Via In the Middle, I see there’s a new journal dedicated to the theory and practice of commentary: Glossator.
Glossator publishes original commentaries, editions and translations of commentaries, and essays and articles relating to the theory and history of commentary, glossing, and marginalia. The journal aims to encourage the practice of commentary as a creative form of intellectual work and to provide a forum for dialogue and reflection on the past, present, and future of this ancient genre of writing. By aligning itself, not with any particular discipline, but with a particular mode of production, Glossator gives expression to the fact that praxis founds theory. [Learn more.]
Cool in and of itself, I’m intrigued by the the list of suggested submission material:
Possible submissions include: critical, philological, and/or bibliographic commentaries on texts, art, music, events, and other kinds of objects. Editions and translations of commentaries, glosses, annotation, and marginalia. Historical, theoretical, and/or critical articles and essays on commentary and commentary traditions. Experimental and/or fictional commentaries.
While I’ve got plenty of interest in glossing and commentaries from my medievalist and Ong Collection work, there’s a whole new set of practices to explore and theorize: blogs, tools like CommentPress, social tagging and folksonomy, YouTube video responses, mashups…
And this reminds me, I’ve been meaning to talk about the FYC course I’m planning to teach at Creighton next fall. Creighton’s FYC courses are themed, and central to the course is going to be McLuhan’s <em>The Medium is the Massage</em>. (Yes, I know, I’m getting too much mileage out of this book.) One of the uses of the book will be to introduce research, commentary, and annotation. I’m planning on having students photocopy passage from the book, mount them on posterboards, and comment, gloss, annotate, and respond using original text, quotes, images, drawings, and whatever else comes to mind. The goal is to extend McLuhan’s performance of electronic writing via print by taking it one step backward into manuscript culture. I don’t want to force anyone into working with a passage they don’t want to work with, but if we’re lucky, I might be able to convince the class to cover the whole book.