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Where can one find essays detailing the philosophical benefits of surfing, insights into childhood imagination, and an analysis of chaos theory? Within the pages of Dialogue, Boston College's newly developed interdisciplinary essay journal, which releases its inaugural issue today and can be found in a residence hall lobbies near you. Conceived by the trio of Paul Camacho, editor in chief and A&S '07; Dimitri Phillips, managing editor and A&S '07; and Michael Camacho, assistant managing editor and A&S '09; Dialogue is a cross between the more-creative literary magazine, Stylus, and the more technical research journal, Elements.
Paul Camacho describes the style of the essays as "written to be read … they are meant to be entertaining and endearing … less technical and more readable." The journal intends to spark dialogue, as its title describes, and Camacho hopes that it will provide students with a vehicle with which to express their ideas in the intellectual campus community.
Amanda Carhart, senior layout editor and A&S '07, traced the initial spark for the development of the journal back to a discussion in Phillips' apartment that would have been dismissed had Philips and the Camacho brothers not taken a sincere interest in developing it. They used the connections they made as upperclassmen to garner financial support as well as the council from administrators at the Office of Residential Life, Intersections, and the University Honors Program.
Carhart led the design team who, in effort to bring the words of these essays to life, worked closely with the Office of Marketing Communication, which acted as a liaison between the publisher and the students.
"We had to sell the idea without anything to hold in our hands," said Camacho. Still, he was impressed by the University's overwhelming response. They were all very receptive to the idea of a journal that intended to bring intellectual dialogue outside of the classroom.
Assembling an energetic staff in addition to the core group of founders and their interested friends was done mostly through word of mouth and faculty publicity. Editors came from a variety of academic backgrounds, which coincided well with the journal's interdisciplinary mission.
Camacho admitted that, though he did not expect more than 20-25 submissions that would be narrowed down to 14 finalists, his expectations were exceeded when over 60 essays were submitted for review by the editorial board and Dialogue staff. Many of the essays were originally class papers, and were then edited to meet the characteristics of the academic essay. Others, like one student's philosophical analysis of race relations on campus, were written especially for the journal.
Carhart, detailing the selection process, explained that editors narrowed down the submissions to five semifinalists in each category: social science, natural science, philosophy/theology, and literature/arts. A detailed description of each essay's strengths, weaknesses, and editing potential was attached to each piece, and the staff then voted on the finalists.
Camacho hopes that in the future, Dialogue can expand to include more essays in its annual issue or publish biannually. He also welcomes potential "point-counterpoint" essays that may be in response to an essay featured in a previous issue. "These essays are not conclusions in themselves," he said.
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