All 5 entries tagged Special

Call for Papers: Climate Fiction, Friction & Fact

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/announcement/view/17

Following the Utopia, Dystopia and Climate ChangeUtopian Studies Society conference, attended by myself in an editorial capacity, we are delighted to announce a call for contributions to a special issue entitled ‘Climate Fiction, Friction & Fact’. The special issue, which is scheduled for publication in late 2020, explore interdisciplinary issues and perspectives relating, but not limited to, the conference themes (helpfully summarised in the call).

Excitingly, while we hope that many of the early career and PhD researchers attending the conference will consider submitting a manuscript, the call is open to all. So, if you were unable to attend the conference but would still love to write something for us - you can!

You can read the formal call for papers here or download the full details directly. Authors looking to contribute have a deadline of the end of November 2019 to submit a manuscript for consideration for this issue. I'm really looking forward to seeing the variety of submissions for this as it couldn't be a more timely and pressing topic.

Meanwhile, for those of you interested in our other special issue already in progress, I'm pleased to report that most of the manuscripts are either in the middle of peer review or undergoing author revisions at the moment. My thanks to all the authors, reviewers and editors working on these over the summer - your efforts are much appreciated. My especially thank to Giulia and Zac for their advice and support in pulling this call together.

Of course we still have two other open calls for papers for our in-between spaces themedcall, and our general open call for papers. So, even if cli-fi isn't really your thing, but you wanted a great journal to work with to publish - then Exchanges should really be your destination!

Gareth Johnson : 15 Aug 2019 11:58 |  Tags: Call Clifi Climate Fiction Issue Papers Special Submissions |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Après Nous, Le Déluge

The title of this post, drawn from an expression attributed to Madame de Pompadour, traditionally refers to a tipping point, a moment after which unremitting chaos will rain down. Truth be told, it’s actually nothing as disastrous as that in the world of Exchanges today (thankfully). Rather it’s the delight of opening up the OJS submissions list and discovering a large number of new manuscript submissions awaiting me and my editorial team’s scrutiny. I was rather expecting these, given they’re all manuscripts linked to one of our forthcoming special issues, as we have just passed the submission deadline last week.

Nevertheless, it’s a bit more than our normal weekly ingest of new works. Not to mention I’m aware of at least four more authors for the issue who’ve been in touch to ask for brief extensions. Hence, I’m anticipating a few more works as part of the tail end of the ‘deluge’ still to come.

For a relatively small academic journal like Exchanges, getting a large number of manuscripts submissions in a short period of time represents both a blessing and a challenge; in that our processes don’t normally have to cope with this level of new works. However, I’m more confident that myself and the rest of the team will rise to the occasion splendidly, and really is a genuine pleasure to see all this new scholarship potentially heading for our pages.

I do find myself musing though, that I hope the start of every week from hereon out won’t be like this…as I might need to do some drastic rethinking on how we operate the journal.

Gareth Johnson : 04 Jun 2019 11:12 |  Tags: Cannibalism Ingest Issue Special Submissions |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Welcoming our Special Edition Associate Editors

I had the pleasure this morning of spending a couple of hours training my newest members of my Exchanges Editorial Team. Sophie, Giulia and Fiona are post-graduate researchers based here at Warwick who will be supporting the production of our forthcoming Cannibalism: Bites Here & There special issue, scheduled for publication in early 2020. My hope is, like the members of the Editorial Board, that these three will not only contribute to Exchanges but have an excellent learning experience at the sharp end of publication. They’ll be working alongside and supplementing the work of my regular Board members, whom I’m sure will be supportive and grateful in equal measure for the newcomers’ contributions.

I strongly suspect that if all the papers relating to this issue for which I’ve received abstracts (30 and counting) are submitted as manuscripts, then I may well be recruiting a few more willing helpers onto the team. It’s great because this kind of community involvement really helps satisfy part of Exchanges remit as an academic training resource for emerging scholars, alongside its regular dissemination mission. I expect exciting and insightful times lie ahead for us all over the next few months as we pull the issue together.

