Indiana University Press, also known as IU Press, is an academic publisher founded in 1950 at

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...

that specializes in the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

and

social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...

. Its headquarters are located in

Bloomington, Indiana Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the central region of the U.S. state of Indiana. It is the seventh-largest city in Indiana and the fourth-largest outside the Indianapolis metropolitan area. According to the Mo ...

. IU Press publishes 140 new

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physi ...

s annually, in addition to 39

academic journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and ...

s, and maintains a current catalog comprising some 2,000 titles. Indiana University Press primarily publishes in the following areas:

African African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...

, cultural,

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

Middle Eastern studies Middle Eastern studies (sometimes referred to as Near Eastern studies) is a name given to a number of academic programs associated with the study of the history, culture, politics, economies, and geography of the Middle East, an area that is gene ...

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

and

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...

an, and

women's A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...

and

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...

studies;

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

film studies Film studies is an academic discipline that deals with various theoretical, historical, and critical approaches to cinema as an art form and a medium. It is sometimes subsumed within media studies and is often compared to television studies. ...

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

bioethics Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, m ...

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

paleontology Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

, philanthropy, philosophy, and

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

. IU Press undertakes extensive regional publishing under its Quarry Books imprint.

History

IU Press began in 1950 as part of Indiana University's post-war growth under President

Herman B Wells Herman B Wells (June 7, 1902 – March 18, 2000), a native of Boone County, Indiana, was the eleventh president of Indiana University Bloomington and its first university chancellor. He was pivotal in the transformation of Indiana Universit ...

. Bernard Perry, son of Harvard philosophy professor

Ralph Barton Perry Ralph Barton Perry (July 3, 1876 in Poultney, Vermont – January 22, 1957 in Boston, Massachusetts) was an American philosopher. He was a strident moral idealist who stated in 1909 that, to him, idealism meant "to interpret life consistently ...

, served as the first director. IU Press's first book was a translation of Edouard de Montulé's ''Travels in America, 1816-1817'', published in March 1951. A total of six books were published the first year. In 1952, IU Press earned full membership with the

Association of American University Presses The Association of University Presses (AUPresses) is an association of mostly, but not exclusively, North American university presses. It is based in New York City. Until December 2017, it was known as the Association of American University Presses ...

. During its first decade in operation, IU Press published more than 200 books and increased sales from zero in 1950 to $167,000 in 1959-1960. That same decade, in 1955, it published

Rolfe Humphries George Rolfe Humphries (November 20, 1894 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – April 22, 1969 in Redwood City, California) was a poet, translator, and teacher. Life An alumnus of Towanda High School, Humphries graduated cum laude from Amherst Co ...

's translation of the ''Metamorphoses'' of Ovid, IU Press's all-time bestseller, having sold more than 500,000 copies to date. Bernard Perry retired as director in 1976 and was replaced by John Gallman who focused on the academic strengths of Indiana University. By 1980 IU Press's annual sales neared $2 million and by 1990 had reached $4.1 million. The Journals Division launched in 1987 with three journals and now carries 39 in its 2020 catalog. By the end of John Gallman's tenure as director in 2000, IU Press published 150 books annually and reached sales of close to $7 million. In 2004 IU Press launched Quarry Books, an imprint dedicated to regional topics.

Honors and awards

In 1965, IU Press received the Centennial Medal, the highest prize of the U.S. Civil War Centennial Commission, for its role in preserving Civil War history. IU Press's 1967 translation of volume 1 of Kierkegaard's ''Journals and Papers'' won a

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

. It was followed by a second National Book Award in 1970 for a translation of Bertolt Brecht's ''Saint Joan of the Stockyards''. In 2009 Indiana University Press publication ''The

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hi ...

Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945 ''Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945'' is a seven-part encyclopedia series that explores the history of the concentration camps, ghettos, forced-labor camps, and other sites of detention, persecution, or state-sponsored murder r ...

'', Volume I was selected as the winner of the 2009

National Jewish Book Award The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1944, is an organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature.Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

category. In a ranking of scholarly publishers in political science, IUP ranked 28th among all scholarly publishers by respondent preferences for publishers whose books they read or rely upon for the best research in political science.

References

External links

*
IU Press Journals on JSTOR
{{Authority control 1950 establishments in Indiana Companies based in Bloomington, Indiana Book publishing companies based in Indiana Indiana University Publishing companies established in 1950 University presses of the United States