and Literary History. Edited by Marshall Brown |
| 1996 | The Places of History: Regionalism Revisited in Latin America. Edited by Doris Sommer |
| 1993 | The State of Literary History. Edited by Marshall Brown and John C. Coldewey |
| 1992 | Tradition and Innovation in Fifteenth-Century Poetry. Edited by A. S. G. Edwards |
| 1990 | Studies in Honor of David C. Fowler. Edited by Míceál Vaughan |
| 1990 | Humanism and Public Life. Edited by C. Stephen Jaeger |