[OPE] CFP, The Political Economy of Academic Journal Publishing

From: jerry_levy@verizon.net
Date: Mon Feb 18 2008 - 18:35:09 EST


Subject: Call for Papers: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ACADEMIC
	JOURNAL	PUBLISHING

The Political Economy of Academic Journal Publishing

Call for Papers & Proposal for a Special Issue of ephemera: theory  
& politics in organization (www.ephemeraweb.org) to be edited by

Craig Prichard & Steffen Böhm

Publish or perish’, that famous diktat, is without doubt the  
central, pervasive and unassailable logic governing most academic  
work in the current period. The central figure, the one around  
which this decree currently revolves, is, of course, the academic  
journal article. While the book and perhaps the lecture remain  
important in some locations, the journal article has become the  
core currency and the very measure by which academic jobs, careers, reputations and identities are made and traded.

Yet despite all the hours congealed into ‘the article’, and the  
years spent perfecting the craft of writing for journal  
publications, many of us know very little about the industry that  
surrounds our work and to which we contribute so much. Of course,  
we may recall certain events: Some will have noted the sale, for  
nearly US$1 billion, of Blackwell’s 875-strong journal collection  
to US company Wiley in late 2006. Others will be aware that they  
can now, if they so wish, purchase their already published papers  
as individual downloads on Amazon.com. There will be some for whom  
internet-based open access journals (such as ephemera) or online  
repositories are now the natural home of their written academic  
work. There may be others whom have confronted the crisis that  
surrounds journal subscription pricing and are seeing the demise of  library journal collections in their university libraries. And  
there may be a few among us who recognize those journals and  
publishers that feature in Ted Bergstrom’s hall of shame for the  
most expensive journals currently published (http:// 
www.journalprices.com). But for all those that recognize such  
events and processes there are many more for whom such events have  
taken a while to get our attention’, as Ron Kirby, the University  
of California mathematician who led the editorial revolt against  
Reed Elsevier’s pricing strategy at the journal Topography, said  
recently.

This special issue is an invitation to begin to change that. It is  
a call for contributions that directly and critically explore the  
dynamics, problems, tensions, and issues that surround the  
political economy of academic journal publishing. Part of this is  
an invitation to explore alternative ways of organizing the  
production of academic work, particularly the theory, politics and  
organization of open access publishing, which is, perhaps, the most promising initiative to challenge corporate forms of journal  
publishing today. This exploration of alternatives is an  
acknowledgement that the writer and academic author could be  
regarded, at various moments, as agent, challenger and also victim  
of hegemonic regimes. We invite inter-disciplinary contributions  
from around the world and particularly welcome submissions from  
countries of the Global South, which have seen particular growth of 
open access publishing initiatives.

Possible topics include (this is not an exhaustive list):
- Political economy of open access publishing
- Academic publishing and the knowledge society
- How to organize an open access journal?
- Political economy of corporate and university press publishing
- The place of journal publishing in the overall apparatus of  
academic publishing
- Historical perspectives of academic journal publishing
- The hegemony of UK/US publishing & referencing and its global  
economy
- Issues of censorship in the process of publishing
- Issues of inclusion/exclusion in journal publishing
- Academic publishing in the Global South
- Desires and identities connected to journal publishing
- The public sphere and journal publishing: Who do we really reach?
- The role of journal publishing in the setup and maintenance of  
professions and disciplines
- Cases of open access publishing
- The organisation of open access repositories
- Case histories of open access repositories
- Copyright vs Copyleft
- Publishing and language: the hegemony of English
- Intellectual property and the impact on academic publishing
- What is a journal’s ‘impact’ and how to measure it?
- The specific role of ephemera: theory & politics in organization  
in the world of journal publishing and potential ‘alternative  
impact factor measurements’
- Academic evaluation and performance measurement systems (such as  
the RAE in the UK)
- Publishing outside academia

Full papers should be submitted to the special issue editors via  
email by 1 November  2008. Papers should be between 5000 and 9000  
words; multimedia work is welcome. All submissions should follow  
ephemera’s submission guidelines:http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/ 
submit.htm. All relevant submissions will undergo a double blind  
review process. The special issue is scheduled to be published in  
late 2009.

Special issue editors:

Craig Prichard
Tari Whakahaere Kaipakihi ,
Te Kunenga Ki Purehuroa
Pouaka Motuhake 11-222
Papaioea, Aotearoa
Department of Management 214
Massey University, Private Bag 11-222
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Phone: +64 (0) 6 356-9099 ext. 2244
Email: c.prichard@massey.ac.nz

Steffen Böhm
School of Accounting, Finance and Management
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester CO4 3SQ UK
Phone: +44 (0) 1206 87 3843
Email: steffen@essex.ac.uk

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