Gareth Johnson : 10 Apr 2019 14:22 |  Tags: Cannibalism Editors Issue Special Training |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Some Very Special Issues

Regular readers of this editorial blog will recall I mentioned we’d been approached to host two special issues. Well I can happily confirm these are both going ahead. The first will be drawing on papers from the Bites Here and There conference, hosted here at Warwick last November. If all the interested authors who’ve submitted abstracts for my interest produce papers, we’ll have a bumper special issue towards the end of 2019, early 2020 with around 28 papers in it. Even if only get half of these as publishable manuscripts, I think it’ll still make for a really excellent edition of the journal. The other special issue will be drawing on the Utopia, Dystopia and Climate Change Conference, being held in sunny Prato, Italy this July. There’s the potential for as many papers (if not more) to come out of this conference, which makes me doubly excited that Exchanges has such a valuable part to play in facilitating scholarly and interdisciplinary discourse.

Okay, I’m also more than a little excited because I’ve been invited to speak at a pre-conference panel about Exchanges and scholar-led publishing, which means I’ll get to experience some of the conference first hand. It’ll also mean I get to speak with many of the potential authors about their publication plans too, an opportunity something I always value.

Needless to say, with these publications coming in alongside our regular submissions and issues, it looks like being a busy couple of years for Exchanges!

Gareth Johnson : 21 Feb 2019 16:13 |  Tags: Cannibalism Change Climate Issues Special |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

New Year, New Content

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas/winter [1] break. This is my fifth day back in the Exchanges saddle, although only my second one in the office due to conference attendance [2] and a spot of working from home. Always nice to be back at the IAS here in (currently not very) sunny Coventry though, as I find it’s a powerful and inspirational location at which to work.

My first day back on site last week was one filled with meetings, not least of which was our semi-regular departmental team meeting [3]. So packed with meetings in fact, that I actually forgot to take a lunch break – whoops! Two meetings that day standout in particular. The first was a long and perhaps rather rhizomal conversation with one of my editorial board (hello Marcos). It’s always a real pleasure to spend some time with my editors in person, and their generosity in talking about their own research, teaching, careers and lives represents a particular honour. Part of what Marcos and I were talking about though, were some ideas we’d sketched out before Christmas around some invited bilingual submissions for a future issue of Exchanges. I can say, it is (fairly) early days with regards to this, but I think it looks like there’s some genuine interest in this from our contacts, so it’s quite exciting.

Later in the day I also had the chance to chat at length with a visiting lecturer in critical safety systems (and oddly expert in Viking culture, literature and life), from the University of York. She’s an old friend of mine, and she’d taken the time between lectures to pop in for tea and a chat. Once again the topic of contributions to the journal came up, and quickly it emerged there was a sense her own students (home and abroad) could benefit from a guest appearance from yours truly to talk about the wonders of publishing with Exchanges. And maybe even contributing to the journal, as I’m sure they’d have some wonderful contributions to make. Fingers crossed something comes of this, as there’s nothing I like more than talking with post-graduate and early career researchers about publishing opportunities.

That was enough for one day, but I’ve been delighted since then again, as on Monday this week I received a further approach from some literature scholars wanting to explore publishing a special issue through Exchanges. I’m very much looking forward to some longer conversations about this next week, but if this and the bilingual issue come off, there’s a very exciting 2020 in terms of new content, original thought and valuable additions to the research discourse ahead of us.

All in all, I’m sure you’ll agree a great start to the new year. Don’t forget I’m always happy to talk to potential authors (or groups of authors) about future submissions, special issues or where academic publishing is going these days. Just drop me a line. In the meantime, I’m going back now to continue writing some new marketing material for Exchanges, and planning my communications for scholars workshop for next month.

[1] Or summer, if you’re part of my southern hemisphere readership/editorial team!

[2] Understanding the Social in a Digital Age, UEA, Norwich. Delightfully for once I wasn't speaking!

[3] Probably less of interest to readers, but all the same a very handy way to keep up with what’s going on here in the IAS

Gareth Johnson : 15 Jan 2019 14:36 |  Tags: Articles Content Issues New Publishing Special Submissions |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem