University Press Week Blog Tour: Day 5

It's the final day of the annual blog tour for University Press Week. Here is what has been posted this week:

• Monday —  Surprise!
• Tuesday — The Future of Scholarly Publishing
• Wednesday — University Press Design
• Thursday — Throwback Thursday

Today's theme is University Presses in Conversation with Authors.  

University Press Week Blog Tour: Day 3

It's the third day of the annual blog tour for University Press Week. Stayed tuned tomorrow when we share quintessential street photographer Mark Cohen's 1970s street style and his behind-the-photos commentary. Our fellow presses are featuring themed posts for each day of the week. Check out yesterday's stops here. Monday's posts are collected here. Today's theme is University Press Design.

University Press Week Blog Tour: Day 2

Welcome to the second day of the annual blog tour for University Press Week. Our fellow presses are featuring themed posts for each day of the week. Check out yesterday's stops here. Today's theme is The Future of Scholarly Publishing. Read our Editor-In-Chief's post from UP Week 2013 here.

University Press Week Blog Tour: Day 1

Welcome to the fourth annual University Press Week! University presses are full of surprises each year and this year we didn’t have to look hard to find the unique and

More info

special ways that these presses make their mark on the world. From our very own James Beard award winner Yucatán by Chef David Sterling to Princeton University Press’s 150th Anniversary Edition of Alice in Wonderland illustrated by Salvador Dali and Ohio University Press’s illustrated YA novel Trampoline, this has been a year of outstanding publishing from university presses. All the while, university presses continue to publish the best scholarship from the foremost thinkers working today and garner awards and media attention in vast numbers for their work. University presses worldwide are proud to create these varied, often surprising, and always incredibly well-researched publications for students as well as armchair scholars, librarians, journalists, booksellers, and general readers alike.

For the annual blog tour, our fellow presses are featuring themed posts for each day of the week including, “Surprise!”, Design, Throwback Thursday, conversations between authors and their editors, and The Future of Scholarly Publishing.

Censorship in Comics for Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week (September 27 through October 3, 2015) is the book community’s annual opportunity to celebrate the freedom to read, and draw attention to those who hinder that right. Intellectual freedom is a core value of our mission; and the freedom to read is as integral to that value as the freedom to publish. 

This year's theme is Young Adult fiction—one of the most regularly challenged categories of books in libraries and schools across the country. We don't publish young adult fiction, but we are launching a new comic book studies series called World Comics and Graphic Nonfiction Series with Frederick Luis Aldama and Christopher González as series editors. The series will include monographs and edited volumes that focus on the analysis and interpretation of comic books and graphic nonfiction from around the world. Books published in the series will bring analytical approaches from such fields as literature, art history, cultural studies, communication studies, media studies, and film studies, among others to help define the comic book studies field at a time of great vitality and growth.

More info

The Association of American University Presses is an official sponsor of Banned Books Week. To join the conversation, we're posting an excerpt from a recent issue of The Velvet Light Trap dealing with censorship in the comic book industry. To read Shawna Kidman's piece in full, you can access it through Project Muse, visit your local library, or purchase a single issue of The Velvet Light Trap on our website.

Contribute to the banned books conversation on social media with the hashtags #bannedbooks and #bannedbooksweek.

"Self-Regulation through Distribution: Censorship and the Comic Book Industry in 1954"
By Shawna Kidman

In the early 1950s, comic books boasted a readership of over seventy million Americans, each of whom consumed an average of six comics a month. There were two comic books published for every one book, with each copy likely passed on to more than three readers. And then, quite suddenly, the market crashed. Between 1954 and 1955, sales plummeted by 50 percent, from eighty million copies each month to just forty million. By 1956 more than half of the extant publishers had closed their doors, and two-thirds of the six hundred titles appearing monthly on newsstands had vanished.1 Just like that, comic books went from being one of the most popular forms of entertainment in America to a medium struggling for its survival.2

At the very same moment, as the comic book market was beginning its dramatic decline, the medium was undergoing a crisis in the political sphere. Psychiatrists, church officials, members of PTAs, and local politicians had for years been trying to link comic books to juvenile delinquency, illiteracy, and moral corruption. Finally, in the spring of 1954, the government got involved, and the Senate Judiciary Committee held televised hearings on the comic book industry and its alleged corruption of America’s youth. Pressured by this public relations disaster and the threat of local and state censorship, the major comic book publishers joined forces to form the Comics Magazine Association of America (CMAA). This trade organization drafted a code of self-censorship and created an administrative body to enforce it known as the Comics Code Authority (CCA). Like the Production Code Administration (PCA) created by Hollywood twenty years earlier, the CCA would issue a seal of approval to those titles it deemed morally appropriate. Heavily promoted by the industry, this response seemed to satisfy government officials and consumers alike; within the year, interest in the controversy had faded almost entirely from public view.3 But the dramatic decline in sales was already well under way.

