March 14, 2024

Another Special Issue Collaboration is Underway

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/special-issues

A rich year for special issue collaborations continues to bring new surprises

I think I’ve made the joke about special issues and busses a few times already in past entries, but my heavens, if it doesn’t seem to have more than a grain of truth! You see, this week we signed on board our latest special issue collaboration for the Exchanges journal, which makes it our twelfth such project since 2019. Wow. When Giulia came along for a conversation back in January 2019 and pitched me the first couple of special issues, little did I realise that in five short years they’d become such a major part of our core activity.

That we’ve produced (five published to date) and are working on so many others, especially when you realise how tiny our staff-resource is, is undoubtably quite the accomplishment.[1] It certainly also speaks to the high regard Exchanges is held in by our past contributors, that they beat a line to our door when they want a title that’s ready, willing and able to work with them. You see, many if not all of our special issues tend to be working with people who’ve had a prior experience with Exchanges.

Now while quite a few of our special issue collaborations like the MRC@50 and Research Cultures are primarily, healthy Warwick-centric pieces of work, this latest one once again takes us half-way around the world with collaborators on the other side of the planet. Just like the recently launch Queerness as Strength special issue call, where we’re working with Monash in Australia as the principal partner – although this time, we’re working with researchers a little further north. This is very much to Exchanges benefit too, as this should help the issue introduce some insightful heterodox perceptions and experiences for our readers. This is an element, alongside with its diverse theme, which makes it a perfect match for the journal and our developmental, internationalisation and interdisciplinary missions

Naturally, I can’t say too much more at this point until we announce the call for papers in the not too distant future. But behind the scenes I’m working on writing the call at the moment, and that should be out…well before you know it! So, keep an eye open.

Endnotes

[1] It’s still just me, and in a part time capacity at that. Something one of my fellow editors I was speaking to yesterday was flabbergasted to hear – given the scope of what we’re involved in.


March 07, 2024

Strategic Publishing & Exploring Interdisciplinarity Panels

Two exceptional panel sessions for researchers explore questions around publishing strategically and examining what is interdisciplinary publishing anyway.

In the past couple of weeks I’ve chaired a couple of excellent panel discussions within the Institute of Advanced Study’s (IAS) ongoing researcher development remit.

Last week we had a wonderful online EUTOPIA Partners event for mid-career researchers discussing the knotty issue of publishing strategically for career, impact and engagement purposes. There was excellent attendance for the session with representation from almost a dozen different institutions, which helped make for a fascinating and engaging debate driven by questions from the floor. I think if I were to isolate any single takeaway from the discussions, is that there is no singular formula to achieve a perfect ‘output record’ and that being flexible, adaptable and willing to consider all avenues can pay major dividends. My particular thanks to all four of my gracious panellists: Alena Cicholewski (Oldenburg), Jonathan Vickery (Warwick), Kwasu Tembo (Lancaster) and Marcos Estrada (King Fahd)

Yesterday by contrast was another rich panel which looked at a question dear to my own heart: Just what IS interdisciplinary publishing? This Accolade Programme session was primarily a campus-based event, with a hybrid option for those speakers or delegates unable to attend in person. I am pleased to report that only one speaker and delegate couldn’t be there in the flesh, which made for an incredible dynamic and interactive environment.

Last year I hosted an Exchanges Discourse podcast episode getting into this interdisciplinary issue with one group of scholars, which naturally made for a fantastic topic to unpick and explore with our own early career fellow researchers. Given the depth and breadth of the debates, I am probably doing them a disservice by trying to reduce them to a few lines, so I won’t try. What I will note is that the five panellists tackled topics raised by the audience from questions of defining and quantising interdisciplinarity itself, through debates problematising disciplinary focussed vs interdisciplinary publishing outputs from a career-minded perspective alongside identifying significant emerging publishing technologies and trends. I found the discussions around the challenges of peer-review and quality assurance mechanisms and protocols within interdisciplinary publishing to be particularly exciting and varied, but such are my personal biases!

My thanks to my fabulous five panellists: Ben Schaper (Oxford), Fillipo Cervelli (SOAS), Jonathan Vickery (Warwick), Pierre Botcherby (Warwick) and Rupert Gatti (Cambridge).

