Scholarly Communication

Kicking off our new monthly series on freedom of speech, Keith Whittington and Donald Downs discuss the Princeton Principles for a Campus of Free Inquiry. These principles, outlined by a group of scholars convened by Professor Robert P. George here at the James Madison Program in March 2023, expand on the well-known Chicago Principles in ensuring campus free speech and institutional neutrality.

Professors Whittington and Downs are both among the original fifteen participants and endorsers of the Princeton Principles, and played significant roles in drafting the document. Keith Whittington is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics in the Department of Politics at Princeton University, and the author of Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech (Princeton UP, 2019). He specializes in public law and American Politics, and will soon join the faculty of Yale Law School. Donald Downs is the Alexander Meiklejohn Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His areas of specialty include freedom of speech, academic freedom, and American politics. Since retiring, Downs has been the lead faculty advisor to the Free Speech and Open Inquiry Project of the Institute for Humane Studies in Washington, D.C.

Princeton's governing document, Rights, Rules, and Responsibilities, referenced during the episode. The James Madison Program's Initiative on Freedom of Thought, Inquiry, and Expression.

Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program’s podcast, Madison’s Notes.

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Listen to this interview of Andreas Zeller, faculty at the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security and professor for Software Engineering at Saarland University. We talk about essence — that part of your research left when you've boiled it all down to the meaning.

Andreas Zeller : "I think of science as a social process. I think of scientists as social beings — as unsocial as we might sometimes appear to be. Because we scientists are all humans, and so we long for meaning in our daily work, which means too that indirectly, we long for recognition. So, our research is just another form of social activity, and therefore it helps to see science as a social activity where the scientist's job is, ultimately, to enrich the lives of other scientists with ideas that are useful, that give direction."

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Listen to this interview of Bo Li, Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of Chicago and at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. We talk about how your writing can help you think, and about how it can help you collaborate too!

Bo Li : "I think it's important to have a sort of research test to justify writing up and submitting a paper. So, I'll take the idea of the project and I'll write it down and check it against its story. So, that means, I'll check what the motivation is and what the impact might be. And I'll check, too, how the idea could be used mathematically for other analysis, and I'll also check the idea empirically, so, I mean, I'll check how the findings might be different from current related findings, or I'll check how the findings might be used to support existing observations which have, as yet, been only poorly explained. So, that's what I mean by the word story."

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The Greco-Egyptian syncretistic god Serapis was used by the 3rd century BCE Ptolemaic pharaohs to impose Greek cultural hegemony and consolidate political power. The Alexandrian Serapeum, sometimes referred to as The Great Library of Alexandria’s “daughter library,” may be seen as an archetype for institutions where religion and secular knowledge come together for the reproduction of ideologies.

The Serapeum, however, is by no means unique in this regard; libraries have always incorporated religious symbols and rituals into their material structures. Very little research has been conducted concerning the sociocultural and historical impact of this union of temple and information institution or how this dynamic interrelationship (even if it may now be implicit or partially concealed) stretches from the earliest Mesopotamian proto-libraries to our present academic ones.

Serapis explores the role of the historical and legacy religious symbols and rituals of the academic library (referred to as the “Serapian Library”) as a powerful ideological state institution and investigates how these symbols and rituals support hegemonic structures in society. Specifically, the book examines the role of the modern secular “Serapian” academic library in its historical context as a “sacred space,” and applies the theories of Karl Marx, Louis Althusser, Ivan Illich, and other thinkers to explain the ramifications of the library as crypto-temple.

Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. Jen edits for Partnership Journal and organizes with the TPS Collective. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom and The Social Movement Archive.

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In this book, Paul A. Thomas—a seasoned Wikipedia contributor who has accrued about 60,000 edits since he started editing in 2007—breaks down the history of the free encyclopedia and explains the process of becoming an editor. Now a newly minted Ph.D. and a library specialist at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, he outlines the many roles a Wikipedia editor can fill. Some editors fix typographical errors, add facts and citations, or clean up the prose on existing articles; others create new articles on topics they find interesting. In Inside Wikipedia: How It Works and How You Can Be an Editor (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), Thomas goes behind the familiar Wikipedia article page and looks at the unique brand of collaboration that is constantly at work to expand and improve this global resource.

James Kates is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He has worked as an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other publications.

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The sixth episode of the CEU Press Podcast Series is all about the peer review process. Our guests are Rabea Rittgerodt, senior acquisitions editor for social/cultural history (19th-20th century) at De Gruyter and Jen McCall, CEU Press’s acquisitions editor for the Press’s history list. They talk to host Andrea Talabér about the ups and downs of the peer review process, how peer reviewers can give constructive feedback to authors and how authors can take on this feedback on board.

The CEU Press Podcast Series delves into various aspects of the publishing process: from crafting a book proposal, finding a publisher, responding to peer review feedback on the manuscript, to the subsequent distribution, promotion and marketing of academic books. We will also talk to series editors and authors, who will share their experiences of getting published and talk about their series or books.

Rabea is happy to hear from people interested in submitting a book proposal in 19th-20th century social, cultural, and global history. She can be reached at [email protected]. Rabea tweets at @RabeaRi. 

Jen is keen to hear from people who would like to submit a proposal to the CEU Press. She can be reached at [email protected]. Follow Jen on Twitter @jennymccall22. 

Interested in the CEU Press’s publications? Click here to find out more

Stay tuned for future episodes and subscribe to our podcast to be the first to be notified. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify and all other major podcast apps. 

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Procrastination. Writer’s block. Feeling stuck. Are you struggling with the blank page? Today’s guest shares her methods that help writers move past these blocks by turning inward to discover their own writing process, and become the writer they already are.

Today’s book is Becoming the Writer You Already Are (Sage, 2022), by Dr. Michelle R. Boyd, which helps scholars uncover their unique writing process and design a writing practice that fits how they work. In it, Dr. Boyd introduces the Writing Metaphor as a reflective tool that can help you understand and overcome your writing fears: going from “stuck” to “unstuck” by drawing on skills you already have at your fingertips. She also offers an experimental approach to trying out any new writing strategy, so you can easily fill out the parts of your writing process that need developing. The book includes a number of helpful features: Real Scholars’ Stories provide insights into overcoming writing barriers; Wise Words from other scholars capture the trials of writing as well as avenues through those trials; and Focus Points highlight important ideas, questions, or techniques to consider. The book is ideal for dissertation writing seminars, graduate students struggling with the transition from coursework to dissertation work, scholars who are supporting or participating in writing groups, and marginalized scholars whose write struggles have prompted them to internalize the bias that others have about their ability to do exemplary research.

Our guest is: Michelle Boyd, PhD, who is an award-winning writer, and a former tenured faculty member. Her book Jim Crow Nostalgia: Reconstructing Race in Bronzeville won a Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association. After earning tenure, Michelle focused her research and service on helping scholars better understand their writing process. In 2012 she cofounded and coached a dissertation writing retreat for graduate students studying race and ethnicity. Three years later, she left academia and founded InkWell, where she specializes in helping stuck, scared scholars free themselves from fear and build a satisfying, sustainable writing practice.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer and show-host of the Academic Life podcasts. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.

Listeners to this episode may be interested in:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey--and beyond! Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 175+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.

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The third episode of the CEU Press Podcast Series is all about the book proposal. Our guests, Laura Portwood-Stacer, publishing consultant and developmental editor, and Jen McCall, CEU Press’s acquisitions editor for history titles, talk to host Andrea Talabér about how to put together a book proposal package. In the discussion, Laura and Jen touch upon all aspects of the book proposal from choosing the right publisher, what constitutes the book proposal package, to what happens after submitting it.

The CEU Press Podcast Series delves into various aspects of the publishing process: from crafting a book proposal, finding a publisher, responding to peer review feedback on the manuscript, to the subsequent distribution, promotion and marketing of academic books. We will also talk to series editors and authors, who will share their experiences of getting published and talk about their series or books.

Stay tuned for future episodes and subscribe to our podcast to be the first to be notified. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify and all other major podcast apps. 

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In the second Meet the Press episode of the CEU Press Podcast Series, Frances Pinter (Executive Chair, CEU Press) sits down with host Andrea Talabér (Managing Editor, CEU Review of Books) to discuss the Press’ home-grown Open Access (OA) initiative, Opening the Future. Frances explains how the model works, why it is sustainable and why it is beneficial for authors, presses and libraries. 

The CEU Press Podcast Series delves into various aspects of the publishing process: from crafting a book proposal, finding a publisher, responding to peer review feedback on the manuscript, to the subsequent distribution, promotion and marketing of academic books. We will also talk to series editors and authors, who will share their experiences of getting published and talk about their series or books.

For more details on Opening the Future, go here.

For more information on the Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM), go here.

We support all routes to Open Access, see here.

Interested in the CEU Press’s publications? Go here.

Stay tuned for future episodes and subscribe to our podcast to be the first to be notified. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify and all other major podcast apps. 

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Welcome to the first episode of the CEU Press podcast series! To start us off, Frances Pinter (Executive Chair, CEU Press) and Emily Poznanski (Director, CEU Press) sit down with Andrea Talabér (Managing Editor, CEU Review of Books) to talk about the beginnings of the CEU Press, its mission, how it has developed since its foundation and about the Press’s plans for the future.

Ever wonder what goes into publishing an academic book? The CEU Press podcast series aims to delve into various aspects of the publishing process: from crafting a book proposal, getting peer review feedback on the manuscript, and the subsequent distribution, promotion and marketing of academic books. We will also talk to series editors and authors, who will share their experiences of getting published and talk about their series or books.

Interested in the CEU Press’ publications? Click here to find out more here.

We support all routes to open access, see here.

And for more on our home-grown initiative see, Opening the Future.

Stay tuned for future episodes and subscribe to our podcast to be the first to be notified.

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