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Pedagogy 2.3 (2002) 427-430



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Review

Associate Editor's Introduction

Christine Chaney


As Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote in 1856,

Of writing many books there is no end;
And I who have written much in prose and verse
For others' uses, will write now for mine.

—(Browning 1993: 5)

Thinking of books as both discourses and artifacts is, of course, a review editor's job, but this topic has occupied my mind more than usual lately as I have paused to reflect on Pedagogy's second full year of publication and the Reviews section's role in it. Editing is not easy, of course, but these two years have been full of tender mercies that have made the experience a rich and rewarding one. I am especially grateful to all the contributors who have worked so hard, and sometimes at breakneck speed, to make the Reviews section a vibrant, compelling part of the journal. As is well known by now, we sought to rethink and reinvigorate the traditional book review when we inaugurated Pedagogy, and we have been extremely gratified at the favorable response of the readership, particularly regarding the roundtable review format. For Pedagogy to receive the Council of Editors of Learned Journals award for best new journal in 2001 was warm recognition of hours of hard work by many people.

The end of our second year of publication is also a good time to step back and consider what changes may be beneficial to the structure of the editorial enterprise. With that in mind, then, I am happy to announce a most [End Page 427] beneficial change: George Drake of Central Washington University will be joining me as coeditor of the Reviews section. George is an excellent scholar of the eighteenth century and a dedicated, top-notch teacher. He brings attentiveness, a deeply informed critical perspective, and wise counsel to this task, not to mention many years of friendship and collegiality, for all of which I am grateful.

As we look ahead, George and I would like to invite our readers to respond to two requests. First, it has always been our plan to review more than just books in Pedagogy—hence the self-conscious choice not to name this the Book Reviews section. We invite you to submit suggestions for other nonbook media to review—Web sites, films, and more will be considered—since we know that much teaching innovation is taking place in the "multitextual" realm. Second, publishers send us many unsolicited books for review. Unfortunately—but not surprisingly, given the economics of English studies—we receive numerous composition textbooks of various stripes, but little else. The selected list of books received that appears at the end of this introduction is intended both to invite future reviewers to contact us and to stimulate broader thinking about what kinds of texts bear usefully on the theory and practice of teaching in institutions of higher learning.

We have heard many times that books as widely divergent as graphic novels and chess manuals have had important and salutary influences on teaching. We invite you to tell us which texts have most influenced your teaching so that we can include them in future Reviews sections. Please remember as well that Pedagogy employs three types of review writing, and our invitation extends to all of them. The first type is called "Forum," in which a single contributor lists and reflects on the texts that he or she has found most useful for and about teaching, such as Linda Wagner-Martin's essay in the spring 2002 issue. The second type is the "Roundtable," in which several contributors respond to and comment on the same text, as Jennifer Maier, Keith Waddle, and E. Laurie George do in the section that follows. The third type is the traditional stand-alone review essay, which we use less frequently than the first two. [End Page 428]

In the spirit of Barrett Browning's verse-novel, then, I conclude by thinking again of the powerful call of books in our lives. I hope that we all remember, through the storms and distractions of academic life...

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