Recruiting for SWC members because....

[marct]

Hi Graphei,

As one of the humanities types to another (okay, I'm an Anthropologist with a background in Comparative Religion), I just wanted to comment on a couple of your points.

- Make the journal peer reviewed. Yes, this will require time but it can be put on the c.v. Academic service and all that jazz, but you're not going to be truly taken seriously without peer review.
- Perhaps soliciting entries from scholars on a theme, and then having op-ed pieces?
- Do we reach out to other organizations? MESA, AAR, and APSA come to mind off the top of my head.
- Do we attend conferences and panels?

SWJ is partly peer-reviewed. Basically, the peer-reviewing comes in when the editor can't quickly decide on the merit of an article using the SWJ protocols. These protocols took a number of years to develop, but the key ones are

• is it timely?
• does it sound reasonable?
• does it (sort of) make sense? and
• will it start a discussion?

I'd estimate that roughly half to three quarters of articles submitted are rejected out of hand, with most of the rest being published and only a few being peer-reviewed. The reasoning behind this was simple: we wanted to put the "peer" back in "peer review" . And, BTW, I'm one of the people who does what little peer reviewing we do.

On the theme / op-ed idea, we looked at that and, for a whole host of reasons, decided to adopt our own variant of it. It's there, but tricky to find as such.

As far as outreach to academic organizations or formal conference attendance, not really. There's very little reason for people to do that if we have other academic credentials. I'm not saying that it isn't done, just that it's not overt.

A few other members have brought up concerns regarding viewpoints other than official' not being welcomed. Maybe this is a good time to have a broad discussion about this? And what better location than here! How do we, not only as a community internalize this, but affect change.

Ya know, I'm definitely not part of the official narrative It makes it harder to interact in some ways but, really, it's fine once you establish your street cred. Honestly, this is just like joining any community; if you want to go against the generally accepted view, be prepared to defend yourself

- Does the military really want to change or do they want to just check in the box?
- Is the anti-intellectual culture myth or reality?
- Now that the chapter of history that is OIF/OEF is closing, how do we retain these lessons we've learned and ensure they're carried forward?

Many, MANY electrons could be killed answering those questions....

I'm only going to tackle the "anti-intellectual" culture one, and leave the rest for others. In my experience, the military is not anti-intellectual, it is anti-non-practical. You can be a total eccentric with "insane" research interests but, if you can say "look at X, Y and Z" and show how it has applied meaning, most military folks will accept it.

OTOH, if you have an on-point expertise but tell a commander it's going to take 6 weeks to do a lit review and run focus groups before you can give them any input, you will be tossed aside like used toilet paper. Good commanders have a feel for the intellectuals, scholars and academics they work and network with. Good intellectuals need to develop a feel for working within the military cultures.

SWC is a place to gather, discuss, and learn. Jcustis has been after me for awhile to do a podcast series on topics surrounding Islam and other religions. Maybe we can podcast different discussions or roundtables?

Not a bad idea, but the tech may be a touch of a problem since we are dispersed around the world. Hey, if you're in upstate New York, you're closer to me (in Ottawa) than you are to Dave D. who's in Florida. Dispersed podcasts are possible, especially via G+ hangouts, but may not be feasible to do well.

All that said, please do start a series around Islam and religion in general! They can be a lot of fun but can also be a pain to put together well! BTW, I can say that because I'm in the process of putting together a serason of podcasts for War On The Rocks.

What about a reading club? We can have different groups/themes with moderators. Read a book/article- discuss it in a thread. While the 'Cycle of Bitching' is can be gratifying, it ultimately does nothing. Feed the grey matter monster, discuss it, and apply to your life- repeat.

Again, we've got the dispersal problem. I do meet fairly often with some of the other SWC people in Ottawa, but.....

Cheers,

Marc