Issue 8.3 of Exchanges Published!

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/issue/view/40

It is suggested that Christmas [1] is the most wonderful time of the year. I would argue for journal editors it is the small, fleeting moments following the publication of their latest issue. For a brief moment the headaches, niggles and concerns of encouraging authors, coaxing reviewers and corralling editors at large are behind them, and they can bask in the tiny amount of reflected glory that publication allows. It never lasts, because even as I’m writing these words, my thoughts are already turning to what I need to be doing to move forward with our next issue, how to promote this one, and perhaps most importantly of all, encouraging more authors to contribute their work to the journal. That latter one never really ends, so my apologies if you meet me in the flesh [2] and I go all misty eyes and enthusing about something you’re working on potentially appearing in Exchanges.

However, for now, huzzah and my grateful thanks to too many people to mention for helping to get the journal out the door once more. In case you’re wondering what’s in the issue – he’s the inside cover copy to give you a taste:

This is the eighteenth issue of Exchanges, published in May 2021. This regular issue brings an assortment of articles, reflections and discussions to our interdisciplinary readership. Articles in this issue tackle topics which include: Gandhi’s musical legacy, the #MeToo movement’s impact on society, artificial intelligence in the legal profession, amateur stock trading activism and questions of ethics in academic publication. The issue’s editorial also provides a range of guidance and key areas of consideration for first time academic authors from an editorial perspective, alongside reminding readers of the various routes through which they can contribute to and engage with the journal.

Link to: https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/issue/view/40

DOI: https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v8i3

As always comments, collaborations or invitations to talk about the journal in all its multicoloured wonderment are always gratefully received.

---

[1] Please do substitute your own, preferred, culturally uplifting annual celebration.

[2] One day, maybe even soon…

Gareth Johnson : 06 May 2021 15:45 |  Tags: 2021 Exchanges Issue May New Publication |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Communities & Communication Conference – April 2021

Writing about web page https://553f53b1-7a4c-4403-8bce-421ef7bc549f.filesusr.com/ugd/fe0c46_47e045df34e94dbab2ca5df70dfbfe6c.pdf

Last week, well Saturday [1] to be precise, I was a speaker at Staffordshire Universities Communities and Communication: Interdisciplinary international Conference and Festival. I was there to present a paper with the elegant title [2] of The Transformative Evolution of an Early Career Researcher Editorial Community. In essence, I aimed to briefly explore the configuration of our long-running institutionally based open-access, interdisciplinary journal published by the Institute of Advanced Study at the University of Warwick.

If you weren’t at the conference, you missed what was a very engaging and varied day. Alongside a series of insightful keynotes, there were two streams of breakout sessions looking at different aspects of ‘communities’ from local, to performative, through institutional and those in a learning configuration. It was in this latter category that my paper featured. Personally, a real highlight of the day was the keynote from Nicola Twemlow Who Knows Best: The Value in Communities. While Nicola had a lot of inspiring things to share from her own experience and activities, she also introduced me to the rather useful participation tool Vevox. Seeing a living, evolving world cloud appear organically from the delegates during Nicola’s talk, gave me some ideas on how to pep up some future training engagements of my own.

In terms of my own contribution, the paper began by exploring the genesis of the Exchanges journal, and the history of our editorial community. From its beginnings as a small collective offshoot from our local Early Career Fellows (ECF) programme in 2013, through to its international, expanded representational membership today. Interestingly, for the first time anywhere, I put together a potted history of how the journal had changed over time, which required a little bit of background digging in our archives, combined with a few conversations with longer standing Editorial Board members.

My discussions continued through an exploration of the special issues which have served to bolster and reconfigure our activities since the beginning of 2019. In particular, I illustrated how our title’s developmental and discourse twin missions resonated with this new direction for the title, alongside seeing a resultant revalorisation of our work in the eyes of our publishing institution. The paper offered a few suggestions about the tangible benefits perceived through our associate editors’ programme, stemming from a series of semi-structured interviews held with the post holders, considering what relevance their insights offered in terms of future projects, editorial training and scheme recruitment.

Moreover, the paper concluded with a brief examination of the unique operational, ideological and communicative challenges faced by the journal. Part of me feels this section in particular could be problematised in another paper at a future event, although likely to a different audience. Finally, the talk wrapped up with a few brief thoughts on the lessons learned by the journal, alongside its emerging new priorities and future plans.

While not the most ground-breaking of talks, it was deeply fulfilling to have the paper warmly received by the hosts and delegates to the conference. Hopefully, there will be a recording of the paper made live in the near future, but for the paper’s title link above will take you to the slides.

