Lying, cheating and dissimulation might sound like the premise of a good film, but instead it is the enticing title of the inaugural issue of Pivot: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies & Thought by York’s English Graduate Students’ Association (EGSA) launching next week.
The launch will take place Tuesday, Sept. 13, from 7 to 10pm, at Café Bernate, 1024 Queen St. W., on the north side of Queen Street, just west of Ossington Avenue, in Toronto. Light refreshments, 
including complimentary beverages, will be served. Those interested in attending the launch are asked to RSVP to pivot@yorku.ca by tomorrow.
Published biannually, Pivot is a multidisciplinary journal dedicated to innovative critical writing from graduate students and established academics.
“It really has been an informative and important exercise in academic community building,” says York PhD candidate Thom Bryce, an editorial board member along with Nemanja Protic, Kate Siklosi and outgoing editor Melissa Dalgleish. “We’ve had such a positive experience working with graduate students and professors from other doctoral programs within Canada, the United States and even Europe.”
Scholars from a wide range of fields will be encouraged to engage with a focused, but multifaceted central topic, bringing into conversation their various disciplinary perspectives. Each issue of Pivot is based upon a unifying theme, such as that of the upcoming second issue, “Undressing the Bawdy”.
Submissions are peer-reviewed in a double blind system by one graduate student and one faculty member. So far the issues have corresponded with the theme of each year’s EGSA colloquium, though the editors note that this may change in the future.
“It’s been such a wonderful journey and we’ve all learned so many new skills: website creation and administration, liaising with journal staff and submission authors, organizing the peer review process, copy-editing, advertising – the list goes on and on,” says Protic. “We’re grateful to the program for providing us with the opportunity for a project which has been so formative.”
The journal’s mandate is to foster communication and cooperation between students and faculty across disciplinary boundaries. “It is an amazing opportunity to join the Pivot team and be a part of such an exciting and necessary project,” says Siklosi, the newest member of the editorial board and co-editor of the journal. “The launching of Pivot’s inaugural issue further ingrains York in the international academic community, which is so important.”
Outgoing founding editor Dalgleish is looking forward to watching Pivot grow. “It has been an incredibly rewarding and satisfying journey to take Pivot from an idea to a first issue, and while my other academic commitments mean that I have to step down as editor, I know that the new editorial board will put together a fantastic second issue.”
By juxtaposing viewpoints and theoretical approaches that may otherwise remain disparate, Pivot will create a space in which readers can explore the intersections between various fields and modes of thought.
For more information, e-mail pivot@yorku.ca or contact the Graduate Program in English.