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HATTIESBURG -- Continuing a longstanding
tradition of receiving national recognition for scholarly achievements,
the Department of English at the University of Southern Mississippi
has five professors with books being published by some of the
leading university presses in America.
“Publication by a university press is one of the highest academic
honors a faculty member in literature can earn,” said English
chair Dr. William Kuskin. “Unlike large or trade-market presses
that publish novels or best-selling books of nonfiction, university
presses often do not have large budgets - and therefore pay
very little royalties -- and so are extremely selective.”
The peer review process, Kuskin said, is one of the most rigorous
in the publishing world, akin to receiving a large grant from
the National Institute of the Humanities or the National Endowment
of the Humanities. This process ensures that each university
press book is on the cutting edge of scholarship, with the ability
to make a major contribution to the body of knowledge.
“Only a small percentage, sometimes as low as 5 percent, of
all manuscripts submitted to university presses are ever accepted,”
Kuskin said.
Along with the enviable prestige a university press book confers
upon the author is the global impact such a book has on the
research and teaching of literature. Many university presses
have an international presence with editorial offices on several
continents.
Kuskin, chair and associate professor, has two books on the
history of printing due out with Notre Dame University Press,
the premier publisher of early modern literature and culture.
The first, scheduled for release in January, is Caxton’s Trace:
Studies in the History of English Printing and is on the social
role of the first three English printers—William Caxton (famous
for his edition of Chaucer), Wynkyn de Worde, and Richard Pyson.
Kuskin has edited this collection of scholarly articles and
contributed two essays, amounting to over 80 pages.
Kuskin’s second book, Symbolic Caxton: Literary Culture and
Print Capitalism, Medieval to Early Modern, will be published
by Notre Dame in 2006 and is his own view of the beginning of
English printing.
Also working in early English literature, associate professor
Dr. Jameela Lares is contributing editor to the landmark Variorum
Commentary on the Poems of John Milton, to be published by Duquesne
University Press, long noted for its medieval and Renaissance
literary studies. Lares is providing extensive and important
commentary (running to hundreds of pages), line by line, for
the last two books of Paradise Lost, surveying everything written
about these books since they were published in 1667.
This summer the University of South Carolina Press published
Dr. Philip C. Kolin’s Understanding Adrienne Kennedy, a critical
study of one of the most respected African-American women playwrights
in the American theatre. For over 40 years, Kennedy’s plays
have raised profound questions about race, class and gender,
topics that Kolin, a professor of English and the first Charles
W. Moorman Alumni Distinguished Professor in the Humanities,
explores in each of his eight chapters.
Extending his work on Kennedy, Kolin is currently editing a
collection of original essays and interviews, titled Contemporary
African American Women Playwrights, to be published next year
by Routledge, a highly respected international scholarly publisher
in the humanities. Kolin’s new book will explore the achievements
of such playwrights as Sonia Sanchez, Anna Deveare Smith, Suzan-Lori
Parks and Ntozake Shange.
Dr. Maureen Ryan, the current Moorman Professor, will publish
The Other Side of Grief: The Home Front and the Aftermath in
American Narratives of the Vietnam War with the University of
Massachusetts Press in 2007. With the support of Southern Miss
through the Moorman Professorship, Ryan examines the cultural
texts that continue to emerge from and about America’s longest
war.
The fifth English faculty member who is having his book published
by a university press is associate professor Dr. Michael Mays.
His Nation States: The Cultures of Irish Nationalism will be
released next year by Syracuse University Press, one of the
foremost publishers of Irish studies in the United States. Mays’
book examines the cultural formations of Irish nationalism and
the processes of decolonization, post-colonialism and globalization
that have been instrumental in the creation of the modern Irish
state.
Drawing on a diverse range of sources -- from poetry, prose
and drama to political cartoons, journalism and travel writing
-- Mays cuts across disciplinary boundaries to chart the contested
cultural terrain of Irish nationalism from the Act of Union
in 1800 to the present.
“Through publications like these with distinguished university
presses, the literature faculty of the English Department at
Southern Miss is on the cutting edge of research in early modern
print culture, Renaissance literature and scholarly editing,
race, gender, and performance studies, and in Vietnam and Irish
literature,” Kolin said. “The strength and versatility of the
literature faculty in the department afford students the opportunity
to work with some of the nation’s leading scholars in cultural
and literary studies today.”
About The University of Southern Mississippi
The University of Southern Mississippi, founded in 1910, is
a comprehensive doctoral and research-extensive university fulfilling
its mission of being a leading university in engaging and empowering
individuals to transform lives and communities. In a tradition
of leadership for student development, Southern Miss is educating
a 21st century work force providing intellectual capital, cultural
enrichment and innovation to Mississippi and the world. Southern
Miss is located in Hattiesburg, Miss., with an additional campus
and teaching and research sites on the Mississippi Gulf Coast;
further information is found at www.usm.edu.
For more information, visit the Web at www.usm.edu/English
or contact Christopher Mapp at 601.266.4497.
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Last updated:
01/25/06 |