Overall, then, despite the (common) technically challenges faced by running online events, with participants around the globe using variable machine configurations, the hosts handled everything with good humour and great aplomb. If anything, they managed to convey a sense of calm, cool, and connected operations managing things behind the scenes – although from my own experience I expect this means they were all running themselves ragged to give such a polished performance. Certainly, in marked contrast with my somewhat frustrating experiences at the IATL conference the previous week, I had a seamless presentation experience, despite falling over my own words a few times. And as a delegate, access to papers and sessions was near faultless!

I think my one regret was not having any time to take part in the ‘random networking’ opportunities, and while ‘chat roulette’ might not have been everyone’s cup of tea, it was a great innovation to try and engender a feeling of ‘presence’ at a virtual event. My thanks therefore, to all the organisers and speakers alike for a day it was worth taking out of my weekend!

---

[1] I remain baffled while culture and communications conference always seem to be hosted at the weekend! It doesn’t seem to be ‘a thing’ in the STEM disciplines.

[2] IMHO at least. It tied the paper into the conference theme quite neatly.

Gareth Johnson : 27 Apr 2021 11:24 |  Tags: Conference Editorial Experience Paper Staffordshire |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

In Conversation with…Urmee Chakma

Writing about web page https://anchor.fm/exchangesias/episodes/A-Conversation-with---Urmee-Chakma-evgqfv

Perfect for a Friday, here's an all new episode of the Exchanges Discourse podcast. This time I'm talking with doctoral candidate Urmee Chakma, from the Faculty of Education at Monash University about her recent publication with the Exchanges journal. We also talk about the challenges of teaching English to speakers of other languages, and her advice for authors approaching publication for the first time.

https://anchor.fm/exchangesias/episodes/A-Conversation-with---Urmee-Chakma-evgqfv

Enjoy!

Gareth Johnson : 23 Apr 2021 16:41 |  Tags: Discourse Episode Exchanges Podcast |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Experiential Learning Impacts for Post–Graduates within Scholar–Led Editorial Practice

Writing about web page https://youtu.be/-dm52GoW5FY

Today I attended the Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching Conference: 'Interdisciplinarity: Learning from Each Other', hosted online by IATL. I was supposed to be delivering a paper entitled Experiential Learning Impacts for Post-Graduates within Scholar-Led Editorial Practice, but sadly technical challenges were to frustrate my live performance. A real shame, as the twin pleasures of delivering a conference paper are in the transmission of information to the audience, but crucially, the comments and questions which follow. As an author I was talking to recently commented ‘It’s about testing the water, refining your ideas and exploring possibilities with your peers’, which is truly an invaluable experience.

Not to be entirely frustrated, having slaved over the content during the Easter break, I recorded the narrated slides. So you can enjoy fifteen minutes of me talking about Exchanges, our associate editors and some of the challenges we face as a journal. The link to YouTube can be found below:

• https://youtu.be/-dm52GoW5FY

As always, comments and thoughts warmly invited.

Gareth Johnson : 15 Apr 2021 16:33 |  Tags: Conference Interdisciplinarity Paper Recording Video |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

New Podcast Episode: A Conversation with…Doro Wiese

Writing about web page https://anchor.fm/exchangesias/episodes/A-Conversation-withDoro-Wiese-etulpf

Delighted once more we have a new episode of The Exchanges Discourse live for your listening pleasure. This time I'm in conversation with Dr Doro Wiese about her work and publications. Doro’s one of our WIRL-COFUND fellows, based in the IAS and the School of Languages and Culture, and I will confess was an absolute to delight to chat with. I only regret I didn’t keep the recording going, as we talked almost as long once the interview finished about reviewing activities and the foibles therein. Possibly, we’ll need to come back to that in a later episode.

A Conversation with...Doro Wiese

I’m also please to say I’ve got one future guest already signed up for after the Easter break, and a couple of others who are looking to find gaps in their schedules to chat with me on the record. Of course, we also have a new batch of IAS fellows coming along in April, so who knows, we may have some of these bright sparks looking to have a podcast chat as well.

Naturally, while we’ve been a bit ‘Warwick centric’ with the podcast guests, we always welcome approaches from academics near and far to come on the show. Drop me a line if you’d like to talk about your publishing, to an interdisciplinary audience with an interest in early career scholar development.

