Welcome to Response: The Digital Journal of Popular Culture Scholarship, the official publication of the Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association. We’re in the process of developing a full online publication for January, 2016, in anticipation of a twice-yearly publication cycle (January and July).
Why Response?
Response offers a space for professional academics, independent scholars, and cultural historians to create rigorous and thoughtful pieces of scholarship that are designed specifically for digital platforms. The journal will embrace the traditional rigor of peer-reviewed publishing that will specifically service the membership of MAPACA in support of their careers, while also allowing contributors to imagine new ways of presenting their research. Digital technologies make more media-intensive work possible, as the articles published in Response will be designed to thoughtfully and provocatively incorporate images, sounds, video clips, hyperlinks, and so forth.
As such, Response is looking beyond the parameters of the “traditional” peer-reviewed article in terms of length, scope, and perspective - though you will certainly find many articles that would be right at home in a print-based peer-reviewed publication. But the flexibility of web-based platforms means that we can offer work that reimagines scholarship for the digital era: shorter pieces, interviews with significant cultural figures, extended reviews, virtual round-table discussions, and video essays are all equally deliverable and will be well-represented in future issues.
Additionally, Response takes advantage of the digital platform by offering “living” scholarship. Digital technologies are not designed just to deliver information, but to engage the user. Each of the articles in Response - whether a browser-friendly version of an academic study or a video lecture - will offer readers the opportunity to add to the discussion by encouraging thoughtful and substantive responses to articles. Wary of the kind of abuse and empty words that often fill “comments” sections on many publication websites, the Response model will put interested readers in touch with our editorial staff to craft a publishable and compelling response to the original article. This might be a simple paragraph or two offering a new perspective or discussing related work, or it might be a more fully developed piece that addresses the concerns and subject matter of the original. Unlike most print publications of the past which are frozen on pages of paper and stored on library shelves, the articles in Response have the potential to grow over time as new scholars connect with the conversation, and more discourse, discussion, and dialogue can continue to shed knew light on what we know and what we study.
This conversation begins at initial publishing, as some articles will begin with an “Initial Response” by another scholar who will offer brief insight and analysis of the article to follow. These introductory elements will be provided by editorial staff, associate editors and peer reviewers, or other MAPACA members who have demonstrated expertise in the area of study.