Consistent with the dialogic principles that underpin our journal, DPJ is committed to innovative formats of book reviews that promote diverse points of view and interpretations of published texts.

As important pieces of critical scholarship, all book reviews enter a peer review process similar to any other submission to this journal. Within our editorial process, we may invite authors to consider their book review becoming a full manuscript submission to the journal.

We maintain a list of books that are on our review “wish list,” but we also welcome you to suggest your own book.

We welcome diverse and innovative forms of book reviews authored by individuals or by entire research/study groups. The following are examples of book review genres we have envisioned (certainly, there are more):

1. Traditional book reviews: Such reviews would focus upon a summary of key ideas in a book, along with critical interpretation and discussion of the implications of the book’s ideas. It is expected that authors will ground their ideas in evidence or examples from the text.
2. Interviews with commentary: An example of this type of review could include an interview with an author concerning a recently published book of interest to our readership, along with commentary on the interview. Such interviews do not need to be limited to text; feel free to experiment with multimedia formats such as podcasts.
3. Polyphonic reviews: We also invite innovation in the book review genre that reveals the diversity of voices in response to ideas in a text, as inspired by Bakhtin’s notion in Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics of “unmerged voices” within the “polyphonic novel.” This type of book review prioritizes the “never-ending dialogue” which addresses and responds to a text (Matusov et al., 2019, p. 11). We encourage innovation in this genre, which may involve authorship of an entire research team or study group. For an example of work that is organized within such a genre, see Matusov et al. (2019)’s book Dialogic Pedagogy and Polyphonic Research Art: Bakhtin by and for Educators. In this polyphonic spirit, we also invite authors to review several books in one document. In this way, the ideas in these texts can “talk” to each other in novel ways.
4. Author’s summary and invitation to dialogue on a text: This type of dialogic review is initiated by authors themselves and may include a shorter synopsis of key ideas within a text, along with commentary from diverse readers. The goal of such a review is to invite further dialogue from readers on the text.
5. Author’s post-publication reflections: In this type of review, an author may revisit key ideas from their text in light of reader comments after publication, reflect upon ideas that were left out of the original publication, engage in a critical comparison of their ideas with other literature on the same topic, discuss future plans after publication, or consider how the text may relate to diverse audiences that may have not been considered in the original publication.
6. Your experimentation with the genre: We welcome experimentation in proposing your own genre.

Procedure for submission of a book review

Once you choose the book you would like to review, please email your idea for a book review to the DPJ Book Review Editor at the following address:

Dr. Mark Philip Smith (Kean University, USA) - marksmit@kean.edu

In response, you will, in due course, receive an email from the Book Review Editor about the relevance of your review for our readership. We invite you as well to dialogue with us about your ideas for the genre of your book review.

Once your review is complete, you will submit it as a new article to the journal within the Book Review section. At the time of submission, please create or update your profile on the DPJ website by adding a short bio of yourself where you indicate your theoretical interest in Dialogic Pedagogy. If the review is accepted, the editors will work with you to ensure it is published online.