CFP: On Gathering: Exploring Collective & Embodied Modes of Schol Comm (JEP)

I’m pleased to share a new call for papers for a special issue of Journal of Electronic Publishing, called On Gathering: Exploring Collective and Embodied Modes of Scholarly Communication.

Changes in scholarly communication have shifted the boundaries of where and how we share our work, and through which intermediaries. Still, even in more fluid forms of gray literature and digital publishing, which blurs some of the lines between polished work and work-in-progress, we typically think in terms of artifacts.

And yet, so much of our actual thinking takes place in spaces of indeterminacy and interpersonal connection. These momentary and provisional collectives—what Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing describes as “patchy assemblages”—spark new modes of working, thinking, and being together in higher education as well as sharing the outputs of such collaboration. What emerges from connection, engagement, amplification, thinking-together across disciplinary spaces and ways of knowing? How do we make manifest the relationship-oriented, process-oriented modes of working that shape scholarly thought? And, conversely, how are our thoughts and ideas circumscribed by the institutional, hierarchical, and publishing structures we have inherited, as well as the tools and technologies we work with?

This special issue grows from the Inkcap Collective, an informal gathering of practitioners in and around higher education who share a frustration with the status quo and a hope that things can be better. We value curiosity and care, equity and mutual sustainability, messiness and beauty.

Submissions might include:

• Case studies of successful collaborations, gatherings, and process work in this area
• Evocative conceptual pieces that illustrate the themes of the CFP
• Speculative imaginings of multi-agential or plural scholarly communication futures
• Ideas for, or examples of, mutually beneficial partnerships that extend beyond the university and serve scholarly communication reform
• Pieces that extend and deepen the ecological metaphors presented in the CFP, in relation to scholarly communication and / or digital publishing collabs
• Materials that show process over product
• Analyses that illuminate the material and intellectual boundary work around scholarly communication

Other topics welcome! Please contact me if you’d like to discuss other ideas prior to submitting.

Abstracts are due by December 15th 2023 and should be addressed to the special issue editor, Katina Rogers, via katina [at] inkcapcollective.com.

Full CFP: https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/jep/news/106/