Most writers have characterized the anti-comics crusade and the simultaneous market crash in primarily cultural terms, drawing a causal link between these two events. The episode has been sensationalized in many journalistic accounts, which create a hero and villain respectively in the figures of EC Comics publisher Bill Gaines, an innovator responsible for “some of the best comic books ever published,” and Fredric Wertham, an “insane” psychiatrist who told “apocalyptic” lies about the dangers of mass media.4 In this version of the story, the Senate or “EC hearings” are recast as a trial on taste, Bill Gaines is understood as their “principal target,” and Wertham is accused of censoring Gaines right “out of existence.”5 Scholars meanwhile tend to point to social trends, blaming the controversy on McCarthyism; seething generational battles; culture wars rooted in class, money, religion, and politics; and fundamental struggles over “who had the right and the responsibility to shape American culture.”6 With a focus on comic book content or the cultural milieu, many of these descriptions marginalize the market crash itself, which is depicted as merely a side effect of censorship. Some have even argued that the anti-comics crusade was “almost solely responsible for the drastic decline in sales and the near death of the industry during the 1950s.”7

Figure 1. Comics Code Authority Seal, 1954. For more than three decades, this seal from the CCA would grace the cover of the majority of comic books sold in America.

Too often left out of these historical accounts is the way in which both censorship and shrinking audiences are fundamentally also industrial, economic, and political occurrences. Censorship in particular often seems like an issue that is primarily value-based and culturally contingent. However, in the context of mass media, the regulation of content necessarily involves vast and powerful infrastructures of enforcement capable of containing the inherent disorderliness of popular culture. So while we should not give up on analyzing the texts and ideologies at the center of media censorship, it is equally important to consider the material foundations that support systems of both restriction and circulation. More broadly, as Philip Napoli has noted, it is possible to use the political economy of media as a useful “foundation of knowledge for a wide range of important scholarly inquiries into the behaviors of media industries, as well as the broader political and cultural ramifications of these behaviors.”8 A better understanding of the industrial context in which most media is produced and initially circulated can lead to a more profound insight into all aspects of culture, including its active consumption, transformation, and recirculation by audiences and fans, the latter of which has been a particular interest of comic book studies.9

AAUP Listening Tour: Q&A with Peter Berkery

Peter Berkery, Executive Director of the Association of American University Presses, visited the University of Texas Press offices in Austin last week as part of his Mellon-funded tour of the AAUP member presses. Peter answered some questions about what he’s learned from his “Listening Tour,” the value of university presses to their host institutions, and advice for young professionals in scholarly publishing.

Follow the Listening Tour on the AAUP Digital Digest, and check out the University of Washington Press's Q&A with Peter from an earlier Listening Tour visit.

Shiori Kawasaki, 2013

Now that you are on the second leg of your Listening Tour, what is the most surprising or interesting thing that you have learned from the Presses you have visited?


It’s arcane, but the most surprising thing I’ve learned relates to my prior experience at Oxford University Press. People generally assume that size is what most sets OUP apart from other university presses. Of course size really does matter, but I’ve come to understand that the biggest differentiator is that OUP in the US is four thousand miles away from its parent institution. Being on campus, a direct part of the ecosystem, makes all the difference—and this is a factor that comes into play for many of our members.


What do you plan to do with all of the information that you are gathering?

Originally, the Listening Tour was intended to accelerate my learning curve. While I still have a lot to learn, I’m now 12 months in and I think people are expecting me to act on my newfound wisdom! So the information I accumulate will have several purposes. First, I will be reporting back to the Mellon Foundation (who funded this second leg of the Tour). Next, I’ll be reporting back to our Board, who will use my input to inform a pending revision to the AAUP Strategic Plan. Finally, I’ll base the specific program decisions we make to further the plan in part on what I’ve heard on the road.

One topic that comes up often among university presses is how to strengthen the relationship with our universities. How can AAUP help those in the academy better understand the role that university presses play in scholarly dialogue?

