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  • From: Sigi Jottkandt <sigij AT openhumanitiespress.org>
  • To: "ohp AT lists.ibiblio.org" <ohp AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [OA-monographs] OHP and SPO OA Book series annoucement
  • Date: Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:44:08 +1200

We're thrilled to be able to make this announcement from OHP and SPO - a partnership that emerged from this list. Thanks to everyone here for helping us make this happen!
Sigi
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
7 August, 2009
Wellington, New Zealand

Contact: Sigi Jöttkandt (sigij AT openhumanitiespress.org) or Shana Kimball (kimballs AT umich.edu)

NEW OPEN ACCESS MONOGRAPHS SERIES - Open Humanities Press (OHP), in conjunction with the University of Michigan Library’s Scholarly Publishing Office (SPO), is pleased to announce the following forthcoming open access series in critical and cultural theory: New Metaphysics (ed. Graham Harman and Bruno Latour), Critical Climate Change (ed. Tom Cohen and Claire Colebrook), Global Conversations (ed. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o), Unidentified Theoretical Objects (ed. Wlad Godzich), and Liquid Books (ed. Clare Birchall and Gary Hall).

In a unique collaboration, the scholars of the Open Humanities Press are partnering with the University of Michigan Library’s Scholarly Publishing Office to launch five new OA book series, edited by senior members of OHP’s editorial board. All of the books will be freely available in full-text, digital editions and as reasonably-priced paperbacks.

“This is a tremendously exciting development for humanities publishing” said Barbara Cohen, Director of HumaniTech and a Steering Group member of OHP. “For faculty and libraries to work directly together to address the monographs crisis in this way makes perfect sense. It is a savvy solution to a long-standing problem of access whose effects have been having a major impact on scholarship worldwide.”

“We are delighted the scholars of OHP approached us to support their innovative vision” said Maria Bonn, Director of SPO. “We are enthusiastically supportive of what they are trying to accomplish, and excited about the opportunities our collaboration offers for rethinking existing models of scholarly publishing.”

All books published by OHP in conjunction with SPO will go through the highest standards of editorial vetting and peer review that will be managed by OHP’s series editors and board, which contains some of the most well-respected names in literary criticism and cultural studies including Alain Badiou, Chair of Philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure, Donna Haraway, Professor of the History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies, UC Santa Cruz, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Director of the International Center for Writing and Translation, UC Irvine, Gayatri Spivak, Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University, Peter Suber, Open Access Project Director for Public Knowledge and Professor of Philosophy at Earlham College, and Stephen Greenblatt, Cogan University Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University.

After the vetting and peer review process, manuscripts will be handed on to SPO for conversion to structured XML for electronic and print on demand publication, metadata creation and cataloging, and archiving in the University of Michigan Library for long-term preservation. The books will be available electronically through the OHP and SPO websites, and in paperback through the usual online distributors. “This model allows us the speed, editorial flexibility and boldness to focus on purely academic considerations in our series, and with the sharp sense of mission that accompanies such ventures,” said Graham Harman, Associate Provost for Research at the American University of Cairo, who is co-editing OHP’s New Metaphysics series with Bruno Latour, Directeur scientifique of Sciences-Po, France.

Authors will retain the copyrights for their works and have a choice of Creative Commons licenses. They will also have the option of making their manuscripts available online in various pre- and post-publication versions for reader commenting and annotation if they so wish. “As well as creating a prestigious open access venue for humanities monographs publishing, our collaboration with SPO will also enable OHP to explore new directions that the book-length argument might take once it’s released from marketability concerns” said Gary Hall, one of the co-founders of OHP (with Paul Ashton, Sigi Jöttkandt and David Ottina), and co-editor of the forthcoming Liquid Books series with Clare Birchall. “Liquid Books is intended as a series of experimental digital ‘books’ published under the conditions of both open editing and free content.”

Commenting on OHP’s Critical Climate Change series, J. Hillis Miller, Distinguished Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine, OHP board member, and long-time supporter of the Open Access movement said, “The world is changing so rapidly and in so many interconnected ways that theory has only begun to make the innovative responses demanded. This series is at the frontier of new developments in theoretical and practical thinking.”

“I love the New Metaphysics prospectus,” added Donald N. Levine, Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. “It gives promise of a badly needed entrée into the kind of philosophizing that Georg Simmel advocated: the pursuit of questions that can never be definitively answered but which our intellects cannot stop themselves from asking. The experience of joining voices as we explore such questions can lead to some of the most magnificent moments in human life.”

“Any venture aiming to lower the linguistic barriers that inhibit free discussion among thinkers pursuing related projects is to be warmly welcomed,” said Derek Attridge, Leverhulme Research Professor, Chair of English, University of York. “Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s series, ‘Global Conversations,’ promises to take advantage of new technological possibilities to overcome enduring problems in the world of learning, and deserves to be a resounding success.”

###

Open Humanities Press is an international Open Access publishing collective specializing in critical and cultural theory. OHP was formed by academics to overcome the current crisis in scholarly publishing that threatens intellectual freedom and academic rigor worldwide. OHP journals are academically certified by OHP’s independent board of international scholars. All OHP publications are peer-reviewed, published under open access licenses, and freely and immediately available online at www.openhumanitiespress.org.

The University of Michigan Library, through its Scholarly Publishing Office, provides academic publishing services that are responsive to the needs of both producers and users, that foster a sustainable economic model for academic publishing, and that support institutional control of intellectual assets. http://www.lib.umich.edu/spo/



  • [OA-monographs] OHP and SPO OA Book series annoucement, Sigi Jottkandt, 08/08/2009

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