It seems to me that most DH-ers are suspicious of — if not completely hostile to — traditional academic publishing structures and requirements. So am I. Unlike some of you, I no longer have to worry about postponing the real projects I want to do in favor of the monograph that will get me through the tenure and promotion process. But even this bastion of what counts for credible, peer-reviewed, and in other ways vetted scholarship is showing significant signs of decay. Given my position and interests, I think I have a responsibility to hasten the fall of the academic monograph — or at least promote alternatives that count for as much as a book in the T&P system. But how to do this? How can I convince my doubting colleagues that peer-review can be something other than two or three senior manuscript reviewers? Or that a well-written, well-argued, often read and cited blog posting has real impact outside of the closed world of peer-reviewed journals, and that reflection on such a post by others in one’s field has significant scholarly impact? Or that collaborative work is a good thing?
Anyway, if you’ve read this far, you know the drill. I am proposing a session — a workshop really — in which we brainstorm the many possible ways of publishing and peer-reviewing academic work that accounts for the digital, the blogged, the tweeted, the whatever-many-forms-that-scholarship-might-take. This has many resonances with the sessions already proposed that seek a common ground between journalism and academic writing. I assume, too, that there are many multiple viable models for writing and publishing and peer-review. The session I am proposing would consider as many of these as possible, and discuss what works, what doesn’t, and maybe stuff we haven’t even tried.