This is a great question, but a challenging one. First, the direct answer: AAUP needs to strengthen its relationships with other organizations that represent various elements of the academy—administrators, faculty, librarians, lawyers, finance officers, et cetera. It pains me to say this, but we’re barely on any of their radar screens. That said, a lot of the relationship-building work has to occur at the grassroots level, by individual presses. AAUP can equip university press leaders to do this critical work through training and toolkits, but the lifting has to happen on campus.

We have heard about a newly formed AAUP Early Career Group that is connecting young professionals in scholarly publishing for career networking and idea generating. What words of advice do you have for the ‘next generation’ of scholarly publishers?

The best career advice I’ve ever received—and I’m forever trying to put it into practice more myself—came from a sales manager I worked with at Wolters Kluwer: Listen! The good Lord gave you two ears and one mouth because that’s the ratio He wants you to use them in!

Specific to scholarly publishing, I’d say listen to what’s happening in your ecosystem. It’s easy for us to get lost in the work we do—our elegant designs, our guerilla marketing strategies, the disciplines we acquire in—but more than ever we need to be mindful of how external changes are impacting the scholarly communications process we serve. Pay attention to how technology is changing research, and what that means for our authors and our customers in the future.

The Texas Bookshelf: New Ways to Share Scholarship

In the spirit of partnership that pervades the university press community, the University of Texas Press and 36 other presses unite for the AAUP’s second annual blog tour during University Press Week. The tour highlights the value of university presses and the contributions they make to scholarship and our society.

Schedule your week's reading with the complete blog tour schedule here: http://bit.ly/HjQX7n.


Today's theme is 'The Future of Scholarly Communication,' and our Assistant Editor-in-Chief Robert Devens suggests that this future will be built on relationships closer to home:

The future of scholarly communication certainly depends upon looking ever outward, whether it be toward international markets, new modes of collaboration between far-flung research teams, or the formal and technological possibilities of the book itself. I’ve been thinking a lot lately, however, about the exciting opportunities much closer to home. It’s been nearly a year since I arrived in Austin on a 70-degree January day, the rock salt of Chicago still caked on the sides of my shoes, and barely a week has passed without some striking example of the importance and value of strong campus partnerships.

Just a few months ago we announced the Texas Bookshelf, our broadest campus initiative to date. The Bookshelf gathers fifteen scholars from many of the university’s top departments—including American studies, architecture, anthropology, film, history, journalism, and theatre—as well as from UT-Austin institutions such as the Michener Center for Writers, the Harry Ransom Center, and the Blanton Museum of Art. Each of the participants will take on some aspect of the state’s history and culture, and the result will be new bodies of knowledge and interpretations of Texas music, business, race relations, and much else. Though the local components of this project are my focus here, the books in the Texas Bookshelf will be anything but narrow regional histories: most striking about the various book proposals is their stress on the movement of people, culture, and ideas into and out of the state.

The Texas Bookshelf has already benefited the Press in many ways: we have signed new projects by UT scholars who were not previously on our list; we have received considerable support from both the university and private donors; and we have enjoyed a lot of positive publicity on campus, regionally, and nationally. Project participants, meanwhile, are developing their own collaborative approaches. It has been particularly gratifying to see scholars who did not previously know one another sharing information and ideas for their respective books. In coming months, we will be arranging more informal meetings of participants, which will eventually include presentations of work in progress and visits from staff at local archives.

Meanwhile, the development of the Bookshelf promises to have many benefits for the broader community. For instance, university reporters and publicity staff have expressed an interest in joining authors on local research field trips, in order to produce short “making of” pieces along the way, and we hope to sponsor large public forums with participating authors as well. The Bookshelf will be supported by a companion website that will highlight and connect to the rich archives and collections on campus. As well, we are planning special programming and public events in conjunction with the publication of each book for the both the university and larger Austin community. This is just a sampling of the opportunities for scholarly communication before publication! The books themselves will begin appearing in 2017, when we will publish Stephen Harrigan’s narrative history of the state of Texas, and will continue to come out over the following four or five years. By that point, I expect, we will be disseminating the fruits of our authors’ research in all sorts of new ways that have yet to be developed.

—Robert Devens, Assistant Editor-in-Chief

Blog Tour next stops:

• Duke University Press 
• Harvard University Press
• Stanford University Press
• Temple University Press
• University of Minnesota Press
• University of Virginia Press

AAUP Book, Jacket & Journal Show :: 13 UT Press Titles!

