constellations: a cultural rhetorics publishing space is seeking two managing editors with expertise in Black rhetorics. Our goal is to welcome two new editors who research and/or teach Black, African, and/or African diasporic rhetorics to our team.
constellations: a cultural rhetorics publishing space is a digital peer-reviewed journal that specializes in innovative scholarship in cultural rhetorics. We not only publish text-based scholarship but also videos, podcasts, webtexts, and other genres authors may pitch to us.
We are a collaborative, collegiate (and even fun!) space so everyone on our board brings their creative thinking and vision for how scholarship should function in our journal (and the field at large).
We have tri-weekly staff meetings that you can attend via Zoom.
Minimum Requirements
A PhD or MFA in English, Rhetoric, Composition, Writing or related fields.
Expertise in Black Rhetorics. We’re leaving the interpretation of expertise open, but it could entail publications and/or a dissertation covering those topics, personal experience, courses taken and taught in those areas.
Application Deadline: January 15, 2025.
Benefits of Being a constellations Managing Editor
Being a managing editor is a great networking opportunity because colleagues ask managing editors about the journal, speak with them about their scholarship, and seek to network with them. The position raises managing editors’ profiles in generative and rewarding ways. Not to mention the friendships you develop with other members of our editorial team.
Working with our team is also a networking and learning experience. We never default to “standard” editorial approaches unless we’ve talked it out and decided whether it will work with our cultural rhetorics practices. We have generative and productive conversations during our meetings where we work through whatever conundrums we’re facing as editors.
Managing editors also get to read compelling and innovative scholarship and to know it intimately. It’s very enriching.
Managing editors have publication opportunities by moderating and/or being respondents in our conversation series and writing posts for our constellations Substack, which allow them to reach our constellations readers and to promote their own projects as well as to select an archival article they would like to highlight.
We promote our editorial team through our social media accounts on BlueSky, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We promote them as part of our team and we also promote the work they publish. We also continue to promote the work of our editors after they’ve stepped down because we think of former members of our editorial team as part of our constellations family.
The position provides a useful inside look at how a journal run on cultural rhetorics practices works, and how journals in general work from the inside in case managing editors want to edit other existing journals or want to start their own journal.
For early-career scholars, working as a managing editor can help them develop a rich and experiential understanding of what kind of drafts get sent out for publication and what ends up getting published after revision, as well as the ways in which editors and reviewers like to be treated (and the ways in which we’d rather not be treated too).
For more senior scholars, working as a managing editor provides an opportunity to leverage their already established networks to help shape the field’s understanding of cultural rhetorics scholarship and how cultural rhetorics can be in conversation with other publications and theoretical lenses in the discipline.
Managing editors do the following:
Attend triweekly one-hour editorial meetings (via Zoom).
Participate on a rotating basis for scanning submissions to decide whether a piece should be sent out for review (one managing editor and our editor-in-chief, per submission).
Act as “lead production” editor to manage a piece once it’s accepted for publication—again, this is on a rotating basis. In this case, however, editors volunteer for the pieces that align most closely with their interests. This aspect of the position might include providing feedback to a mentor for the piece or providing feedback directly to the author concerning minor revisions, it also includes communicating with the editorial team (the editor-in-chief, copy-editor, and editorial assistant) about getting the piece ready to be posted.
Provide a final read/look at pieces before they post. Managing editors don’t copy-edit or post. Other members of our editorial staff perform those aspects of the publishing process.
Pitch ideas for conversation series pieces and new series/ideas/approaches for the journal and/or its social media presence.
Volunteer to moderate pieces on our conversation series alone or by collaborating with another managing editor.
Length of the Term:
We ask managing editors to make a three-year commitment to the journal. You’re welcome to stay longer if you choose (and quite a few of our managing editors choose to do so).
To apply:
Please email a 300-600 word statement of interest and a vitae to constell8CR@gmail.com.
Questions?
Email us at constell8CR@gmail.com and we’ll get back to you.