Print

Print


Thanks, Will, for the clarifications re TSC.  I have every confidence in
the journal, and I knew about the production problems, but I have to
admit that I was getting just a touch concerned for the journal's health
after not having seen an issue for quite a long time.  I'm glad to hear
it's still coming along.

I seem to remember having a conversation about this refereed journal
thing at an earlier Inkshed--probably about 11 or 12.  Wa raised the
question of elevating the newsletter to a journal, but, if memory serves
me (you all know I'm old enough to remember TV with only 12 channels)
TSC was just being launched and we thought that it would be unwise to
dilute the stream of both production and consumption in an already small
market.  The newsletter would be the place for short thinkpieces and
research reports and TSC would be the place for more substantive work.

The early issues had a number of articles from Inkshedders.  However, I
also seem to remember Henry saying a couple of years later that he was
having trouble, not attracting copy per se, but attracting copy from the
rhetoric/composition/education crowd that seems to be the main centre of
gavity in the Inkshed group.  This doubtless reflects the preponderance
of lit over rhet in the Canadian scene.  But it is apt to be a
self-fulfilling prophecy, since if rhetoric is not well represented in
the journal, people will perceive it more as a lit than a rhet journal
and Inkshedders will be less likely to read it and publish in it.

So I guess the challenge to us is to write stuff and send it to Henry
and Will.  They can't hold up TSC's interdisciplinary mandate if we
don't give them things to print.

But getting back to Tanya's question and Marcie's followup--no, I don't
think you imagined the resistence to the refereed journal idea, mostly
for the reasons given above. We need a group bigger than the fifty-odd
Inkshedders to keep something like this supplied with writers and
readers, hence our decision to support TSC instead.  But our numbers are
gradually increasing, and new energetic people like Tanya are coming
along, and all decisions need revisiting every so often on principle.
Being hard to do is not necessarily a good reason for not doing
something.  So it's timely that this matter is coming up again.

This talk of publishing reminds me--at the Sunday meeting I asked the UM
people for a list of CASLL books and ordering information suitable for
spreading around.  Do you think that you can get it to me by the end of
the month?  STLHE is coming to Calgary this June and it would be great
to have posters all over campus telling people about the books.

Doug

--
Doug Brent
Co-ordinator, Undergraduate Program in Communications Studies
Associate Dean, Academic Programs and Faculty Affairs
Faculty of General Studies, University of Calgary
(403) 220-5458
Fax: (403) 282-6716
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dabrent