"Differently ..."

In hypertextual environments, writers are not only learning to strike forcefully in the traditional sense of presenting the correct words in the proper manner, but are also learning to weave a writing space that is more personal than the standard sheet of paper. We are writing differently; we are reading differently; we are learning differently; we are teaching differently. Kairos  is a journal that addresses these facts individually and syllogistically. (Mick Doherty in the Kairos  Homepage.)

The goal is not only to learn, to read, to write, and to teach differently, but to use hypertext to do all of these exceedingly well, and when possible better than has been done with print-based only knowledge. Mick didn't stress this connotation of "differently" because it is obvious to him and us. But it is worth stressing here. One "Kairic" goal is to add to the print-based ways we make knowledge and meaning, to create, in the spirit of the word "kairos," knowledge with the layers of meaning, knowledge that recognizes its important poetic and philosophical place in time: both fixed for its moment of first publication and continually engaged, expanded and changed by new readings and writngs.

We will add to print-based forms and sensibilities, then, by both departing from and coming back to those print ways; by weaving new insights gleaned from new ways of organizing knowledge with those generated by old ways, by being both fixed and dynamic ourselves, archived yet always linked to a changing web and ongoing dialogue.

Thus as editors we seek pieces which embrace that spirit and that give us new ways to imagine knowledge. And we do mean knowledge. The arrogance of saying that what comes from a computer is information and what comes from a human speaker or book is knowledge is only matched by the reverse claim--that only in hypertext can we create a full, democratic, learning-by-doing, post-structuralist, Dewey-esque model of teaching and learning. We seek to be many things with this journal: articulate, thoughtful, engaging, cutting-edge, intelligent, witty, and radical.

Doing all that well is a necessary challenge, one we must meet if we are to matter. And we do want to matter. Not only for our readers, but also for ourselves and our contributors. We mean to be a journal that has import for both contributors and editorial board members at hiring, promotion, and tenure reviews. We will achieve that if readers come to us, cite the work they discover here, and seek to contribute;.