You can find members of this discourse community working as professors and teachers, publishing in academic journals or speaking at conferences around the world.
Formal dispersement of knowledge takes place in peer-reviewed journals, university publishing companies and academic conventions. In a peer-reviewed journal like the one pictured to the left, essays that present new knowledge are passed on to other experts in the field of literature studies and analyzed to insure the quality of the work. Peer-reviewed articles are considered to be scholarly representations of knowledge within their field. The peer-review process and editorial refereeing are also used for academic publishing which is a subfield of the publishing industry that focuses on academic research and the advancement of scholarly knowledge. Conferences and Conventions, that are sponsored and hosted by universities, serve as speaking platforms for the dispersement of scholarly knowledge. In Literature Studies, these gatherings are usually hosted by the English Department or a Humanities Department that represents an interdisciplinary sub-field of literature and cultural studies. You can see an example of the upcoming events hosted by CU Boulder's English Department by clicking here. In fact, the advancement of knowledge is so important to literature studies that almost all universities offer grants to encourage research and generate new knowledge. (The events link also lists funding possibilities for research projects available to the CU English Department Faculty.) Less formal discussions that also work to circulate knowledge happen in classrooms and on on-line forums and blogs. For a list of scholarly literature blogs, click here. |
Where IS KNOWLEDGE DISPERSED? |