Best known for its interview series, JAC has conducted and published scholarly interviews with such intellectuals as Homi Bhabba, Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, Paulo Freire, Clifford Geertz, Donna Haraway, Sandra Harding, Ernesto Laclau, and Richard Rorty, among others. The latest issue features articles on the late Edward Said; forthcoming are two special issues on trauma studies.

The journal comes to Illinois State with its editor, Dr. Lynn Worsham, who has joined the faculty in the Department of English. Worsham received her Ph.D. in Humanities from the University of Texas at Arlington and taught rhetoric, theory, and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee and the University of South Florida before coming to Illinois State. A nationally prominent leader in her field, Worsham became editor of JAC in 2000 and has since published four book-length issues of the journal each year. Worsham has written extensively on the rhetorics of gender, race, trauma, and emotion. Her publications include Feminism and Composition Studies: In Other Words; Race, Rhetoric, and the Post Colonial; Critical Intellectuals on Writing; The Kinneavy Papers: Theory and the Study of Discourse; and Postmodern Sophistry: Stanley Fish and the Critical Enterprise.

News that Worsham and JAC were moving to Illinois State traveled quickly after an announcement appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Steve Lamos, Assistant Professor of English joining the CAS faulty this year from the University of Illinois said, “My colleagues had already been encouraging me to join the department at Illinois State, but they were doubly enthusiastic (and maybe even a bit jealous) once they heard about the arrival of Worsham.” Professor Emeritus of English at Arizona State University Ed White, considered by some to be one of the founders of the field, proclaimed, “With one blow, ISU has moved from a solid citizen to a major player in rhetoric and composition, and our field as a whole is the beneficiary.”

For more information about the journal, visit the JAC website.