promoting Kairos
if:book’s Ray graciously promoted Kairos Tenth Anniversary issue, which went live last Tuesday. Thanks, Ray.
It’s wonderful, too, how the Institute’s MediaCommons and Kairos’ Inventio cross paths…that’s certainly something I want to keep an eye on. Theirs, of course, is a much larger endeavor, and I admire them for being able to take on scholarship in a more encompassing way than one journal can do.
Which brings me to Jeff’s post today about the current Kairos issue, which is full (FULL, i say) of calls from the authors for different, more, better, cooler, mediated texts. (That’s a slight exaggeration….) So, I hover between this protective cover for Kairos, which is totally inappropriate given its mission, and the need to carry out its mission, which (lately) seems to involve a re-invention at every turn. Too much reinvention and we suffer — changing our ethos too quickly on authors, readers, the community. We are on the verge. We’ll see how we turn out. But I’m optimistic, too-hopeful, and giddy whenever it comes to the journal.
For me (and bear with me through this metaphor…), Kairos is like my famous poundcake that, when it’s done from the oven, I don’t want to slice because even tho it’s beautiful and will be delicious, dismantling it will ruin the moment it wasn’t meant for, the moment of wholeness and simply looking pretty for a second prior to the knife slice. Yes, Jeff’s right. Others are doing on the web what Kairos wants to do. We see that. I see that and totally acknowledge it’s happening. So is it wrong to “call” for some of that action within the server space of the journal itself? There’s a distinction between the hipness that others are doing on their blogs, blogs that I fully and embarrassingly admit to only having recently started reading (and now I look forward to it every morning), and, well, scholarship. Rewind: Scholarship That Counts.
Yes, that statement will get me into all sorts of trouble, and yes I am fully aware of the history of C&Wians fighting for their listserv posts and MOO chats and blog posts (although I haven’t seen any scholarship on this yet) to count as Scholarship That Counts. But the thing is this (and imagine here the whine of a three-year-old): I want that stuff in Kairos! I want I want I want this and this and this in the journal itself! Is that too much to ask? We’re getting some of that (forthcoming), and with the redesign in the spring (to support more reader interaction and commenting) and Doug’s forward-thinking KairosProjects, I hope to god that the journal can maintain its malleability and, more important, its credibility, for another ten years. I guess we’ll see. The cake has been sliced. I’m enjoying this issue with warmed dark-chocolate dolcetta on top.
In the meantime, I’ve created a separate Kairos category for the blog. I’ve felt it’s time to start some personal documentation, to turn my editing into scholarship, and I’m hoping this is a way to start.
cb
August 21st, 2006 at 7:19 pm
So cool to see your Kairos stuff getting recognition. Even tho your exhausted, losing brain-cells by the second, can’t wait for my kids’ school to start in 7 days sister doesn’t understand even one quarter of what’s being said or written about. Now, “stuff on my cat” must get my vote for best.site.of.the.week. And damn you for posting about it cuz that was a MAJOR time suck for me last week. Back to work now. Love ya, Bev
August 21st, 2006 at 7:57 pm
Wait!
I’m not putting down Kairos or anybody!
All I was doing was focusing on Ray’s comment which focused on Jim’s comment and overview. No critiques!
Kairos does what it does. Other journals do what they do. My concern was not with a journal but with the always present “call.” What interests me here is the issue of recognition - how we recognize and familiarize ourselves with writings and ideas. That interesting work is happening in another space and that the space is not recognized is what interests me (see Ed White’s comment on WPA-L about how we are not in the community - and how Collin and I responded).
Seriously. I’m not critiquing Kairos.
August 22nd, 2006 at 7:53 am
It was the whiny part, probably, that made you think I thought you were critiquing. Or maybe you didn’t like the poundcake metaphor. hehee.
Believe me, Jeff, I knew in my deep down heart of hearts that you weren’t razzing anyone and that you were questioning who gets recognized for what. That, actually, is a crucial point you made. A very smart point that we need to continue to make (and you’re the smart one, to do that).
