Open access monographs

[Sigi Jottkandt <sigij AT openhumanitiespress.org>]

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
--------------
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.”

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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/