Gareth Johnson : 31 Mar 2021 15:59 |  Tags: Author Episode Interview Podcast Publication Research |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Lonely Nerds Workshop: Speaker Biographies

Follow-up to Lonely Nerds Special Issue Workshop from Exchanges Reflections: Interdisciplinary Editor Insights

Today and tomorrow, Exchanges is co-hosting the Lonely Nerds workshop. You can find out more about the programme via this link to an earlier entry. Here though, for more information about who will be presenting their work during the event are the speaker biographies.

Speaker	Paper	Session	Biography
Benjamin Schaper	Conquering the Meatspace: The Reception of David Fincher’s The Social Network (2010) in Baran bo Odar’s Who am I (2014)	Session 1, Friday 12th	Benjamin Schaper is a Stipendiary Lecturer in German at the University of Oxford. He previously taught at the Universities of Munich and Durham and was a Sylvia Naish Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Modern Languages Research in London. His postdoc project analyses loneliness and human-machine interaction in Romanticism, Modernism, and the Digital Age. He is further editing a volume on German cultural history in transnational film and television and has an interest in literary networks.
Filippo Cervelli	Saved by the Nerd: Otaku and the Space of Family in Summer Wars	Session 2, Friday 12th	Dr Filippo Cervelli is a Senior Teaching Fellow in Modern and Contemporary Japanese Literature at SOAS, University of London. His research is broadly concerned with representations of individual and social crises in contemporary Japanese literature and popular culture. He completed his PhD in Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford in 2018, with a thesis exploring immediacy and the emphasis on the present in contemporary Japanese novels, manga and anime.
Kwasu D. Tembo	The Jackal and the Genius: Jake Gyllenhall's Representation of the Pathology of the Occidental Nerd in Nightcrawler and Donnie Darko	Session 2, Friday 12th	Kwasu David Tembo is a PhD graduate from the University of Edinburgh’s Language, Literatures, and Cultures department. His research interests include – but are not limited to – comics studies, literary theory and criticism, philosophy, particularly the so-called “prophets of extremity” – Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, and Derrida. He has published on Christopher Nolan's The Prestige, in The Cinema of Christopher Nolan: Imagining the Impossible, ed. Jacqueline Furby and Stuart Joy (Columbia UP, 2015), and on Superman, in Postscriptum: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Literary Studies (2017).
Carolin Fleischer-Heininger	Lonely Heisei Japan: On Murakami Ryū's In za miso sūpu	Session 2, Friday 12th	M.A. (Magister Artium) in theatre studies (major), German literature, Japanese studies. Doctoral candidate and research associate at LMU Munich. Dissertation deals with: Terayama Shûji (1935–1983); writer, theatre and film maker; key figure of the counter culture in postwar Japan
Natalia Rumak	Sherlock And Sha:rokku: Detectives With ASD. Will East And West Ever Meet?	Session 3, Saturday 13th	PhD in linguistics (2007). Graduated the Institute of African and Asian studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University in 2000, majored in Japanese language and International Economic Relations. Defended PhD thesis on the problem of translating Japanese onomatopoetic words into Russian, field of scientific research – translation, semantics, teaching methods of Japanese language. Author of the Japanese-Russian dictionary of onomatopoetic words, a teach-yourself guide on Japanese language and guidebooks on Japanese onomatopoetic words and numerals. Also published several articles on translation and semantic problems of Japanese onomatopoeia and a number of articles on problems of Japanese language education (in Russian).
Rebecca Lewis	The Fear of Belonging: The Simultaneity of Loneliness and Popularity in Dear Evan Hansen	Session 3, Saturday 13th	Rebecca Lewis is a doctoral researcher at the University of Westminster in London. Her thesis focuses on cultural policy, globalisation and representation in the South Korean television industry. Her further research interests are in audience studies and cultural production, particularly in relation to young adults and teenagers.
Daniele Durante	From Misfit to Leader: Towards a Revisionist Representation of Otaku and Hikikomori in Japanese Video Game Persona 5	Session 3, Saturday 13th	Born and raised in Rome, Italy, I have studied Japanese language and literature at "Sapienza" University. Currently, I'm enrolled in the PhD program of the same institution for a research on the representation of male same-sex love in Japanese court literature. So far I have been to Japan to take part in two study and research programs. My area of interest includes the history of sexuality, Japanese classical literature, and Japanese contemporary popular culture.
Janée N. Burkhalter	‘Gus, don’t be the comma in Earth, Wind & Fire’: Understanding Psych’s (sometimes) lonely blerd Burton Guster	Session 4, Saturday 13th	Janée N. Burkhalter, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Marketing and the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs in the Erivan K. Haub School of Business at Saint Joseph’s University, USA. Dr. Burkhalter teaches and researches at the intersection of entertainment, marketing strategy and social media. She is a marketing scholar, educator and strategist with practical experience in marketing communications, career services, entrepreneurship, diversity & inclusion
Sharon Coleclough	So Many Ways to be an Outsider – “Nerdism” and Ethnicity as Signifiers of Otherness	Session 4, Saturday 13th	Dr. Sharon Coleclough completed her PhD in Cinematic Performance at the University of Salford in 2014. A Senior Lecturer in Film Production and Sound Design at Staffordshire University, her work combines the theory and practice of moving image production; focussing upon the ways in which meaning is created through the technical application of craft. Recent publications consider the relationship of BAME actors to lighting and camera for Viewfinder Magazine with an inspiring lecture series submission requested by Learning on Screen on the same subject. Sharon works internationally on a collaborative digital project, “The Laptop Tour” which considers the ways performance can be realised through the use of technology.
Alena Cicholewski	A place where everybody is a legendary hero… and a total dork” – Representing the American Nerd Community as an Antidote to Loneliness in G. Willow Wilson’s Ms. Marvel Comics (2014-2019)	Session 4, Saturday 13th	Alena teaches at the Institute for English and American Studies at the University of Oldenburg (Germany), where she completed her PhD in English literature in 2020. Her research interests include, but are not limited to, Afrofuturism and postcolonial science fiction and graphic novels.
Marta Fanasca	Communicating isolation and sexual negotiation: Nagata Kabi’s My Lesbian Experience with loneliness	Session 5, Saturday 13th	Marta Fanasca obtained her PhD in Japanese Studies at The University of Manchester and she is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The Higher School of Economics, Saint Petersburg. Her work investigates gender performativity, Female to male (dansō) crossdressing and the commodification of intimacy in contemporary Japan. She has published several articles focused on the dansō phenomenon in Japan. Her research interests involve and put together Japanese contemporary culture and pop-culture, queer theory, gender and media studies.
Christopher Smith	Consumable Bodies, Consumable Self: The Queer Potential of Otaku Subjectivity in Kio Shimoku’s Genshiken	Session 5, Saturday 13th	Christopher Smith received a PhD in Japanese literature from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and is currently an Assistant Professor of Modern Japanese Literature at the University of Florida, where he teaches courses on modern Japanese literature, manga, and anime. His research focuses on postwar Japanese literature, particularly contemporary literature (Heisei-Reiwa), as well as Japanese pop culture, including manga and anime. He is especially interested in examining how literature and culture represents, manipulates, and ultimately plays with Japanese history, examined through the lenses of nationalism, national identity, the historical legitimation of power, and postmodernism. He recently published a translation of Tanaka Yasuo’s Somehow, Crystal (Kurodahan Press).

