Witnessing all the damage caused by Sandy has me feeling a melancholy. I was born and raised in New Jersey and spent many summers “down the shore.” In recent summers I have taken my daughter to some of the same beaches I enjoyed as a kid. I’ve been a New Yorker since 1991 and am a regular visitor to Coney Island, and lived for a short time in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It is quite devastating to see all the massive destruction done to our great city and state and to our neighbors in New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. As I was preparing to write my post for University Press Week, I reflected on how university presses have bonded together in the past during times of tragedy to help us all understand what is happening at the moment and how we can move forward. “Books for Understanding” was developed by the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) soon after 9/11 to bring the latest and most valuable scholarship to readers in an easy to find and easy to use place. The AAUP instantly became a resource for people who wanted to know more and to find it from reliable sources—University Presses—the pillars of knowledge. The day after hurricane Sandy hit, a reporter from the Huffington Post contacted me about a Fordham University Press (FUP) author who wrote a history of the NYC subways. She wanted to interview him about the flooding of the tunnels and the mass transit shutdown. It is a prime example of how the media turns to university presses for expertise during times of crisis.

We emphasize scholarship by being witnesses to global events, detectives for finding the best authors, and sharers of critical information that has been researched and vetted. Combining efforts to make all of our books on a specific topic of current concern to citizens of the world is invaluable. There are several lists related to Hurricane Sandy, including one on Katrina. Knowing this, I’m not feeling as sad. Thank you AAUP! In preparation for University Press Week to celebrate the AAUP turning 75, Will Underwood, Director of Kent State University Press, asked fellow directors to gather some endorsements from key stakeholders. Happily, I got a great response from faculty and administrators on the Fordham campus as well as some FUP authors and friends. Here is what the Provost of Fordham University wrote:

“As the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) celebrates its 75th anniversary, Fordham University joins in honoring a rich history of committed leadership and collaborative service to the academy and to society. Fordham University Press has partnered with AAUP since 1938 to advance academic excellence in the full pursuit of truth and to enrich public discourse through the dissemination of scholarly research of the highest quality across the disciplines. We look forward to our work with the AAUP to engage evolving challenges and opportunities for university presses in the decades ahead. —Stephen Freedman, Provost, Fordham University

FUP celebrated its 100^th anniversary in 2007.  Established in 1907 to help Fordham faculty publish monographs based on their research, we now publish up to 70 books per year from faculty at institutions all over the globe. Not unlike the AAUP, FUP is a small organization with big ambitions. We have established ourselves as a leading academic press concentrating in history, literary theory, philosophy and religion. We also publish well established series in continental philosophy, American philosophy, medieval studies, World War II, and the Civil War among others and have created new series spanning a diversity of topics from Orthodox Christianity to Italian American studies. We have a long history publishing regional books focusing on New York City and the Hudson Valley. In 2010, we established the Empire State Editions imprint to better brand and market these titles.

To kick off the festivities of UP week, we hosted an open house for faculty showcasing their work as authors and series editors. Despite the previous evening’s nor’easter, we got a nice turnout and received positive feedback.  Here are a few shots.

On Veteran’s Day, FUP hosted a Veteran’s Day public program entitled Five Historians Reflect on World War II: What We Know, What We Still Need to Learn and What We May Never Know. It turned out to be a successful event with a lively engaged audience. Here are some pics.

Dr. Scott H. Bennett, author of Army GI, Pacifist CO: The World War II Letters of Frank and Albert Dietrich

Dr. G. Kurt Piehler, Dr. Scott H. Bennett, Dr. Sidney Pash, Dr. Ann Pfau, Dr. John Chambers, Dr. J. Garry Clifford

FUP is lean, resourceful, hardworking, and determined. I’d say that about captures the definition of a university press and the AAUP. I’m proud to be a member of this superb, caring, humane community. Happy birthday AAUP. Here’s to another 75 years.

I’ll end with a quote from a friend and a fan of university presses:

“What words to describe the university press? Patient, ambitious, demanding, sustaining, generous, utterly essential. Serious thinking is unimaginable without it.”
—William Germano, Dean of Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Cooper Union

Fredric Nachbaur (Twitter: @FNachbaur) is the Director of Fordham University Press.

Next stop:  Texas A&M University Press.

New York – Fordham University Press is delighted to announce the launch of its totally redesigned website. The new site provides users with a comprehensive and dynamic platform, functioning as an extended community and FUP store. Now visitors can not only easily find and buy books of interest but also be kept informed about resources, tips, news, awards and events. Along with a vastly expanded search functionality, FUP has added features like interactive catalogs and recommendations plus easy accessibility to other publishing initiatives and eBook Partners.

With intuitive navigation and far deeper social connectivity than its predecessor, the new website is a true resource for the greater FUP community including authors, professors, booksellers, librarians and contributors & academic collaborators.

