News
We have changed the front and back cover of “Transcommunication”.
This is just a beginning. We will start publishing a wide variety of writings in the future issues.
Please check it out!!
We are now calling for paper for the next issues, Transcommunication Vol.7-2.
Please refer to the website for more details.
https://www.waseda.jp/fire/gsiccs/research/journal/
We look forward to your articles.
Message from Dean
Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, Dean
The Graduate School of International
Culture and Communication Studies
Transcommunication is a journal published by the Graduate School of International Culture and Communication Studies (GSICCS) at Waseda University. Some may say it should be called “bulletin,” which is a more standard translation of the Japanese term kiyō (紀要). In Japan, research articles usually appear in either official journals (学会誌) published by well-established academic societies or bulletins (紀要) edited by individual schools and departments. Both the journals associated with academic societies and the institution-based bulletins play different yet important roles in production and dissemination of knowledge. Whereas the journals are a crucial means of reproducing disciplines and fields of specialization, the bulletins provide scholars with an opportunity to publish a preliminary result of their research or a research paper dealing with a topic that may attract, even if it is scholarly significant, the attention of only a handful of specialists. Despite these differences, the official journals of academic societies and the bulletins of individual schools share one thing in common: both are closely tied to the authority of the academic societies or universities that publish them. Or put more bluntly, they function as a vital instrument for institutional legitimation.
Transcommunication is not completely free from this institutional demand and constraint. Yet it tries to shift its focus from legitimation to experimentation. In addition to refereed articles, we will start publishing a wide variety of writings in the future issues. There will be visual essays, critical reviews, and opinion pieces. We will fully integrate Transcommunication into the lectures, workshops and symposiums organized or hosted by GSICCS. There will be thematically-focused issues dealing with some of the most urgent problems existing in our global or planetary world. It is with this spirit of free experimentation and bold exploration that we have changed the front and back covers of Transcommunication. The current issue you are holding in your hand shows only the first stage of the journal’s metamorphosis. So please stay tuned for more extensive changes later this year and next year.