Given the audiences reactions to both events, they were major successes, and I look forward to potentially reexploring these and similar issues in future EUTOPIA and Accolade events. Perhaps with a fresh set of keen academic minds!


February 20, 2024

What's Exchanges About? Your brief reminder

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/

Having a conversation this morning with my line manager, who asked me to write a few words about Exchanges and what it does and offers for use in a general promotion. Thought it might be useful to share here, as a small reminder - given people often ask me to talk (briefly) about what the journal does.

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Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journalis a non-fee charging, open-access, scholar-led, interdisciplinary journal, published twice-annuallyby Warwick’s Institute of Advanced Study(IAS) since 2013. Primarily run by and for early-career researchers (post-docs and some PGRs), it attracts articles from around the world which are read by an international and cross-disciplinary audience. Since 2020 it has increasingly published a series of highly regarded special issues, dedicated to particular themes in collaboration with scholars around the world. Alongside its publications, Exchangesalso has a particular mission supporting support early-career researchers' development of high quality authorial, reviewing and editorial skills, as contributors and collaborators, alongside various contributions to workshop and seminar events. The journal also produces a companion podcast the Exchanges Discourse, featuring author insights, publishing advice and career explorations, now entering it's fifth broadcast season.


Contact the Editor-in-Chief, Dr Gareth J Johnson(gareth.johnson@warwick.ac.uk) to learn more about Exchanges.

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Naturally, there's a whole lot more about the journal elsewhere - but if that taster above has gained your interest - get in touch!


February 15, 2024

February '24 Board Meeting Held

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/about/editorialTeam

Periodic meeting of Board and associate editors held to share updates and inputs to Exchanges

As long-time readers and contributors will be aware, Exchanges tries to keep its behind the scenes operations as relatively informal as possible, while maintaining our quality bar and editorial standards. In part, this informality helps generate a better working environment and ethos among the editorial team, and it allows them each to be able to raise any matter of concern or questions with me at any time.

Despite this, periodically, in my role as Chief Editor, I like to draw everyone together for a more formal meeting to talk through the various activities going on across the journal and its activities. The major rationale is because other than myself I suspect most of my Board and associate editors are only partially aware of the scale and scope of Exchanges’ full operations. Hence, in the interests of transparency I like to give them all a chance to periodically get up to speed, to hear about what’s new, what’s coming soon and also to air any general points of discussion.

Those who have attended any of these meetings do know I keep them relatively brief – although from time to time we do have quite extensive discussions when there’s been a recent point of particular interest. Certainly, right now, with our growing editorial family [1], we’re moving through a phase where there’s a lot of activity going on but other than me, no one is involved with it across the board. Or indeed, the Board. Hence, the need for a Board meeting was rather pressing this month I thought.

Now because it’s quite challenging to find a time when everyone can gather, given our numbers and geographic distribution, my approach these days is every six months or so to schedule a couple of Board meeting opportunities in a week. Attendance is never mandated, but encouraged, and the meetings are open to anyone working in an editorial capacity with Exchanges.

This week’s meetings went well – with a stronger attendance than we’ve had for a while, with Board and associate editors both well represented. Topics for discussion included:

  • Practical steps towards the April issue of the journal.
  • Forthcoming workshops and projects with Exchanges’ involvement.
  • Special issues in progress/under discussion.

As always it was great to be able to share what we do across the team, and also to see their faces too. [2] I am looking forward to the next Board meeting in the autumn, but also to the interim meetings I’ll be having with our associate editors working on the special issues too.

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Endnotes

[1] We currently have 39 editors, plus myself, on the team. With another dozen or so waiting in the wings as we move towards launching future special issue projects.

[2] I think we had editors based in 6 different countries in attendance – including one of our wonderful Monash based editors!


February 14, 2024

State of Play in February 2024 for Exchanges

A February update on the special issue fun and games, and everything that's going on with the journal right now.

