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Photo: Ivars Kupcis/WCC

Photo: Ivars Kupcis/WCC

The meeting on 3 December offered an opportunity for board members to get to know one another, and discuss the role and significance in interreligious encounter of Current Dialogue, one of the oldest journals in the field.

Produced since 1980 by the staff of the WCC’s office for Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation, Current Dialogue has been published since 2019 by the WCC’s journals partner, Wiley, as an annual special issue of The Ecumenical Review, the WCC quarterly, with its own look and feel.

At the board meeting, the editor of Current Dialogue, Rev. Dr Peniel Jesudason Rufus Rajkumar, WCC programme coordinator for Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation, introduced the journal.

“As an important instrument of WCC’s engagement on interreligious questions, I hope Current Dialogue can be furthered in terms of its reach, relevance and reputation through the wide experience and expertise of the board,” Rajkumar said.

Marianne Ejdersten, the WCC director of communication, set out how the three WCC journals – Current Dialogue, The Ecumenical Review, and International Review of Mission – form part of the WCC communication strategy, while Dr Stephen Brown, the WCC journals’ coordinator, explained the partnership with Wiley and several of the challenges currently facing academic journals, including a shift to online production.

The 18 members of the editorial board are drawn from the WCC’s ecumenical fellowship as well as from four religious traditions with which WCC has a longstanding partnerships - the Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish and Muslim faith traditions.

The role of the editorial board is to advise on the journal policy and scope, identify possible topics for issues, and suggesting contributors, attracting new authors and submissions, review past issues and make suggestions for future issues, promote the journal in their networks and institutions and contributing to the journal through articles, book reviews, information and documentation.

Members are appointed for a four-year period, renewable once for a further four-year period, according to a system that allows for overlap in membership between old and new members.

The next meeting of the board is scheduled for early February.

 

More information about Current Dialogue

Information about WCC Journals