Margot Mellet and I are co-managing editors at Imaginations. We have both confessed a feeling of needing to do more in our work at the journal. In one of our regular Imaginations managing editor meetings, Margot uttered a truism that resonated: “We are doing enough.” This phrase made me laugh. It made Margot laugh. It hit a nerve in a good way. The sentiment draws on a kind of cognitive dissonance I have as an academic, as a colleague, as an editor: I think I’m not doing enough. To put it more precisely, I know I could be doing more and doing better with more attention, care, and time.
This thought becomes a feeling even as I rush from this meeting to lecture prep, from class to the graduate student writing workshop, and from a directed reading course to phone a union member. This list doesn’t even account for research and writing time! The cognitive dissonance comes from the individuated way I feel I have to work. “I am falling behind. I am letting colleagues down. I should take on something else.” These thoughts are a part of a perceived deficiency motivator: expressions of insufficiency often match profound accomplishment, and people often actually achieve more in the areas where they feel they are falling behind. I share this academic-psychological commentary to characterize the profound impact Margot’s words had on me. “We are Doing Enough.” It caused a short circuit. When I look at our plans and what we’ve done, I realize that, “Yes, we are doing enough.”
I have been with Imaginations since 2014. Sheena Wilson invited me to join as web editor and it wasn’t long before I took on being managing editor. Somewhere between 2016 and 2017, during the transition from Wilson to Markus Reisenleitner as editor-in-chief, there was a gap where I was the only bit of continuity for the journal. I kept it running through several issues. I didn’t ask for help or reach out in need. I thought because I could take this on I had to. At this time, I was a postdoc and was working on several other editorial projects as well as my monograph. I was applying for tenure track jobs, and it felt right to be working extra hard. I felt like the more I did, the more likely I was to land one of those elusive tenure track gigs. Then working with Markus grounded me, but, in recent years, I have still felt I was falling behind, letting our authors and editors down by not keeping up with everything. So, I was thrilled to start working with Margot, a seasoned journal editor (vice-directrice at Sens Public). I was nervous because I didn’t want to make assumptions about or overload work on my colleague.
When Margot and I first met, we talked about expectations, work habits, shared documents. All the things that make this job possible. Developing practices that work for us and the journal has become a delight. The key to sustainable publishing in all of this, besides characterizing academic psychology, is that for me working together makes everything easier, makes things possible. A meeting every other week is a place to keep up with what has been happening. Dividing tasks means no one is on the hook entirely. Being able to blow off steam about something frustrating and to celebrate something great is exactly what I needed to be re-energized. I don‘t dread how far I’ve fallen behind on journal work because we’re on it together.
As Universities continue to operate according to business logic, as funding bodies are under duress, as metrics come to dominate academic publishing, editorial teams are being required to do more with less. The push to produce and circulate work is strong. The resources to carry out publication are lacking. It’s easy to forget that sustaining an open-access, online journal means sustaining a political statement about the availability and accessibility of knowledge, about who has access to research and, crucially, who has access to a publication platform. The content of Imaginations can be weird and wonderful. Sometimes our authors make bold, necessary, provocative political contributions. Other times, they work through a unique, precise aesthetic quandary. In both instances, the format and accessibility of our publication makes their work available.
For Imaginations, for The Goose, and for the institutions and people represented here, this issue is about turning the form of our publications into content. We offer metacommentary on sustainable publishing in order to shore up capacities across academic publishing. In some sense, I wanted to share my good experience working with Margot as a model for how journals can work together.
Together, we are doing enough. My question to you is this: how can we do enough together in a meaningful, restorative, and just way?
Thanks to Margot Mellet, Rachel Webb Jekanowski, Lisa Han, and Lee Campbell for the notes!