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<font size=3>[Forwarding from Open Humanities Press. --Peter
Suber.]<br><br>
<br>
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<br>
7 August, 2009<br>
Wellington, New Zealand<br><br>
Contact: Sigi J</font><font face="Trebuchet MS" size=3>ö</font>ttkandt
(sigij@openhumanitiespress.org) or Shana Kimball
(kimballs@umich.edu)<br><br>
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: <i>New
Metaphysics</i> (ed. Graham Harman and Bruno Latour), <i>Critical Climate
Change</i> (ed. Tom Cohen and Claire Colebrook), <i>Global
Conversations</i> (ed. <font face="Trebuchet MS" size=3>Ngugi wa
Thiong’o</font>), <i>Unidentified Theoretical Objects</i> (ed. Wlad
Godzich), and <i>Liquid Books</i> (ed. Clare Birchall and Gary
Hall).<br><br>
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.<br><br>
"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."<br><br>
"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."<br><br>
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
<font face="Trebuchet MS" size=3>École Normale Supérieure</font>, Donna
Haraway, Professor of the History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies,
UC Santa Cruz, <font face="Trebuchet MS" size=3>Ngugi wa Thiong’o</font>,
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.<br><br>
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 <i>New Metaphysics</i> series with Bruno Latour,
Directeur scientifique of Sciences-Po, France.<br><br>
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
J<font face="Trebuchet MS" size=3>ö</font>ttkandt 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."<br><br>
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."<br><br>
"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
<font face="Trebuchet MS" size=3>entrée </font>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."<br><br>
"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. <font face="Trebuchet MS" size=3>Ngugi wa
Thiong’o</font>'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."<br><br>
###<br><br>
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
<a href="http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.openhumanitiespress.org</a>.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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