academic publisher
Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally publ ...
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist ...
. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 Duke University Press was formally established. Ernest Seeman became the first director of DUP, followed by Henry Dwyer (1929-1944), W.T. LaPrade (1944-1951), Ashbel Brice (1951-1981), Richard Rowson (1981-1990), Larry Malley (1990-1993), Stanley Fish and Steve Cohn (1994-1998), Steve Cohn (1998-2019). Writer Dean Smith is the current director of the press.
It publishes approximately 150 books annually and more than 55 academic journals, as well as five electronic collections. The company publishes primarily in the humanities and social sciences but is also particularly well known for its
mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
journals. The book publishing program includes lists in African studies, African American studies, American studies, anthropology, art and art history, Asian studies, Asian American studies, Chicano/Latino and Latin American studies, cultural studies, film and TV studies, indigenous and Native American studies, music, political and social theory, queer theory/LGBT studies, religion, science studies, and women's and gender studies.
Notable authors published by Duke University Press include Achille Mbembe, Donna Haraway, Lauren Berlant, Arturo Escobar, Walter Mignolo, Jack Halberstam, Sara Ahmed, Jane Bennett, Patricia Hill Collins,
Jennifer Christine Nash
Jennifer Christine Nash is the Jean Fox O'Barr Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke University. Her research interests include Black feminist theory, feminist legal theory, Black sexual politics and intersectionality.
Educ ...
,
Christina Sharpe
Christina Elizabeth Sharpe is an American academic who is a professor of English literature and Black Studies at York University in Toronto, Canada.
Education
Sharpe received a bachelor's degree in English and Africana studies from the Un ...
,
Dionne Brand
Dionne Brand (born 7 January 1953) is a Canadian poet, novelist, essayist and documentarian. She was Toronto's third Poet Laureate from September 2009 to November 2012. She was admitted to the Order of Canada in 2017Fredric Jameson, Gloria Anzaldua,
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (; May 2, 1950 – April 12, 2009) was an American academic scholar in the fields of gender studies, queer theory ( queer studies), and critical theory. Sedgwick published several books considered groundbreaking in the fiel ...
James Baldwin
James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; de ...
.
History
The press was founded in 1921 as Trinity College Press with William T. Laprade as its first director. Following a restructuring and expansion, the name was changed to "Duke University Press" in 1926 with William K. Boyd taking over as director.
ARTnews named Duke University Press to its 2021 Deciders list, saying "Many a university press publishes worthy books about art—but none engages the subject and all it can mean quite like Duke University Press." In 2022, Amsterdam news stated, "Duke University Press is a leading academic publisher that has been pushing the envelope in Black non-fiction for the past decade. Their catalog becomes more robust each year by choosing Black thinkers who are ahead of the curve and experts in their fields."
In February 2021, Duke University Press announced the formation of the Scholarly Publishing Collective, a partnership with nonprofit scholarly journal publishers and societies to provide journal services including subscription management, fulfillment, hosting, and institutional marketing and sales.
Open access
Duke is one of thirteen publishers to participate in the Knowledge Unlatched pilot, a global library consortium approach to funding open access books. Duke has provided books for the Pilot Collection. The press has also published nearly 100 additional books through other open access programs, including Towards an Open Monograph Ecosystem.