about the initiative

The American Literatures Initiative is a new collaborative book publishing program, supported by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, to create new opportunities for publication in under-served and emerging areas of the humanities.

This new five-press publishing collaboration—New York University Press, Fordham University Press, Rutgers University Press, Temple University Press, and the University of Virginia Press—will confront the publishing crisis in literature and literary studies, where the annual number of univer­sity press books has declined steeply in recent years, placing younger scholars at a disadvantage when writing their first books.

The American Literatures Initiative, which will launch in January, 2008, will be an innovative, entrepreneurial, cooperative effort to expand the number of books published in literary studies and increase audience reach by using common resources available to the five Presses through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Each press will continue to acquire and develop titles according to its own needs and editorial criteria looking for high-quality first books by promising scholars, seeking out the best scholarly work about English-language literatures of Cen­tral and North America and the Caribbean.

The innovative aspects of the initiative include:

• first books by scholars
• royalty advances paid to authors for work accepted for publication
• a shared, centralized, editorial office managing the production of the books and ensuring high quality copyediting and design
• a collaborative, high profile, and aggressive marketing program consisting of major academic journal and other media advertisements, direct mail and e-marketing campaigns, publicity, academic conference exhibits, and award submissions

An additional goal of the initiative is the creation of a sustainable model of scholarly publishing in the humanities. The collaborative production model will create permanent efficiencies and will also enable the Presses to experiment with innovative print and electronic publishing models.

“The project has the potential to give literary scholars an important vehicle to publish the kind of research that currently does not have adequate publishing outlets,” said Rosemary G. Feal, Executive Director of the Modern Language Association. “It’s a twenty-first century approach to this problem through a collabora­tive strategy designed to engage publishers, faculty members, and administrators. The fact that each press will be able to maintain its individuality and utilize its own strengths, while at the same time cooperating with other presses, is a unique and laudable feature.”

For more information on the American Literatures Initiative, visit www.americanliteratures.org, the web site of the participating Presses, or NYU Press, the lead press in this collaborative venture.

Editorial statement of the Presses in the American Literatures Initiative:

New York University Press (www.nyupress.org), Eric Zinner, Editor-in-Chief
We will pursue innovative work in American literary studies emerging in the “long” nineteenth century—from the Revolutionary period through early modernism—focused on the relationship of literary production to the world-shaping events of this period.

Fordham University Press (www.fordhampress.com), Robert Oppedisano, Director
We are particularly interested in scholarship that rigorously extends disciplinary boundaries, especially among philosophy, religion, and literature and that showcases in fresh ways the methods of close reading.

Rutgers University Press (rutgerspress.rutgers.edu), Leslie Mitchner, Editor-in-Chief
We are most eager to find titles that cross lines among ethnic groups and minorities and open up discussion beyond a particular identity group.

Temple University Press (www.temple.edu/tempress), Janet Francendese, Editor-in-Chief
We will maintain our focus on race and ethnicity, emphasizing the literary production of relatively new immigrant groups or groups whose numbers are growing as a result of new waves of immigration.

University of Virginia Press (www.upress.virginia.edu), Cathie Brettschneider, Humanities Editor
We welcome submissions for our series, New World Studies, which publishes interdisciplinary, multilingual research that seeks to redefine the cultural map of the Americas, encompassing the Caribbean and continental North, Central, and South America. We also consider work in twentieth-century American literature, Black American literature and culture, and ethnic and postcolonial studies in language and literature.