A surprise request for proposals last spring from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation had university presses scrambling. Their mission: Put together collaborative partnerships to publish monographs in “underserved” areas of the humanities.
Now the results of that competition have been announced, the Association of American University Presses said today. And the winners are:
The University of Wisconsin Press, Northwestern University Press, and the University of Pittsburgh Press, which have banded together to create a Slavic-studies series. They received $390,000 and will focus on first monographs in Russian, East European, and Central Asian studies.
New York University Press, Fordham University Press, Rutgers University Press, Temple University Press, and the University of Virginia Press, which announced their collaborative American Literatures Initiative last month. They got the biggest award — $1.37-million — and will also emphasize first books. They also will test what their Web site describes as a “shared, centralized, editorial office” in charge of book production.
Columbia University Press, the University of California Press, and the University of Chicago Press, which came up with a new series on South Asian studies. They received $447,000 and aim to publish previously unavailable archival material, work up new theoretical and methodological approaches, and promote a deep and broad interdisciplinary focus.
Indiana University Press, Kent State University Press, and (striking it lucky again) Temple University Press, which together pitched a series on ethnomusicology.
The first three grants are for five years. The fourth will support a one-year planning stage.
“Despite changing business models and distribution platforms, the monograph — the argument in long form — remains the coin of the realm in the humanities and many of the social sciences,” Peter Givler, executive director of the publishers’ association, said in the statement. “Mellon’s support for the book through these innovative collaborations is a welcome recognition of that fact.” —Jennifer Howard