Get in touch if you'd like to attend, and haven't already registered - there's no charge!

Gareth Johnson : 12 Mar 2021 11:29 |  Tags: Biographies Issue Lonely Nerds Speaker Special Workshop |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Publishing Strategy Accolade Session

This week, Exchanges is hosting a session on the IAS’ Accolade researcher development programme loosely titled ‘developing your publication strategy’ (Thu 4^th March). I’m delighted that for once I’m only hosting the panel rather than being the main speaker. Instead, we’ll be joined by a range of other academics from both the institution and beyond to share their insights, thoughts and advice on the publication experience. I’m hopeful we’ll have a lively debate.

As part of this session, we’re also inviting questions to be put to the panel ahead of time via email or on Teams. Naturally, people are more than welcome to suggest questions ‘from the floor’ on the day in person or via chat too. Hence, if you’ve got a burning query all ready to go – don’t keep it to yourself, but get in touch.

I’ll try and capture some of the essence of the session for a later blog post – or at least as much as one can when one’s the session chair (never easy to take notes then!).

Gareth Johnson : 03 Mar 2021 11:04 |  Tags: Accolade Publishing Questions Strategy Workshop |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem

Lonely Nerds Special Issue Workshop

Through its analysis of artistic takes on nerds, our issue aims to intervene in the debate about technologies' and popular media’s influence on social bonds, with a particular focus on loneliness. We suggest a broad understanding of loneliness that includes a wide range of societal issues such as stances vis-à-vis society, the positionality of nerds within or outside of it, their intergroup behaviour dynamics and belonging, their feeling of loneliness both derived from physical and/or emotional isolation, or even conceptualised as loneliness within a group. The issue will hence analyse varying cultural representations of the nerd’s relationship with society in order to critically discuss how various art forms approach the notion of the “lonely nerd”.