My apologies to regular readers for neglecting the blog somewhat in recent weeks. I have had quite a busy few weeks dealing primarily with the submission deadlines for two special issues [1] coming at the end of January which has been followed by a huge wave of submission to Exchanges. I’ve also taught a couple of classes and had a filthy cold too. However, in terms of the manuscripts we have had far more submissions in a relatively short period than I’ve ever dealt with before. Certainly in all my years on the journal at least! Even our biggest issues to date – the Nerds and Cannibalism special issues, had submissions spread across a much broader period of time as I recall. In the past two weeks though with the two issues I’ve had at least 50 new articles to deal with – which for Exchanges equates to about the number we can have submitted in an entire year.

So, yes, it has been a busy old time. But I’ll say it’s been a really exciting one too. To have so many potentially fantastic papers by so many wonderful authors around the world, entrusted with the journal for consideration is deeply gratifying. It’s at times like these I wonder if Exchanges might be better off being a special issues journal all of the time, as each of these special issues have had such a high volume of contributions. Although perhaps not quite this high!

Of course, part and parcel of this workload for me has been training and supporting the small new army of associate editors we now have working on the two issues. I have to say they are all acquitting themselves superbly, and while there are a lot of questions – that is to be expected! And indeed, encouraged! I don’t expect associate editors to be able to run before they can walk, so such guidance is freely and gratefully given. It is also refreshing to have many new people working on the journal. Not only for the fresh energy and enthusiasm they bring, which they certainly do, but also for the new insights they offer. Things I might not otherwise have thought about. Elements I’ve not considered for a while. Or new perspectives from angles I might not even have otherwise taken. Consequently, they’ve gotten me thinking about a few tasks on the back end of the journal that would benefit from my attention. Tasks that otherwise might have sat on the back burner indefinitely.

We’re also in a week of Library Board and Team meetings, a chance for me to update all of the team about what’s going on broadly with Exchanges. But also for them all to reflect back on the experience and share their opinions on topics of mutual interest. There’s probably a separate post I’ll write about that next week.

In the meantime, it’s back to dealing with yet another new submission this morning. One thing I can say about February 2024 for Exchanges – it isn’t a quiet month – and all the better for it!

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Endnotes

[1] The MRC @ 50 and Research Culture issues respectively. Read about them both earlier in the blog!


January 16, 2024

New Episode: Biochar, Artificial Pollination & Multispecies Justice

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/podcast

A new year sees a new season of the Exchanges Discourse podcast launch

It hasn’t even been a month since our last episode went live, and here we are back again with more academic chat. This time our first episode of 2024 sees a return of an old friend of the journal and podcast, as geography academic Catherine Price (University of Nottingham, UK) talks about her contributions to Exchanges. Regular readers of this blog and Exchanges will recall Catherine’s not only been on the podcast before, but was our key collaborator on the Anthropocene and More-Than-Human Special issue which we published last March. She’s such a busy scholar that it’s taken us until January to find time when we could both sit down for this chat!

Listen in here:

In the episode the start by talking about Catherine’s conversation article with Sophie Chao entitled Multispecies, More-Than-Human, Nonhuman, Other-Than-Human: Reimagining idioms of animacy in an age of planetary unmaking. Incidentally, this paper was one of our most downloaded ones of 2023, and has even recently been republished in the Spanish language. If you’ve not read it yet, why not listen to Catherine’s over view of the debates it covers.

Moving on from this we then turn to Catherine’s other paper in that issue which was concerned with the question Do we need Artificial Pollination if we have Multispecies Justice in the Anthropocene? You’ll notice I manage to slide in a Black Mirror reference here – and if you know the series, you’ll know exactly which episode I’m talking about! We also take a moment to reflect back on the reception for Anthropocene and More-Than-Human-World special issue of Exchanges from last March, which was very warmly received by readers. Naturally we also talk about Catherine’s future work and, as always, close with some pointers and advice for would-be academic authors.

For more on publishing with Exchanges, see our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠online guide for authors⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Or to read Catherine’s articles, visit: https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v10i2

To help you navigate the episode – here’s the index card for when we get to each part of the discussion:

  • Timecode
  • 0:00 Opening
  • 0:47 Introductions
  • 5:19 Multispecies Paper
  • 11:30 Artificial Pollinators Paper
  • 15:15 Special Issue Reception
  • 17:40 Future Research
  • 18:55 Advice for Authors
  • 24:28 Closing & Outro

January 11, 2024

Most Accessed Podcast Episodes of 2023

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/podcast

Looking back on the most popular podcast episodes of 2023 from the Exchanges Discourse reveals a few surprises.

To paraphrase Shatner [1] ‘When it was 2023 it was a very good year. It was a very good year for author interview podcast episodes and soft academic chat’.

In 2023 I produced 13 new episodes of the Exchanges Discourse podcast, representing our fourth (!) production season. I know, I’m as surprised as you are that we’ve been going this long now - but also delighted too. Since we kicked off in the high-pandemic year [2] of 2020 with the intention to create a surrogate for the kinds of conversations we’d been having behind the scenes with authors – but were less able to enjoy so easily during the extended remote working period. Unlike a lot of things which arose during lockdown – banana bread, clapping for the NHS, panicking over the food shopping [3] – the Exchanges Discourse podcast is still alive and well.

Back in 2022 we produced 17 episodes [4] and 6hrs 49 minutes of content over the twelve months. Now you might think that with fewer episodes in 2023, this means there was less content for listeners to enjoy. Slightly less variety of voices, I’ll perhaps give you. However, checking on the episode statistics we clocked in with a grand total of 6hrs and 39 minutes of content produced - most which wasn't me talking! Hence, 2023’s podcast episodes were nothing at which to be sneezed. [5] Now if I were to make one behind the scenes observation, it concerns those conversations which continued followed the end recording. A lot of our guests, once we turned the mic off had a lot more interesting things to say - and while I enjoyed every minute, I wish I'd managed to capture them for our listeners to enjoy. So, my goal for 2024 is to try and let more episodes run longer this way.

Anyway, all this aside – what you want to know in this post are which were the most popular episodes we published this past year. As always, we pick a top five and with four episodes appearing in December I’m was curious myself to see if any of these made it into the list when I ran the stats:

Rank Title Duration Published
1 Across Two Professional Worlds: In Conversation with Intissar Haddiya 00:24:34 August 2023
2 Creating Critical Reflection Articles: The What, The Why, The How and The Where 00:23:58 January 2023
3 Environmental Humanities & Transdisciplinary Research: In Conversation with Justin Westgate 00:31:32 June 2023
4 Presidential History and Digital Pedagogies: In Conversation with Rebecca Stone 00:43:60 March 2023
5= ChatGPT, Reviewers from Hell & Linguistic Challenges: In Conversation with Beth Montague-Hellen 00:27:34 December 2023
5= Sustainability, Batteries & Pringle Cans: In Conversation with Jean Marshall 00:25:18 December 2023
5= Crossing the Creative Frontier: In Conversation with Sonakshi Srivastava 00:34:35 June 2023

Well there you go - and yes - a three way tie there for 5th place, with two of those being podcasts we launched in December! How especially gratifying to see them there, meaning a real potential for them to keep climbing up the ranks. I am personally a little delighted to see what occupies our number 1 slot, as it also happened to be the 50th episode of the podcast – which was a minor milestone all of its own. I think the one surprise for me is that my solo episode on creating critical reflections has proved so popular. I suspect, given we’ve two special issues which are critical reflection focussed, this episode likely had a bit of a boost from authors planning to submit to them. I can’t tell for certain, although I know one or two authors have mentioned listening to it ahead of submission - so there's some evidence to support this assumption.

Anyway, what was your favourite episode in our top 5? Let us know if it was, or even if it wasn’t, in the comments below!

And now on to Season 5 - which I start recording today with an author interview again. Do join me.

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Endnotes

[1] I know it’s by Sinatra originally, but I’ve only ever listened to Kirk’s version. It’s rather good. But no, I shan’t be performing it in karaoke any time soon.

[2] Rather than the pre-vaccination endemic COVID-19 pandemic we’re still experiencing.

[3] UK inflation being what it is, I don’t think this one’s gone away – it’s just evolved into a more fiscal than existential mode.

[4] 15 author interviews, two solo performances by myself

[5] For 2023 the average episode length is 30 minutes 41 seconds, for 2022 it was only 24 minutes 3 seconds – so we talked a lot more this year just passed.


January 10, 2024

Most Downloaded Articles of 2023

Follow-up to Top of the Articles: Exchanges’ Most Downloaded Articles 2022 from Exchanges Reflections: Interdisciplinary Editor Insights

The annual review of the most downloaded articles brings some new surprises and old favourites to the fore.

Welcome to 2024, a year which I suspect will be both a busy one and evolutionary one for the journal. As it traditional now, I like to start the new year by looking back at those articles which have been the most heavily accessed in the past year on the Exchanges site [1]. I always run off a report drawing this information together each October/November for our departmental IAS annual report. Naturally though, that doesn’t take into account those readers who might spend their winter holidays reading the journal! [2]. Hence, what follows is the definitive most accessed chart for the past year on Exchanges.

The following are based on downloads of the final article PDFs, rather than accesses to the top-level landing (summary) page. Consequently, they represent how many times the actual article itself has been accessed by readers.

Position Article Year: Volume (Issue) 2022 Position Type
1 Fedotov, Critical Analysis of the Electric Vehicle Industry: Five forces and strategic action fields. 2022: 10(1) #8 Article
2 Braddy, Utilizing the Octothorpe (#): Schizoanalytic cartographies recognized in War Games. 2022: 9(2) New Entry Article
3 Lewis, The Simultaneity of Loneliness and Popularity in Dear Evan Hansen. 2022: 9(3) New Entry Article
4 de Leeuw, 'A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism': Julia Ducournau’s Raw and Bataillean Horror. 2020: 7(2) #3 Article
5 Benhamou et al., From the Advent of Multiculturalism to the Elision of Race: The Representation of Race Relations in Disney Animated Features (1995-2009) 2014: 2(1) #2 Criticial Reflection
6 Varwell, A Literature Review of Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation: Lessons for contemporary student engagement. 2022: 10(1) New Entry Review Article
7 Price et al., Multispecies, More-Than-Human, Nonhuman, Other-Than-Human: Reimagining idioms of animacy in an age of planetary unmaking. 2023: 10(2) New Entry Conversation
8 Schaper, Conquering the Meatspace: The lonely nerd in David Fincher’s The Social Network (2010) and Baran bo Odar’s Who Am I (2014). 2022: 9(3) New Entry Article
9 Opaluwah, Participatory Development: A Tool of Pedagogy. 2016: 4(1) New Entry Review Article
10 Khair Allah, Review: The Body in Twilight: Representation of the Human Body, Sexuality and Struggle in Contemporary Arab Art. 2023: 11(1) New Entry Book Review

Looking at the chart I can see how once again we have a very healthy range of new entries appearing. Many of these are from the past two years of Exchanges’ publications, with perhaps a smaller than normal smattering of old ‘classics’ in the list. That said, last year’s #8 has leapt up – considerably – to become our number one most accessed article of 2023. A round of applause for that article and its author! [3] It was also nice to see our newest submission format (book reviews) having a day in the sunshine with one of these articles popping up in our top 10 for 2023. I think that clearly demonstrates this kind of article is a welcome addition to Exchanges, from our readers' perspective.

You can check out the statistics for yourself this and every article if you are interested – we always make the last 12 months of information publicly available. It is, you will see, a long way clear of the second placed article – which indicates a very healthy and laudable level of readership.

In contrast to last year where there was a fine balance between peer-reviewed and editorially reviewed formats, this year the top 10 chart is very heavily dominated by peer-reviewed publications (7:3): which must be very rewarding for authors and reviewers alike given the long hours they will have worked on these pieces. That isn’t to say it isn’t challenging to get one of the editorially-reviewed pieces into print, but it is a much longer labour for the peer-reviewed texts!

Will any of these articles appear in 2024’s most downloaded articles chart? I bet a couple at least will, but we shall have to see what this year brings. With potentially 5 new issues of Exchanges scheduled for publication this year, all bets for now are well and truly off. We shall have to see who next year’s top dogs are in another 365 or so days. [4]

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Endnotes

[1] I did give away a few hard copies of the journal, but not to any degree that would have impacted on these statistics.

[2] I am not entirely kidding – I know we had an article submission on Christmas eve for example, long after I’d ‘downed tools’ for the year.

