Apply: Literacy in Composition Studies Journal - call for editors
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Call for Editors
The editorial board and current editorial team of Literacy in Composition Studies (LiCS) seek proposals from prospective editorial teams or individuals eager to closely collaborate with the editorial team to steward this open-access, online, peer-reviewed journal.
Since the founding of the journal in 2011 with publication beginning in 2013, LiCS has been committed to advancing scholarship in literacy studies and the related fields of writing studies, education, and professional and community-based writing. The LiCS editorial team (currently 6 members, three of whom are founding members) seeks to supportively transition new editors into collaborative leadership roles. The current editorial team also actively seeks to continue diversifying journal leadership and editorial practices. A commitment to antiracist publication practices must be a grounding philosophy for any successful applicants. We are eager to see applicants build on and/or innovate the journal’s current practices.
Scope (and benefits) of Work
LiCS is unique to many journals in that decision-making is, and has always been, collaborative and non-hierarchical. For the majority of its history, the editorial team has consisted of multiple editors who share responsibilities and work as a team to solicit, nurture, and publish leading scholarship in the field. We believe that this collaborative structure not only has been useful in sharing workload (see resources section below), but also has encouraged more intentional publication practices and more intellectual, enjoyable work in publishing.
Resources
We encourage candidates to consider building teams from across diverse institutional types and locations. While institutional resources are helpful and welcome, they are by no means required. Through its collaborative model, LiCS enables a team of editors to compile the minimum resources needed to do this work across several institutions. However, the editors and editorial board can provide applicants with any information they might need to put together proposals for their institutions.
Qualifications
Since one of the primary goals of bringing on new editors is to diversify the editorial team—and by extension, the scholarship published—we encourage applicants to consider representing a range of perspectives, geographical locations, institutional types, and intellectual and methodological traditions.
Required Qualifications
- Applicants should have expertise and a record of research and scholarship in literacy studies, broadly defined, as well as some expertise in composition, rhetoric, writing studies, or adjacent fields such as professional/technical writing.
- Applicants must have a demonstrated commitment to antiracist/DEI scholarship, pedagogical activity, service or administrative work, publishing/editing, and/or alliance building.
- Applicants must have a demonstrated commitment to academic collaboration (i.e., coauthoring, coediting, collaborative teaching, shared administrative work).
- Applicants should be committed to open-access and transparent publishing practices.
- Applicants should be committed to seeking out and nurturing new voices through academic publishing, as well as mentoring/demystifying publishing practices for junior members of the field.
- Applicants should be committed to publishing a range of methodological approaches.
- If applying as a team: Please consider how your team formation considers institution type (including community colleges), student population (HSI, HBCU, etc.), research training and methodologies (including institutions of training), scholarship emphases, rank and/or type of appointment, geographical location, race/ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, and other factors that reflect a range of literacy traditions and orientations. Teams should make explicit why they have chosen the configuration they have in meeting this criteria.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Editorial experience is useful, but not required if the above criteria are strongly met.
- Copy-editing, layout, and webmaster skillsets are useful but not required, as long as there is interest in developing such expertise.
Selection Process:
Selection will be made based on the criteria above, through a deliberative and collaborative process. The selection committee will consist of two members of the current editorial team and at least two members of the editorial board. After reviewing and discussing proposals, a group conversation between the committee and applicants may be requested to learn more about applicants.
Submission Materials:
To nominate your team or yourself, please submit the following materials to licsj...@gmail.com:
- A 2-5 page proposal that outlines your interest in editing LiCS, your experience with the journal and/or academic publishing, and the vision/ideas that you or your team would bring to publishing practices generally, and LiCS specifically. Please address and engage the qualifications list above.
- CVs for you or all members of the team
Mentorship:
To support candidates in drafting and revising proposals, a member of the editorial board--who will not be involved in the selection process--will be available to serve as reader/mentor. Any applicants who would like to seek assistance from the mentor, please contact Jenn Fishman: jennfis...@gmail.com
Professor of English Language & Literatures
San Francisco State University
tara...@sfsu.edu