February 12, 2009
UW Press, others, get collaborative grant from Mellon Foundation
The UW Press and the presses at Fordham University, University of California (FlashPoints series), University of Pennsylvania, and University of Virginia have been awarded a collaborative grant of $1.16 million from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to publish scholarly books on the literatures of the non-Anglophone world. The Modern Language Initiative (MLI) will support the publication of 20 titles by the UW Press over the next five years.
The grant will assist the press in identifying, publishing, and disseminating first books by scholars in such fields as rhetoric, film, performing arts, and popular culture, as well as language and literature. The focus of this initiative is on language itself, especially as manifested in literature and other cultural narratives, rather than on areas of geographic or national origin.
Gerald Baldasty, interim vice-provost and dean of the Graduate School, who administers the Press and serves as faculty chair of the University Press Committee, said, “This is wonderful news and an acknowledgment of our press’s stature and prominence nationally. The MLI will support one of its core missions, to publish outstanding work by emerging scholars in the humanities.”
The UW Press has an extensive list of publications in literary studies involving a range of world literatures studied from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The “Literary Conjugations” series, edited by Richard Gray, Byron W. and Alice L. Lockwood professor in the humanities at the UW, solicits manuscripts that highlight the interdisciplinary character of literary studies across a wide array of national literatures.
The “New Directions in Scandinavian Studies” series, edited by Terje Leiren, Sverre Arestad endowed professor in Norwegian studies and chair of Scandinavian Studies, and Christine Ingebritsen, professor of Scandinavian studies, both at the UW, focuses on the study of the culture, history, and literature of the North.
The Press also publishes award-winning books on the literatures of the Middle East and Asia, including titles in the “China Program Books Series”, which is supported by the China Studies Program of the Jackson School of International Studies. All of these programs will benefit from the MLI grant.
The collaborative project will offer authors a shared space for publishing innovative scholarship that will influence the way literature and other language-based arts are studied and taught. Each press will maintain its own separate editorial profile and acquisitions procedures, while centralizing copyediting, production, and an aggressive marketing program.
“This generous, collaborative grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is a godsend,” said UW Press Director Patrick Soden. “It is targeted where we need it most to support scholarly publishing in the underserved core humanities. Most important, it will assist us in publishing the first books of young scholars at the beginning of their academic careers.”