[3] I should note the author did an excellent job of sharing their article on social media over a protracted period last year, which I suspect helped them no end. My advice to authors – never be shy of sharing your research publications via your socials!!!

[4] There are an estimated 60-70 articles anticipated to appear across these issues, so there will be a lot of competition.


December 21, 2023

Well, That About Wraps It Up for 2023: Reflecting back on the year that was

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/exchangeshistory

The Editor-in-Chief takes a look back over the year that was for Exchanges

Santa GooseIt has been a year, and what a year it has been for the Exchanges journal as we celebrated ten years of publication. It has certainly been a very busy year, with three issues of the journal published and no fewer than five issues currently underway for publication in one degree or another. It’s also been a year when our special issue programme really took off, and if certain potential projects are funded, we’ll be able to expand what we considerably. Which means behind the scenes we’ve been welcoming and training more associate editors than ever before.

Certainly, there have been some particular highlights worthy of especial attention. First among these was the launch back in February of our monthly email newsletter, which lets subscribers [1] keep up to date with the month to month operations of the journal. If you want to make sure you know what’s happening with Exchanges, and where there are opportunities to contribute or get involved, sign up for the newsletter is a great way to do that. Alongside that we saw those three issues, one of which celebrated the end of a two-year collaboration with the universities of Delft and Nottingham – it was very well received by the readership.

Collaborations, Publications & New Pages

Looking more to the future, 2023 was also the year we established two productive collaborations, firstly with the National Centre for Research Culture(NCRC) and secondly with Warwick’s Modern Records Centre(MRC). If plans come to fruition, the NCRC collaboration may be a longer-term engagement too, going beyond the production and publication of a single issue. Watch this space [2] for more details as and when that arrives as this is exciting news for the whole Exchanges team. Speaking of the team, we were also pleased this past year to welcome four new Editorial Board members, including the first new member from Monash University in four years. This was because we’d said farewell to a number of longstanding Board Members as their careers and lives moved on, and so we wished them well in their future endeavours. [3]

Mid-year we were delighted to launch a new suit of pages on and about Exchanges on our host department’s, the IAS (Institute for Advanced Study), website. We used to have a page but, this was pulled a few years ago – so having an enlarged space to talk about the journal was only to our advantage. Have a look if you haven’t already, as you may be surprised by what you find, especially in regard to what our editors, Board and associates actually do.

Social Media, Guidance & Podcasting

There were a few minor developments too – we rolled out alternatives to the Twitter/X microblogging sites with accounts on Mastodon and Bluesky.Social, which are both slowly building a following. We – and I should really say ‘I’ here – finally found time to not only update our editorial guidance handbooks, but also revise and refresh all our online author guidance as well. This was a task long in the delivery, and I was pleased to at last have a little time spare to tackle it, as it has sat on my ‘to do list’ for far, far too long for my personal taste. If you’ve not had a look as of yet and are thinking of submitting to us in 2024, I’d really encourage you to go have a good glance over the guidance. I hope you find it helpful![4]

The Exchanges Discourse podcast continued from strength to strength as well, with 13 episodes largely dedicated to interviews with past authors, but also a few focussing in on what makes a good critical reflection or conversation, and our most recent special issue call for contributions too. This marks the fourth season of the podcast(!), and I can’t believe that next year marks our fifth year of producing it – at times it still feels like a new idea! [5] I’ve already got one interview lined up for early 2024, with a second one pending the author’s availability, so there’s plenty of content still to come. We also hosted a range of symposium, workshops and seminars covering topics from publication strategies, effective editorial and reviewing work, book publication and publishing for post-graduate researchers. Each of these sessions was varied, and often called upon old ‘friends’ of the journal to contribute as panellists – to whom I’d like to add a note of thanks!

Behind Closed Doors

Of course, like an iceberg, much of what Exchanges does – and certainly what I get up to on a daily, weekly and monthly basis – is hidden ‘beneath the water’, in terms of keeping the wheels spinning, supporting my editors, liaising with authors and reviewers alike. 2023 saw the first year the Warwick University Press Journals group came together to seriously discuss some of the challenges we all face running our journals, and to explore routes in which the institution and ourselves could work smarter, better and more effectively. While more concrete developments here are still pending senior stakeholder buy-in, I’ve already been talking about a phase II piece of related work with one of my fellow chief editors, which bodes well for the medium to long term health of Exchanges and the WUP itself too.

