call & response

The mission of Call and Response:The Scholarly Journal of the National Black Graduate Student Association is to provide an outlet for publication of scholarly works produced by black graduate students. We have chosen the name Call and Response because this rhetorical process has been so critical to African-American intellectual work in both black and majority institutions including the academy, the church, and politics (government). Moreover, this name highlights our commitment to a collaborative and interactive process at all levels of production and organization for the Journal.

In addition to acting as an intellectual resource whereby our members may be able to have their work reviewed and critiqued by a community of peers, we also seek to assuage the continuing lack of access to professional mentoring and development by encouraging members’ broad-based and democratic participation in the peer review process in consultation and collaboration with NBGSA alumni and supporters who have obtained the graduate degree. Moreover, this endeavor seeks to directly continue the historical impetus for the founding of the NBGSA by providing year-round access to outlets for black graduate students to engage intellectual dialogue around their work.

Call and Response makes visible, indeed removes from the realm of the marginalized and the invisible, the persistence, the dynamism, and the rigor of contemporary black intellectual production.