There is coming to be more of a ranking of journals/assessing of journal quality in the humanities as well. I remember that several years ago, a memo came down from central admin. asking the History department to rank the top 10 journals in history.

As if.

Well, the chair asked us all to submit a list of the top 5-10 journals in our individual sub-fields, and amazingly enough, all of the journals that I’ve published in made the list! Who’da thunk it? (Just kidding–but these cynical bureaucratic exercises bring out the cynical careerist in me.)

Also: I think you mean “publications,” not “publicans” in your last sentence, but I like the typo that suggests that it’s casual drinking in the local pub that leads to “garbage papers and…short term research topics.” All so true!

In the harder sciences the two main factors are number of publication is “good” journals and funding. Schmoozers tend to attract more money than non-schmoozer of equal quality. The number of publicans causes proliferation of garbage papers and encourages short term research topics.

I prefer to think of myself as the “Student Whisperer.”