Anyone in the world of academia is no doubt familiar with those academic journals that come to them four times a year, and which are never read beyond the table of contents. These journals then gather dust on a shelf until some indefinite point in the future when memory may urge the owner to look around for some near-pertinent point to support an argument. There are two answers to this question, one having to do with logistics, the other with concept, though the two are closely related. One of the challenges faced by any publisher is the cost of production and distribution. To produce a paper journal would cost several thousand dollars per issue, and would require the needless deaths of thousands of trees to boot.
Electronic publishing provides a means for distributing information at virtually no cost.
We also believe that if we truly want to break away from the mold of the standard academic journal, we must also break away from the medium. An electronic journal not only solves problems of logistics, but opens up a host of new considerations for how an academic journal can look, function, and be read. Multi-media and hypertext are the means for exploring new ideas, new relationships of ideas, and new modes of writing and expression. We are interested in articles from every field and discipline, from Neuroscience to Psychology, from Literary Theory to Cultural Studies, from Biology to AI Research. If you think you could just as easily submit it to The Journal of Popular Culture, Critique, Diacritics, or anywhere else, then by all means, send it to them.