We want to ask questions such as: Can we still find common characteristics in representations that are not overtly about nerds? Is loneliness inextricable from any representation of nerds, or do we see narratives where nerds actually become, quite anticanonically, the centre of their community, as small as it may be? And if so, what do these representations tell us about their culture? Are they representational? If this is the case, how can it be used to interrogate relevant phenomena of isolation and loneliness in general? Possible topics include, but are not limited to, fictional explorations of nerds and loneliness (Call for papers, Exchanges, 2020)

------------------------------------------------------------

We’re delighted to announce a two-day workshop as part of our preparations for our ‘lonely nerds’ special issue, to be hosted by the Institute of Advanced Study, University of Warwick, Friday and Saturday 12th/13th March. This online event will be a chance to hear papers from the authors contributing to this special issue on a range of topics concerning the representations of nerds in cultural milieu around the world.

Hosted by myself, in partnership with Dr Ben Schaper (University of Oxford) and Dr Filippo Cervelli (SOAS, University of London), it will be two highly engaging, insightful and challenging talks given by speakers from around the globe on a diverse and fascinating topic.

To reserve your place contact: exchangesjournal@warwick.ac.uk. There is no fee for attending.

[Edit: Biographies of the speakers are now available]

Event Schedule (Fri 12^th-Sat 13^th March)

------------------------------------------------------------

Friday (Day One)

15.00 Welcome

15:15-16:45 Session 1

• Guido Furci (Paris 3, Sorbonne Nouvelle): Through the Nerdish Glass: Rereading Antiheroes in Modern Italian Culture
• Benjamin Schaper (University of Oxford): Conquering the Meatspace: The Reception of David Fincher’s The Social Network (2010) in Baran bo Odar’s Who am I (2014)
• Aneesh Barai (University of Sheffield): Child detectives, specialist knowledge and the sociable genius: Detective Conan and adult-child identities

16.45 Tea break

17:15-18:45 Session 2

• Filippo Cervelli (SOAS, University of London): Saved by the Nerd: Otaku and the Space of Family in Summer Wars
• Kwasu D. Tembo (Independent Researcher): The Jackal and the Genius: Jake Gyllenhall's Representation of the Pathology of the Occidental Nerd in Nightcrawler and Donnie Darko”
• Carolin Fleischer-Heininger (Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, Munich): Lonely Heisei Japan: On Murakami Ryū's In za miso sūpu

18:45 Close

------------------------------------------------------------

Saturday (Day Two)

10:25 Introduction

10:30-12:00 Session 3

• Natalia Rumak (Lomonosov Moscow State University): Sherlock And Sha:rokku: Detectives With ASD. Will East And West Ever Meet?
• Rebecca Lewis (University of Westminster): The Fear of Belonging: The Simultaneity of Loneliness and Popularity in Dear Evan Hansen
• Daniele Durante (University of Rome, Sapienza): From Misfit to Leader: Towards a Revisionist Representation of Otaku and Hikikomori in Japanese Video Game Persona 5

12.00-13.00 Lunch Break

13:00-14:30 Session 4

• Janée N. Burkhalter (Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia): ‘Gus, don’t be the comma in Earth, Wind & Fire’: Understanding Psych’s (sometimes) lonely blerd Burton Guster
• Sharon Coleclough (Staffordshire University): So Many Ways to be an Outsider – “Nerdism” and Ethnicity as Signifiers of Otherness
• Alena Cicholewski (University of Oldenburg): “A place where everybody is a legendary hero… and a total dork” – Representing the American Nerd Community as an Antidote to Loneliness in G. Willow Wilson’s Ms. Marvel Comics (2014-2019)

14.30-15.00 Tea Break

15:00-16:30 Session 5

• Marta Fanasca (University of Manchester): Communicating isolation and sexual negotiation: Nagata Kabi’s My Lesbian Experience with loneliness
• Christopher Smith (University of Florida): Consumable Bodies, Consumable Self: The Queer Potential of Otaku Subjectivity in Kio Shimoku’s Genshiken
• Ozgur Cicek (Freie Universität, Berlin: Young, male, and unruly: The representation of nerds in Turkey between 2000-2020

16.30-16.45 Tea Break

16.45-17.15 Final Discussion

17:15 Close

Gareth Johnson : 25 Feb 2021 14:29 |  Tags: Event Lonely Nerds Workshop |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem

Top Exchanges Discourse Podcasts 2020

Writing about web page https://anchor.fm/exchangesias

The Exchanges Discourse podcast series was first introduced last May, which means unlike our journal, we haven’t truly had a full year of availability against which to chart the download statistics. However, I thought, given we released 11 episodes in 2020, that it would still be worthwhile having a brief look at which were the top five most listened to episodes.

