Composition: History & Theory: 2000 - 2009
Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy
Description
Kairos was first released in 1996 as Kairos: A Journal for Teachers of Writing in Webbed Environments. Kairos publishes between 1 and 4 issues per year and of all Humanities journals it is “the first to focus on the development of work that drew upon the new media of electronic networks as key elements of digital scholarship.” Founding editor Mike Doherty explained after the journal’s release that it had a lot to do with kairos, it was an opportune moment for it to present itself to the field. Since hypertext and other online writing is much in a stage of discovery at this point, it is crucial to him for the twofold reason of having a forum on the growth, and to hold the conversation on the web. Kairos focuses on theory and pedagogy, technology, composition, and professional scholarship. Kairos attracts 45K readers a month (this is fairly daunting for an academic journal in a specialized field) from nearly every industrialized country in the world. “There are now over 2,500 specific links to the journal and the webtexts that have been published in it over the past 12 years” (Doherty).
Kairos provides seven sections including a wiki section and a reader’s forum:
- Topoi: “The Topoi section features extended scholarly analyses of large-scale issues relating to rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy. Submissions are accepted continuously, and authors are encouraged to contact the editorial staff early in their project’s development.”
- Praxis: “Praxis publishes scholarly investigations into the intersections of rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy discovered through teaching and other professional practices. Praxis webtexts include case studies, pedagogic theory and technology, and studies of networked/new media composing practices. Praxis asks scholars to consider the challenges of timely action and ethical practice for writing pedagogies in the context of emerging technologies.”“Praxis encourages authors to consider the appropriate, scholarly use of video, audio, image, and design possibilities in composing webtexts, but the Editors will also consider conventional linear submissions.”
- PraxisWiki: “PraxisWiki is a repository of useful and provocative information and ideas for scholars and teachers at the intersections of rhetoric and technology. It invites synopses and discussions of published materials, definitions of important concepts, sketches of major figures and their works, sample syllabi and assignments along with their rationales, teaching narratives and classroom activities, and preliminary discussions of research and projects.”
- Inventio: “Inventio focuses on the decisions, contexts, and contributions that have constituted a particular webtext. Inventio authors include, alongside or integrated with their finished webtexts, materials that help them articulate how and why their work came into being.”
- Interviews: “Each year, Kairos publishes several extended interviews with scholars doing interesting work relating to rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy.”
- Reviews: “Reviews include individual or collaborative reviews of books, media, and other texts of interest to scholars of rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy.”
- Disputatio: “Disputatio: A Reader’s Forum presents webtext versions of “letters to the editor”—this venue is designed to let our readers argue their ideas in relation to published webtexts, featured themes, or ideas in the field in general” (Ball).
Works Cited
- Selfe, Cynthia. “A Brief History of Computers and Composition.” Computers and Composition: An International Journal. History of the Journal: 17 Jan, 2009.
- Ball, Cheryl. “What is Kairos?”Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. About the Journal: 31 Jan. 2009.
Date of Upload
3/15/09