We are happy to report that many UT Press titles have been selected for inclusion in the 2013 AAUP Book, Jacket & Journal Show.

Judging for the 2013 AAUP Book, Jacket and Journal Show took place January 24-25 at the AAUP Central Office in New York City. Approximately 273 books, 331 jacket and cover design entries, and 4 journals were entered. 51 books and 44 jackets/covers were chosen by the jurors as the very best examples from this pool of excellent design.  
UT Press congratulates the design staff below on the recognition they duly deserve!

Trade Illustrated Books:
DKR: A Royal Scrapbook (designed by Derek George)
Andy Coolquitt (designed by Derek George)
Nic Nicosia (designed by Lindsay Starr)

Trade Typographic Book:
Let the People In (designed by Lindsay Starr)
 
Scholarly Illustrated Book:
Photographing the Mexican Revolution (designed by Lindsay Starr)
 
Covers/Jackets:
All-American Boy (designed by Derek George) 
Colonel Sanders and the American Dream (designed by Derek George) 
Dwight Yoakam (designed by Lindsay Starr) 
The Fictional Christopher Nolan (Ayham Ghraowi)
Killer on the Road (designed by Derek George) 
Ryan Adams (designed by Lindsay Starr)
The Surprising Design of Market Economies (designed by Derek George)
Uncivil Wars (designed by Lindsay Starr)

Celebrating University Press Week

To celebrate the Association of American University Presses (AAUP)'s University Press Week, we're sharing some quotes collected from prominent folks in government, publishing, academia, the arts, and the book business!

"University presses provide American citizens and their leaders a wealth of authoritative knowledge and fresh insights on the nations, economies, cultures, and beliefs of virtually every corner of the world. They also advance in-depth understanding of our own country—the political, social, and cultural heritage of virtually every region, population group, and issue in America, past and present. University presses cover it all, and all of us benefit from their work." —Dr. Robert A. Gates, former Secretary of Defense, former CIA director, and former president of Texas A&M University

  

"I'm proud to join AAUP in celebrating University Press Week because scholars and students, professors and public servants, citizens and communities rely on university presses to connect with one another. By sharing new ideas and challenging old assumptions, university presses – including Ohio's own university presses – connect citizens with one another and give us the tools needed to strengthen our democracy."
—Senator Sherrod Brown, Ohio

"University presses not only provide the only outlet for those who produce serious scholarship in history, the humanities and the social sciences, they provide an opportunity for innovative manuscripts written by people outside of universities to see the light of day. I have not only published two historical works and a memoir with a university press, I have helped two authors, one a public school teacher, the other a professional basketball player turned banker, publish extremely well received memoirs that commercial publishers would have never invested in. University presses keep serious intellectual discourse alive in a  nation where the profit motive holds greater and greater sway." —Prof. Mark D. Naison, Professor of African American Studies and History, Fordham University, and Principal Investigator, Bronx African American History Project

2012 AAUP Book, Jacket and Journal Showcase

From the AAUP (American Association of University Presses) Website:

Judging for the 2012 AAUP Book, Jacket and Journal Show took place January 26-27 at the AAUP Central Office in New York City. Approximately 226 books, 300 jacket and cover design entries, and 4 journals were entered. 49 books, 1 journal, and 30 jackets/covers were chosen by the jurors as the very best examples from this pool of excellent design.

The 2012 Book, Jacket, & Journal Show will premiere at the AAUP Annual Meeting in Chicago, June 18-20, 2012. The show will be exhibited around the country from September 2012 to April 2013; dates and locations will be announced in late summer. 

See the full showcase »

UT Press received honors in three areas: Scholarly Illustrated (Designing Pan America), Trade Illustrated (The Austin Chronicle of Music Anthology), and Jackets & Covers (Maras).

Designing Pan-America:  U.S. Architectural
Visions  for the Western Hemisphere

by Robert Alexander González

Designer: Derek George

Production Coordinator: Ellen McKie

Acquiring Editor: Jim Burr

Project Editor: Leslie Tingle

Buy It Now!

Maras: Gang Violence and Security
in Central America
 by Thomas Bruneau
Designer: Lindsay Starr
Production Coordinator: Kaila Wyllys

Buy It Now!

The Austin Chronicle Music Anthology

by Austin Powell and Doug Freeman

Designer: Lindsay Starr

Production Coordinator: Ellen McKie

Acquiring Editor: Allison Faust

Project Editor: Leslie Tingle

Buy It Now!