Review: Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology and Pedagogy

The current Kairos went live on the web in 1996 as Kairos: A Journal for Teachers of Writing in Webbed Environments. Its specialization has been adapted to cover all issues related to the nexus of composition and the web. The journal is free online at http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/. Its publication frequency has varied from one to three issues per year.

One of the first peer-reviewed academic journals concerned with electronic writing or 
“web-texts” as Kairos calls its articles, Kairos has developed into a sophisticated web-journal as its subject matter has grown in relevance. It currently estimates its monthly readership at 45,000.

Kairos’ conceptual range is evident in its format. Each issue contains articles or contributions under several headings. The main three are “Topoi”, “Praxis”, and “Inventio”.

Texts under the heading “Topoi” focus on broad issues in the scope of web-based composition and pedagogy. A recent article focuses on the possibility of expanding writing centers to web-spaces — linking tutors non-locally with composition students. Another article here (co-written by authors from UCA, UALR and Iowa State) analyzes the “chronotype” or space-time of web environments as opposed to class room environments, and the possible effects with regard to students discoursing with each other more often and more freely about their texts.

The “Praxis” section focuses on case-studies in which teachers report on implementation of various technologies and organizational strategies; and how students have responded both as content learners and in coping with new presentation and navigation strategies.

Finally, “Inventio” looks back at certain web-texts and deconstructs them. Basically it is web-text authors discussing how they brought a particular web-text into being: what technological decisions they had to make, and how those decisions interacted with textual content.

The minor sections of the journal are “Disputatio”, a web version of letters to the editor; and PraxisWiki; a web-encyclopedia or “Wiki” of tips and tricks for web-text authors.

In general, this publication nicely negotiates its place in between the fields of technology and composition and pedagogy and occasionally literary theory. It is somewhat more daring than Computers in Composition, with edgier content and a practitioners slant. I have seen articles that integrate high post-modern theory into theorizing web writing and articles that have attempted to theorize web-based poetry and fiction. Most of the work published here though has to do with vocalizing responses from the field of rhetoric and composition pedagogy to the internet revolution. Two main streets of inquiry occur in this space. One, what skills or perspectives do we as composition teachers need to impart to students: what does the study of rhetoric and composition have to offer consumers of web-media? And secondly, how can these technologies be employed to both improve composition pedagogy in general and to aid students in analyzing and coping with web media.

Surrounding these primary questions however, Kairos goes anywhere and everywhere within the field of web-writing. The journal has had a lot to say with regard to intellectual property rights issues brought about by the metastases of web interfacing. Without pretending to encompass Kairos’ considerable contribution in this area, it is worth mentioning that they asked the big questions before they became questions. As early as 1996, Kairos was asking “Will writing be allowed in cyberspace?” In other words, within this space where text and technology merge, and given the late-capitalist mode of commodification of any discernible microbe of intellectual content, will web authors be able to say anything about anything, or will the entire web become proprietary. And we have all seen the question play out over the last decade to a relative equilibrium between the two sides. (I’ll refer you to the case of the musician Prince vs. his fans’ website that started a few years ago in which he actually sued his own fans for using his name and the name of his songs!)

For those interested in exploring this terrain of web-writing and its theoretical and practical implications, Kairos appears to be at the forefront of the conversation. It is an interesting accompaniment to the assortment of web-focused rhetoric and composition journals such as Computers and Composition. For instance, one writer who had published a piece in The Writing Instructor composed a companion piece in Kairos’ “Inventio” section, telling the story of the piece’s conception, composition and publication, and explaining how she went about telling the story by combining textual modalities and information architecture. Moreover, Kairos strives to stay ahead of the curve in theorizing textual implications of the transformation to digital media. Kairos takes more risks than its counterparts that tend to emphasize the traditional composition standards and practices, and it creates a space in which experimentation with multimodal texts can take place and actually be used to convey scholarly concepts.