The University of Michigan Press is part of
Michigan Publishing at the
University of Michigan Library
The University of Michigan Library is the academic library system of the University of Michigan. The university's 38 constituent and affiliated libraries together make it the List of largest libraries in the United States#Largest research libraries ...
.
It publishes 170 new titles each year
in the humanities and social sciences.
Titles from the press have earned numerous awards, including
Lambda Literary Awards, the
PEN/Faulkner Award
The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens. The winner receives US$15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US$5000. Fi ...
, the
Joe A. Callaway Award, and the
Nautilus Book Award
The nautilus (, ) is a pelagic marine mollusc of the cephalopod family Nautilidae. The nautilus is the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and of its smaller but near equal suborder, Nautilina.
It comprises six living species in ...
. The press has published works by authors who have been awarded the
Pulitzer Prize, the
National Humanities Medal
The National Humanities Medal is an American award that annually recognizes several individuals, groups, or institutions for work that has "deepened the nation's understanding of the humanities, broadened our citizens' engagement with the human ...
and the
Nobel Prize in Economics
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...
.
History
From 1858 to 1930, the University of Michigan had no organized entity for its scholarly publications, which were generally conference proceedings or department-specific research. The University Press was established in 1930 under the university's Graduate School, and in 1935, Frank E. Robbins, assistant to university president Alexander G. Ruthven, was appointed as the managing editor of the University Press. He would hold this position until 1954, when Fred D. Wieck was appointed as Press Director. Though initial plans for the press only foresaw it maintaining the output of conference materials and Alumni Readings Lists, Robbins expanded this vision to include publications on diverse fields of interest, such as archaeology, linguistics, and international interests.
In 2009, the press became a part of the University of Michigan Library. Today, the press primarily publishes English Language Teaching (ELT) textbooks and teacher training manuals, scholarly monographs in a variety of fields—including classical studies, Asian studies, political science, disability studies, and theater and performance—and books on Michigan and the Great Lakes region.
English language teaching
The University of Michigan Press is known for its English as a Second Language (ESL) product line. Because the University of Michigan was the first place to publish ESL student textbooks and teacher training manuals in the United States (1941), the products ultimately ended up being first distributed and then fully published by the University of Michigan Press. Although at one point the only new titles published were those by faculty and staff at the English Language Institute, authors currently represent a variety of institutions around the world. Today, the MICHIGAN ELT list is primarily recognized for its English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and teacher training products.
Digital media
The University of Michigan Press has over 1,100 monographs in its catalogue that are available as ebooks, and it is involved in several digital media projects.
digitalculturebooks
digitalculturebooks is an imprint of the University of Michigan Press dedicated to publishing innovative work in new media studies and digital humanities. The imprint began in 2006 as a partnership between MLibrary and the press, taking advantage of the skills and expertise of staff throughout Michigan Publishing. Its primary goal is to be an incubator for new publishing models in the humanities and social sciences.
Fulcrum
Fulcrum is a publishing platform that the press has developed with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in partnership with Indiana, Minnesota, Northwestern, and Penn State Universities. Fulcrum helps publishers present the full richness of their authors' research outputs in a durable, discoverable, and flexible form. With Fulcrum, scholarly authors can link source materials—including images, video and audio clips, and three-dimensional interactive models—to book-length interpretations of them in an integrated way. These digital objects can be published as supplemental materials, with the book elsewhere, or both narrative and data can be presented together.
Knowledge Unlatched
The University of Michigan Press is one of thirteen publishers to participate in the
Knowledge Unlatched
Knowledge Unlatched (KU) is an Open Access service provider registered as a for-profit GmbH in Berlin, Germany, and owned by multinational commercial publishing company Wiley as of December 2021. It offers a crowdfunding model to support a vari ...
pilot, a global library consortium approach to funding
open access book An open-access monograph is a scholarly monograph which is made openly available online with open license.
Concept
Open access is when academic research is made freely available online for anyone to read and re-use. As with open access journals ...
s, and has included three titles in the Knowledge Unlatched Pilot Collection.