And this doesn’t even touch on all the work I do promoting the journal in one way or another in conversations, personal appearances and in promotional materials. It might be less ‘note-worthy’ and even arguably ‘less tangible' in visibility but by Grabthar’s Hammer, if we didn’t do it – all the other stuff wouldn’t happen.[6]

Looking Ahead

So yes, undoubtedly a busy, busy year with many successes. But as we head into the new year, and the 11th of publication for Exchanges, we are not resting on our laurels. This is certainly because 2024 is shaping up to be even busier, so rest isn’t on the agenda for now! [7]

So I do hope you’ll be joining us, contributing or attending one of our events next year, or maybe even simply listening to our podcasts or reading the journal. I’m sure you’ll find it well worth your time.

Other than that, on behalf of the Board and associates, thanks for reading, and see you in the new year.[8]

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Endnotes

[1] In the sense they join the list, there’s no charge for the newsletter, naturally. :)

[2] The blog in general that is, not this actual specific post. But then you probably knew that already.

[3] It may be too early to tell, but I’d expect to see more new Board members in 2024 – assuming any of the current long-standing members feel the time is right to depart.

[4] If it’s not helpful – let me know too, as I’m always interested in areas of information we can improve upon or better clarify.

[5] There are plans – hush hush and TBC at the moment – to launch a new podcast series associated with Exchanges. But I’ll talk more about that if and when I can.

[6] Does the university get a fair ROI out of their investment in me and the journal? I’d argue they do magnificently well! Of course, were they to invest more, we could do so much more of course.

[7] Christmas/New Year vacation time aside that is.

[8] By a strange freak of nature, this makes the 44th entry for the blog this year...tying us with last year! How many posts in 2024? Possibly just as many...if not more!


December 20, 2023

Exploring the Queerness as Strength Call for Papers

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/podcast

One last podcast for 2023 looks at our exciting new special issue call

There’s always room for one more – podcast episode that is! Bringing 2023 to a close I am pleased to say we have a fabulous conversation to share with you between the highly energised Jacob Thomas (Monash University, Australia) and myself. Jacob’s our newest Editorial Board member, but they are also the special issue lead for our Queerness as Strength future issue which we announced a week or so ago. At the time I promised you a behind the scenes look at the issue – and here it is! Listen in to our conversations here:

So, in this episode we talk about Jacob’s life, work and passions and how these have informed their proposed special issue call. As such we explore the ideas and hopes behind the call, along with considering some of the areas of discussion and insight we hope to see coming from contributors. Naturally, Jacob and myself both of us expected to be surprised, challenged and delighted by the variety of topics authors will be choosing to tackle.

We talk too about our concerns in making sure how members of the ‘global majority’ and other marginalised voices can find a place in our pages – ideally aiding in rebalancing some of the prevailing global north narratives or experiences. Our conversation also touches on how the issue resonates with Exchanges mission to bring forth and celebrate emerging debate, discussion and insights, in a thrilling way.

Naturally, the episode includes some guidance on how to get involved with the call and submit your expressions of interest by the deadline. You could of course just read the call for expressions of interest via the link below, but I think you’ll find it comes to life far more when you read in and listen to the podcast too!

To skip to the most relevant part of the episode – here’s an index to our discussions.

Timecode

  • 0:00 Opening
  • 0:50 Introductions
  • 3:38 Exploring the Call
  • 4:55 Inspirations & Origins
  • 8:05 Alignment with Exchanges’ Mission
  • 11:47 Globality & Representation
  • 14:45 Why Submit to this Issue?
  • 17:58 Authentic Lives & Experiences
  • 22:17 Practicalities & Deadlines
  • 26:06 Closing & Outro

For more on publishing with Exchanges generally, see our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠online guide for authors⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

And I’ll see you all back here tomorrow for an end of year wrap up post – bring games and snacks, it’s the last working day of 2023!


March 2024

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