After a while the ‘call’ becomes a cliche, and while that is one direction I was hoping to avoid in the recent issue, the anniv theme also allowed us to use it generously — kairos, and all that. :) But, overall, your point is WELL taken. As I mentioned somewhere (and can’t remember where now), I was startled when an EC member told us during the last 7Cs meeting that only 10 percent of the CCCC community uses digital technology (computers) as part of their teaching. 10 percent?! So recognition, like you said regarding the WPA conversation, is paramount. And it’s one that I’m hoping we all can do something about by continuing to use places (like Kairos) as an emerging publication avenue for nontraditional works. Until, that is (and even after the point at which) we are able to count such works on our own sites.
Tracy and Jim, in this issue, point out how their texts are designed as the analysis/critique (I’m using your word here, because it’s a good word; otherwise, I might use ‘linear’ or ‘traditional’ as my words) rather than the ‘doing’. (I can’t remember what word you used for this…I’ll have to go look it up.) Kairos wants, and needs, both kinds of texts. We need things like (my fav) Miles’ Violence of Text and Wysocki’s Bookling Monument as much as we need the more traditional webtextual critiques (and pedagogical applications) of such work. We’re hoping, too, that the Inventio section (which will outline the editorial commentary/review along with the publication of the final text) will help texts like the ones you pointed to count.
Now, how do we get colleagues (locally, nationally) to recognize this work? Well, I’m a bit of a nut (as we all know), but here’s what I’m trying, which certainly wouldn’t be the tactic of choice for most folks.
+ I self-promote like a mad-woman. I send emails to the dept head and dean and random local colleagues telling them about Kairos and that I’ll sit down and walk them through an issue if they’d like. (I did this with RiceBall and it is part of the reason, I believe, that the chair gave me a course release.)
+ I am seriously going to push an e-binder system for tenure here. God knows how it will go, but how can a committee legitimately read and critique my work in the medium in which it was supposed to be read if I have to do screenshots and print everything out and put it on a CD in the back of the binder, which no one will ever bother to remove and read. (I practiced a template during the Sophie workshop, and I think it’s going to work!) Imagine, like Dan’s Kairos text from 8.1, me explaining to readers via video what the RiceBall text is doing and why - while it’s playing on the other side of the screen. Cool? Yes. Better way to present our scholarship? Heck yes.
+ There’s other, small ways, but they basically all involve laying myself bare. Not the prettiest of avenues but, for me, they work well. It just helps people remember how quirky I am.
oh, and btw, you and anyone can and should critique Kairos when you believe it’s necessary. Bring it on, as they say. I may hustle poundcake your way, but how else will the journal learn and grow? We have to stay relevant to our field, and critiques allow us to step back and see through the cloud of immediacy.
Finally, what I’ve learned from blogging in these last few weeks, and reading bloglines, and commenting on people’s blogs that I wouldn’t have dared to do months before — and how it all relates to scholarship — is probably something that academic bloggers have known forever: Linking and Trackbacks are forms of citation; posts and comments require incredible time and compositional thought (which is one reason why I can’t blog a lot about academia — I won’t yet designate my time to do that important work, and I can’t do it as well as others do anyways). Blogging can be scholarly. We all recognize that, but it is our colleagues who may not yet. Thus the need, I believe, for those analyses before we can have them count the practices themselves.
Can I end with a call? That’s cheesy, I know, but the rhetorical move is a nice turn-around point, which is why it’s used so much. In any case, how bout this one — a personal call: Jeff, I hope that you are part of the VV extravaganza annd that you submit your Detroit writing space/place piece to Kairos. (I can’t remember its exact name, but it was about folksonomy, no?) Pieces like that are what I crave to be submitted to the journal — to bridge the ‘what’s already going on’ with ‘what the journal can do’.
August 22nd, 2006 at 9:06 pm
Coming soon, to a theater near you…!…
My reaction has been mixed to the new suite of Geico commercials, although I am forced to admit that they are a serious improvement upon the “meta-gecko” crap they’ve been serving up. If you haven’t seen them, “real Geico customers”……