Imprints and series
Imprints
* English Language Teaching
* digitalculturebooks
Series
The University of Michigan Press publishes numerous ongoing series, including:
* Class : Culture
* Configurations: Critical Studies of World Politics
* Corporealities: Discourses on Disability
* Digital Humanities
* Jazz Perspectives
* Law, Meaning, and Violence
* Legislative Politics and Policy Making
* Michigan Modern Dramatists
* New Comparative Politics
* Perspectives on Contemporary Korea
* Poets on Poetry
* Social History, Popular Culture, and Politics in Germany
* Theater: Theory/Text/Performance
* Tracking Pop
* Triangulations: Lesbian/Gay/Queer Theater/Drama/Performance
* Under Discussion
Controversies
In June 2008, the University of Michigan Press severed ties with the British independent publishing firm,
Pluto Press
Pluto Press is a British independent book publisher based in London, founded in 1969. Originally, it was the publishing arm of the International Socialists (today known as the Socialist Workers Party), until it changed hands and was replaced ...
for which it served as the American distributor.
The decision came after a series of events tied to the distribution of the 2007 book ''Overcoming Zionism'' by
Joel Kovel, which argues "that the creation of Israel was a mistake and urges adoption of the 'one state' solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which Israelis and Palestinians would form a new country, without a Jewish character".
The University of Michigan Press ceased distributing the book in the Fall of 2007, after "serious questions" were raised about the book by "members of the university community."
In addition, the relationship between the University of Michigan Press and Pluto Press came under examination by the faculty committee that oversees the press.
Later in September, the University of Michigan Press announced that it would resume distribution of ''Overcoming Zionism'' after receiving complaints that it was conducting censorship.
The Executive Board of the University of Michigan Press asserted in a statement that though it, "has deep reservations about ''Overcoming Zionism'', it would be a blow against free speech to remove the book from distribution on that basis. We conclude that we should not fail to honor our distribution agreement based on our reservations about the content of a single book."
In the same statement, the University of Michigan Press stated that it would review its relationship with Pluto Press.
In October 2007, the University of Michigan Press announced in a statement that it would continue to distribute books for Pluto Press. It also announced that it would review the policies dictating its relationship with external presses.
In an interview with Joel Kovel,
Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman (born April 13, 1957) is an American broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter, and author. Her investigative journalism career includes coverage of the East Timor independence movement, Morocco's occupation ...
of ''
Democracy Now!
''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long American TV, radio, and Internet news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live each weekday at ...
'' discussed this issue and focused in particular on the influence of
Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922January 27, 2010) was an American historian, playwright, philosopher, socialist thinker and World War II veteran. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a politica ...
. In response, Kovel stated that he had contacted Zinn and that "Zinn and other well-known people, like
Richard Falk
Richard Anderson Falk (born November 13, 1930) is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, and Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor's Chairman of the Board of Trustees. In 2004, he was listed as the autho ...
, you know, have said yes, we’re on board with this."
In November 2007, three members (out of eight) of the University of Michigan Board of Regents released a statement that called for the University of Michigan Press to cease distributing books for external publishing companies.
In January 2008, the University of Michigan announced new guidelines for the distribution of books by external publishing companies. The new guidelines stated that The University of Michigan Press will only distribute books by presses "whose mission is aligned with the mission of the UM Press and whose academic standards and processes of peer review are reasonably similar to those of the UM Press."
In June 2008, the University of Michigan Press ended its relationship with Pluto Press.
McCraken stated in an interview with ''
Inside Higher Ed'' that the relationship ended because Pluto Press does not use the same peer review process as the University of Michigan.
She also stated in response to a question that postulated a link with criticism of ''Overcoming Zionism'' that "the initial decision of the executive board of the press was that it would not make a decision based on a particular book" and that "certainly the free and open exchange of ideas is the foundation of everything we do at the university."
Roger van Zwanenberg, chairman of Pluto Press responded to the decision by linking it to the criticism of ''Overcoming Zionism''. He stated: "What this tells you is that there are dark forces in America who would like to control the flow of ideas, and they are powerfully organized and they are very dangerous." He suggested that The University of Michigan knew that there was a difference in the peer review process from the beginning of their relationship, calling the decision to focus on peer review "a facade". He also stated that Pluto Press would seek a new American distributor.
Pluto Press is currently distributed in the United States by the
University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...
."
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:University Of Michigan Press
Press
Press may refer to:
Media
* Print media or news media, commonly called "the press"
* Printing press, commonly called "the press"
* Press (newspaper), a list of newspapers
* Press TV, an Iranian television network
People
* Press (surname), a fam ...
Michigan, University of
Book publishing companies based in Michigan
Electronic publishing
University of Michigan mass media
Publishing companies established in 1930
1930 establishments in Michigan
University of Michigan campus