It publishes essays reflecting a variety of critical approaches and all periods of literary history, with selected issues centering on special topics.

Notable scholars who have published in TSLL include Gordon Braden, Rita Copeland, Louis Montrose, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.

A 2017 special issue on Modernism and Native America, edited by James H. Cox, included the previously unpublished Vine Theatre Manifesto by Cherokee dramatist Lynn Riggs as well as articles on N. Scott Momaday, Todd Downing, and Ernest Hemingway and Katherine Anne Porter.

A 2019 special issue, co-edited by Janine Barchas and Devoney Looser, focused on future directions in Jane Austen studies.

[4][5] In 2021, Domino Perez and Charles Ramirez Berg edited a special issue on the films of Austin director Robert Rodriguez, whom they dubbed "the Wizard of Awe".