 “The vastly improved website better represents Fordham University Press as a destination for publishing innovative, interdisciplinary scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. The new face of the press more accurately depicts who we are today. The fun design, the improved search functionality, and the integration with social media make it a fulfilling and beneficial experience for all of our constituents.”
                       —Fredric Nachbaur, Director

“One of our core goals was to create a site that serves our community; we wanted to be relevant and useful. We collaborated with Reitdesign and Guavabyte to design and develop our vision. Together they brought a smart, clean, and functional strategy that exceeded our expectations and have expanded our platform of offerings.”
                     —Kate O’Brien-Nicholson, Marketing Director

Press Mission + History:
Fordham University Press, which celebrated its centennial in 2007 and currently publishes sixty to seventy scholarly books annually, primarily in the humanities and

social sciences, has an outstanding reputation for producing award-winning studies in the fields of anthropology, classics, communications, the fine arts, history, literary studies, philosophy, political theory, religion, sociology, and theology, with a particular emphasis on creatively interdisciplinary work. Each year it publishes two books of poetry through the Poets Out Loud prize. Fordham University Press also has a long history of publishing books focusing on the New York region and in 2010 established the Empire State Editions imprint to better brand and market these popular regional books.

The Press, a member of the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) since 1938, was established in 1907 not only to represent and uphold the values and traditions of the University itself but also to further those values and traditions through the dissemination of scholarly research and ideas. The Press has achieved this mission by publishing 2,500 books and maintaining 1,000 active titles, including both print and electronic version.

To see the new website, please visit www.fordhampress.com.

Follow Us:

Our blog: FordhamImPRESSions.com

Facebook: Facebook.com/FordhamUP

Twitter: @FordhamPress

For additional information and general enquiries, please contact Kate O’Brien-Nicholson (@KateoNich) at bkaobrien@fordham.edu or 718/817-4782.

New York University
NYU Silver Center
Jurow Hall, 1st floor
100 Washington Square East
NYC

May 4-5,  9:30am-7:30pm

____________________________________________________________________________________

Conference sponsored by Fordham University’s Comparative Literature Program, New York University’s Comparative Literature Department, Fordham University Press and the consortium of presses participating in the Modern Language Initiative. Funding generously provided by the Mellon-funded Modern Language Initiative and Fordham University Arts & Sciences Deans.

For information, visit www.modernlanguageinitiative.com

The Association of American University Presses (AAUP) posted Fred’s recap of the event on the AAUP blog, The Digital Digest:

Is Academic Publishing in a Downward Zombie Death Spiral?

When I was invited to the panel “Protests, Petitions and Publishing: Widening Access to Research in 2012,” I was on the fence about attending. Did I really want to spend two hours of my day hearing the debate on open access, anticipating that it would be filled with much controversy? Because it was close and I was confident that I would learn something, I made the short trek earlier this week from the Bronx to Morningside Heights, even scoring a parking spot in front of the Columbia building housing the event on a day on which alternate-side-of-the-street parking was in effect. The press release indicated that the event was meant to consider how Occupy Wall Street, the Research Works Act (RWA), the boycott of Elsevier journals by a growing number of academics, and other recent developments are informing the debate over access to research and scholarship on open access. The event was hosted by Columbia’s Center for Digital Research and Scholarship (CDRS) and included a diverse panel of speakers. I’ll do my best to summarize the session based on my notes drafted the old school way on a notepad in barely legible handwriting. (This exercise made me realize that I need to embrace the iPad more.) The audio will be available shortly, so I will post a link on the Digital Digest when it is. The issues are complicated, and there are no easy answers as was evident by the talk on Monday. Alex Golub from the University of Hawaii called current publishing models a death spiral. As most of us know, the hard sciences are very different from the humanities. The AAUP made an official statement about three pieces of legislation related to research policies that have resulted in a flurry of mixed responses from university press directors. READ MORE

New York's Golden Age of Bridges

NYT BOOKSHELF
Spanning New York, Old Hotels and a Reborn District
By SAM ROBERTS
December 2, 2011

“NEW YORK’s Golden Age of Bridges” (Fordham University Press) uses paintings by Antonio Masi and essays by Joan Marans Dim to span the gaps in the skyline by focusing on the physical connections that helped create Greater New York.

“Bridges are perhaps the most overlooked of the human-made, landscape-altering masterpieces of the New York cityscape,” the historian Harold Holzer writes in the foreword. He adds: “They are not the stuff dreams are made of; rather, at their best, they conduct us from one dream to the next.”

Mr. Masi, whose grandfather helped build the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge, and Ms. Dim, an author who grew up on the Upper West Side and now lives in Brooklyn, guarantee through ghostly images and graphic reporting that, as Mr. Holzer writes, “it will be hard to cross a treasured New York City bridge with indifference again.”

Read more

(Left to right: William Germano, Ph.D., Fredric Nachbaur (moderator), Niko Pfund, Emily Loose and Alan Most) Photo by Kathleen Sweeney

A panel of university publishing experts said that most academic dissertations are a long way from being considered publishable by book publishing industry standards.

Speaking on March 24 at “The Changing Landscape of Scholarly Publishing: Best Practices for Getting Your Book Published,” four panelists
made explicit recommendations geared to help young faculty members and doctoral candidates navigate the shifting world of academic publishing.

The panel was sponsored by Fordham University Press, and moderated by its director, Fredric Nachbaur. To read more