Duke University Press

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Duke University Press publishes about 150 books every year. It also puts out more than 55 academic journals and runs five electronic collections. That output comes from an academic publisher affiliated with Duke University, and its reach is wider than its size might suggest. Its catalog runs from anthropology to film, from music to religion, and its mathematics journals are especially well known. Yet the press began under a different name, in a different era, with a different kind of college behind it. How did a small campus operation grow into a publisher that trade outlets single out for its work on art and on Black thought? Who steered it across the decades? And what has it done lately to open its books to readers who cannot pay for them?

  135

• 2. Trinity College Press

  ›

  In 1921, a man named William T. Laprade founded a small publishing operation called The Trinity College Press. The name made sense at the time, because Duke University was then called Trinity College. Laprade served as its first director.

  Five years later came a restructuring and expansion. In 1926, the press was formally established as Duke University Press, and the new name replaced the old one. William K. Boyd took over as director in that year.

  The change was more than a matter of lettering on a title page. It tied the press to the university's new identity, and it set up the leadership line that the next chapter follows.

  136

• 3. A Line of Directors

  ›

  Ernest Seeman heads the press's own list of directors, as the first to hold the post under the Duke University Press name. After him came Henry Dwyer, who served from 1929 to 1944.

  In 1944, a director listed as W.T. LaPrade took the post and held it until 1951. Ashbel Brice then led the press from 1951 to 1981, the longest single stretch on the list at three decades.

  Richard Rowson ran the press from 1981 to 1990, and Larry Malley followed for the years 1990 to 1993. In 1994, the job was shared by Stanley Fish and Steve Cohn, a pairing that lasted until 1998.

  Cohn then continued alone from 1998 to 2019, a tenure of about two decades. The writer Dean Smith now directs the press.

  413

• 4. Humanities and Social Sciences

  ›

  The shelves of Duke University Press lean toward the humanities and the social sciences. Its book program is organized into lists, and the names of those lists show how broad the press has become.

  Some lists cover regions and peoples: African studies, Asian studies, Asian American studies, and Chicano, Latino and Latin American studies. Others cover identity and community, including African American studies, indigenous and Native American studies, and women's and gender studies.

  Still others follow methods and media. These include anthropology, art and art history, cultural studies, film and TV studies, music, and science studies. The press also keeps lists in American studies, political and social theory, religion, and queer theory and LGBT studies.

  One field sits apart from this humanities core. The press is particularly well known for its mathematics journals.

  1310

• 5. Notable Authors

  ›

  Achille Mbembe and Donna Haraway are two of the names that appear among the press's notable authors. So do Lauren Berlant, Arturo Escobar, Walter Mignolo, and Jack Halberstam.

  The list continues with Sara Ahmed, Jane Bennett, Patricia Hill Collins, and Jennifer Christine Nash. It also includes Christina Sharpe, Dionne Brand, and Fredric Jameson.

  Several authors on it are tied to earlier movements and moments in thought. Gloria Anzaldua, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Stuart Hall appear there. So do C.L.R. James and the novelist and essayist James Baldwin.

  Such a roster helps explain why outside observers began to write about the press's identity, which is where the next chapter turns.

  138

• 6. Firsts and Recognition

  ›

  In 2014, Duke University Press launched Transgender Studies Quarterly. It was the first non-medical peer-reviewed journal on transgender studies.

  In 2021, ARTnews named the press to its Deciders list. The magazine wrote that many a university press publishes worthy books about art, but none engages the subject and all it can mean quite like Duke University Press.

  A year later, in 2022, Amsterdam News offered its own verdict. It called the press a leading academic publisher that has been pushing the envelope in Black non-fiction for the past decade.

  The paper added that the catalog grows more robust each year, as the press chooses Black thinkers who are ahead of the curve and experts in their fields.

  789

• 7. Opening the Doors

  ›

  In February 2021, Duke University Press announced the Scholarly Publishing Collective. It is a partnership with nonprofit scholarly journal publishers and societies. The collective offers journal services: subscription management, fulfillment, hosting, and institutional marketing and sales.

  The press has also moved into open access, where books are made free to readers. It is one of thirteen publishers that took part in the Knowledge Unlatched pilot, a global library consortium approach to funding open access books. Duke supplied books for the pilot's collection.

  Beyond that pilot, the press has published nearly 100 additional books through other open access programs. One of them is Towards an Open Monograph Ecosystem.

  101112