Rank	Article	Released	Theme
1	A Conversation with…Dr Julia Gauly	3rd Dec 20	Researcher interview
2	Art Students Then & Now	1st July 20	Special Issue
3	A Conversation with…Dr Ioana Vrabiescu	15th October	Researcher Interview
4	Do you want to build a Special Issue?	6th October	Special Issue
5	For Our Consideration	21st May	Author Guidance

It’s pleasantly surprising to see that a mix of episodes, including ones with guests, are all in the top tier for listeners. What you’ll be able to surmise too from glancing at the release dates is just how rapidly popular our discussion with Dr Gauly was. Now, the reasons for this may be the timing, released just as a very long autumn term was coming to an end when people were looking for something interesting but lighter weight to listen to. It might also be that Dr Gauly herself did a magnificent job of sharing the podcast episode with her peers on social media, for which we’re deeply grateful. I’d like to think it was the content though, as it was a really enjoyable discussion to participate in, as the interviewer.

Nevertheless, a year from now it will be interesting to return and see what will have been our most listened to episode for 2021!

Gareth Johnson : 25 Feb 2021 09:03 |  Tags: Annual Charts Metrics Podcasts Review Statistics |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Volume 8.2 – Special CliFi Issue Published

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/issue/view/38

The labours of 18 months came to an end last week as we launched our second special issue, developed as a result of 2019’s 20th International Conference of the Utopian Studies Society hosted in a sunny Prato, Italy. The irony of the issue launch coming in the middle of ‘Beast from the East 2’, and thick driving snow outside my window isn’t lost on me! I’ve been delighted throughout the production of this issue to continue working with a number of our associate editors, drawn from the PGR community, an experience we celebrated and reflected upon in our most recent podcast.

While, size-wise, the issue doesn’t quite reach the dizzying heights of last year’s Cannibalism issue - which actually made it easier to pull together from a lead editor perspective – the issue remains a very rich and interesting one. Here’s the rundown of the contents:

Johnson, G.J., 2021. A Change in the Wind: Editorial, Volume 8, Part 2. Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 8(2), pp. i-xii. https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v8i2.784

Farnell, I., 2021. Things Are Heating Up: Reflections on Utopia, Dystopia and Climate Change, the 20th International Conference of the Utopian Studies Society, Europe. Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 8(2), pp. 1-7. https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v8i2.531

Alberro, H., 2021. In the Shadow of Death: Loss, hope and radical environmental activism in the Anthropocene. Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 8(2), pp. 8-27. https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v8i2.510

Novello, C., 2021. Ecological Destruction and Consumerism: A critique of modern society through the works of the contemporary German author Ilija Trojanow. Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 8(2), pp. 28-46. https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v8i2.581

Rey Segovia, A., 2021. Climate Fiction and its Narratives: (Non) Secularists imaginaries for the environmental collapse. Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 8(2), pp. 47-68. https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v8i2.539

Tait, A., 2021. Environmental Crisis, Cli-fi, and the Fate of Humankind in Richard Jefferies’ After London and Robert Harris’ The Second Sleep. Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 8(2), pp. 69-83. https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v8i2.554

Horsfield, R., 2021. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?: Borders in the Anthropocene. Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 8(2), pp. 84-98. https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v8i2.584

Xausa, C., 2021. Climate Fiction and the Crisis of Imagination: Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria and The Swan Book. Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 8(2), pp. 99-119. https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v8i2.555

Holding, S., 2021. What on Earth Can Atlantis Teach Us? Cli-fi and the inconvenient truth behind our pre-history. Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 8(2), pp. 120-131. https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v8i2.582

The DOI for the issue as a whole is: https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v8i2

Naturally, all articles are fully open access and available to read freely to all. Please do share this with anyone you think would be interested in this lovely articles, or perhaps would like to consider writing for us to contribute to a future issue. We always welcome new, and returning, authors alike. My thanks as always to all our authors, reviewers and editors who contributed to making this issue an undoubted success. Now, to start preparations for volume 8(3) due out in late spring…

Gareth Johnson : 09 Feb 2021 09:40 |  Tags: Associate Clifi Climate Editors Fiction Issue New Published Special |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem