Publishing and Purchasing: The Great Paradigm Shift

Publishing and Purchasing: The Great Paradigm ShiftAuthor(s): Judith RyanSource: Profession, (2004), pp. 7-13Published by: Modern Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25595773 .

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Publishing and Purchasing: The Great Paradigm Shift

JUDITH RYAN

I served as chair of an MLA ad hoc committee that was charged, in 1999, with studying the state of academic publishing in languages and literatures.

Our report, completed in the spring of 2002, was published in Profession 2002. In the course of our work on the topic, the situation we had been

asked to investigate was rapidly becoming more dire. Members of the com

mittee described the desperate struggles of brilliant young colleagues to find a press that would turn into actual books the manuscripts on which they

hoped to base their bids for tenure. My colleagues on the committee had lit

tle doubt that many of these manuscripts were at least as good as those that

had more readily found a publisher in an earlier day. Some of us could also

tell stories of our own about manuscripts and publication woes and surely those manuscripts had not been below par by traditional standards. Even as

we set about writing up our conclusions in May 2002, the situation contin

ued to deteriorate. Still, there were people both in our field and in the pub

lishing business who remained hopeful that things were not as bad as they seemed. Niko Pfund, an academic editor at Oxford University Press, claimed in mid-2002 that "university presses aren't endangered." Since then,

scholarly presses have gone through some very bleak times. Those who were not convinced that there was a crisis gradually became concerned. Re

cently, Cathy Davidson declared, in an essay adapted from an address to the

The author is Robert K. and Dale J. Weary Professor of German and Comparative Litera

ture at Harvard University. A version of this paper was presented at the 2003 MLA conven

tion in San Diego.

7 Profession 2004



8 III PUBLISHING AND PURCHASING: THE GREAT PARADIGM SHIFT

American Council of Learned Societies, "The crisis is real"(B7). I think most people now would agree with her conclusion.

Numerous suggestions have been made about ways to fix the problem. In a recent contribution to the discussion, Peter J. Dougherty proposes an

intriguing strategy for remedying the difficulties faced by the humanities:

he suggests that "science can help cure university presses." It is certainly true that books like Thomas Eisner's For Love oflnseets receive an enthusias

tic welcome at press board meetings. As Dougherty puts it:

In return for launching new lists in science, American university presses

will gain access to a stream of intellectually enriching and financially re

warding texts in lively, long-term markets. These vital new income

streams will help support the continued publication of our cherished hu manities lists. (Bll)

Science books may well become cash cows for university presses, and I cer

tainly wouldn't want to squelch this potentially helpful idea. Dougherty's

proposal recognizes that university presses need to find new sources of in

come in addition to the crossover books that have long subsidized publica tions in financially less viable scholarly fields. If books in the sciences will

do the trick, can we rest easy and go about our business, writing more

books of literary scholarship? I feel less sanguine about this notion than

Dougherty. Won't the sciences ultimately become resentful if the humani

ties prove unable to sustain themselves?

Most people recognize that the current crisis is the result of complexly interwoven factors. For this reason, a multipronged approach seems more

desirable than a single overarching strategy. Stephen Greenblatt's letter to

the membership of the MLA, the MLA committee's report, and Cathy Davidson's address to the ACLS all propose a list of actions that can be

taken to ameliorate the situation. Financial considerations loom large, of

course: on the one hand, the drastic reductions in university library budgets and, on the other, the withdrawal of subsidies by universities to the presses that bear their names. This part of the problem seemed to be one that could

be remedied, at least to some extent, by asking universities to subsidize indi

vidual scholarly publications, at least for junior faculty members. Obviously,

scholarly presses greeted this idea with enthusiasm, even though these sub

sidies will scarcely cover the full cost of producing scholarly books.

I've come to see, however, that there is an additional problem that af

fects us as scholars of languages and literatures to an extent that it doesn't

affect our colleagues in other branches of the humanities. The MLA Ad

Hoc Committee on the Future of Scholarly Publishing had taken a dual

perspective on the problem that looked simultaneously at the larger field,



JUDITH RYAN ||| 9

the humanities, and the smaller field, languages and literatures. We were

particularly concerned, to be sure, about book manuscripts on literature in

languages other than English, but although publishing in those areas has

become increasingly difficult, the problematic position of non-English lit eratures was not precisely a new one. At the annual conference of the Con

sortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes in March 2003, two editors

from important presses confirmed in presentations on a panel about aca

demic publishing that books of literary criticism do not sell. One of them

made it clear that his press would probably do better, financially, if it didn't even venture onto literary terrain. Now I began to see the picture very dif

ferently. Although there is still a large gap between the possibilities for

publishing a book on English literature and one on, say, Spanish literature, both are part of a larger systemic problem. History and even philosophy still sell; scholarship on literature does not.

Let us take a closer look now at the reasons why books of literary criti

cism don't sell. Before we begin, we need to be clear what acquisition edi

tors at university presses mean when they speak of literary criticism. Many of us consider that term somewhat quaint and old-fashioned. It's not really what we see ourselves as doing. In the eye of university presses, however,

literary criticism means precisely the kind of writing we are doing in literary

scholarship. Whatever we might prefer to call this writing, much of it sim

ply doesn't make for good sales. Beyond the question of labels, there is a

frustrating paradox at work here: we want our own books on literature to be

published, but we scarcely buy those written by our peers. For a long time, I thought that the problem could be solved by encouraging my colleagues to "buy, buy, buy"?as we were told to do in the wake of the attacks of 9/11.

But I no longer see this as a sufficient solution. Many of us are buying all

right, but we are not buying the kind of book that most needs support. What are the books we continue to acquire, if not works of literary criti

cism? I suggest they are books concerned with broadly applicable ideas.

These ideas don't have to be large: they simply have to go beyond close

readings of texts. At the same time that we tell our students?including dis

sertation writers?to do more close reading, we ourselves seem to have be come impatient with books that focus at length on the fine details of texts. I

say this with a good deal of sadness: close reading is my own greatest

strength and the skill I most hope to pass on to my students. But books that

present broad ideas often seem more versatile?applicable, for example, in more than one context and with respect to more than a single range of au

thors. Prices of scholarly books have risen dramatically, and we want to get more value for our money. I suspect it's one reason why books of theory sold so well for as long as they did. There was always the possibility that



10 III PUBLISHING AND PURCHASING: THE GREAT PARADIGM SHIFT

they could illuminate the literary text we were working on, even when they hadn't been written with that kind of text in mind.

In my view, we entertain an ambivalent relation toward the kinds of

books that we have traditionally considered as the core of our enterprise. There was a time when some of us?particularly in the less commonly known language fields?reduced the amount of close analysis in response to editors' reminders that the broader audience for our books might not be as deeply familiar with the texts as we were. But we still felt keenly that we

had made compromises. Now we, too, seem to become impatient when a

scholarly books dips deeply into its primary texts instead of simply giving the general flavor of them. Direct and frequent quotation is no longer a

dominant feature of scholarly writing about literature, as it used to be sev

eral decades ago. To be sure, books that engage in detailed readings of au

thors like Milton and Shakespeare will continue to sell, because there are

always students somewhere who hope that these books will help them pass

required courses. Another category of literary criticism that will continue

to sell is collections of essays on literature by well-known contemporary

authors; they are almost guaranteed to be bought by their fans. This is what

most of us understand by the term literary criticism. I'd like to give an exam

ple that is characteristic of the dilemma we currendy face. The book is a set

of essays on recent literature by a famous contemporary novelist. Judged by

scholarly standards, the essays are scarcely on the cutting edge, nor do they purport to be. A glance at the endnotes tells us that only a few of the essays take account of the scholarship on the works they treat. Yet because the es

says are the work of a much-loved writer, specialists and scholars alike were

curious to see what the author thinks about contemporary novels by other

writers. It goes without saying that many fans, including me, rushed out to

buy this book. Would I have bought it, though, if it had been the same set

of essays written by a junior scholar in my field? I'm not so sure.

In short, I believe that we are in the grip of a significant paradigm shift.

Yet we seem reluctant to acknowledge it, let alone address it. When we do, we tend to perceive it in somewhat simplified terms. Younger scholars are

increasingly being encouraged to write with a view to the current market

ing situation. William Germano reports that doctoral candidates are now

telling him, "I'm writing my dissertation as a book" ("Dissertations" B9). But

those who supervise these projects are often ill equipped to judge whether

the projects would actually pass muster with an academic press. We know

and admire our students and are excited about the insights they are gener

ating. If I were to ask of every dissertation I read, "Would I buy this as a

published book?," I might well say yes to those being written by my stu

dents, but not to all of those being written by your students. For the same



JUDITH RYAN ||| 11

reason, I'm not a good gauge to what the market will bear when I concoct

my own scholarly projects. Only a tiny number of us are savvy about the

market. Germano's advice about how to write a book, as opposed to a dis

sertation, is extremely valuable: everybody should read what he says, if they haven't done so already. But bear in mind that he is talking about publish able books in general. His helpful book Getting It Published does not have a

separate section on the complicated question of what it is, exactly, that we

want when we buy books on literature.1 Yet if we do not pay some atten

tion to this question, no amount of agile management by presses will re

store the kinds of lists we expect to see in their catalogs. One way around this problem might be to change the market. Cathy

Davidson urges us, for example, to "[s]tamp out course packs!"2 "Profes sors need to be aware," she continues, "that every course pack assigned is a

university-press book unsold" (B9). It's true that a single university-press volume is often much cheaper than a photocopied collection of articles and

excerpts, all of which require hefty copyright fees. But course packs arose in

the first place in response to the increasing reluctance of presses to produce

anthologies for teaching. In recent times, they have also responded to in

creasing pressures in the teaching of literature (though this is also true of art history, for example) to assign secondary material in addition to the pri

mary texts being studied in a course. At the same time, it has come to be

taken for granted that books of scholarship are not read from cover to cover

anymore but instead mined for particularly illuminating sections. This ten

dency, too, is part of the paradigm shift. "It is good for everyone, including the instructor," Davidson writes, "to read a whole book occasionally" (B9). I couldn't agree more. But if I devote two weeks of a course to Rilke's poetry, does this justify assigning a single book by you know whom, at sixty-five dollars a pop? Even one of the "companion" volumes that presses have al

ready created to help balance their financial losses in the literary fields would surely seem excessive to assign for purchase by students unless the course were a seminar devoted to a single author.

In a keynote address to the ADE last year, Linda Ray Pratt defined her

"deepest worry for the profession" as the fear that we "won't come to terms

with how our world is changing in time to make out of that change a positive

thing." The paradigm change in our relation to literary scholarship is, to my mind, the biggest challenge we have confronted in recent times. Not only do we harbor two different conceptions of a book on literature?one conception in the office, another in the bookstore?but many of us would be loath to ac

cept the idea that the book market plays a substantial role when we think about

scholarship in the abstract. This problem is troublesome because it cuts to the

quick of what we have always understood to be a disinterested enterprise.



12 HI PUBLISHING AND PURCHASING: THE GREAT PARADIGM SHIFT

It is one thing to understand what is involved in the current paradigm shift. Does understanding the situation mean, however, that we should bow to the market and stop creating the kinds of studies we most enjoy writing? I don't want to recommend that we cease following our intellec tual passions because the books that emerge from them will not sell?or not sell well enough for most scholarly presses to support them. What we

need to do is to see the problem with clear eyes and recognize that manu

scripts that might once have been readily accepted will have a harder time

finding a proper home. Above all, we need to ask ourselves whether each

project we dream up absolutely has to become a book. Knowing from the outset how the land lies might help scholars understand more clearly what

it means to have an idea for a book.

The problems involved in publishing and purchasing today are unend

ing. I believe that there is no quick fix and that even the packages of multi

ple fixes that have been proposed will only go partway toward saving the

situation. When large and complicated changes are taking place, it is hard to understand what is happening and even harder to find a remedy. Of course we will need to work energetically on questions involving finances.

The type of books we purchase says a great deal about what we value in lit

erary scholarship. But it does not say everything. There will always be

books we prefer to borrow from the library or look at online, rather than

buy for ourselves. I believe that in addition to thinking pragmatically, we

need to reflect more carefully on the underlying reasons for the huge dis

parity between the two types of scholarly products, books we consult and

books we own. What kinds of literary scholarship might be most valuable to us now, as we try to help our fields survive beyond the paradigm shift

that seems to have taken us all by surprise?

NOTES ?

lln private conversation, Germano has much to say on the question of books of liter

ary criticism; it is to be hoped that he will include some reflections on the problem in a

forthcoming publication. 2This is the sixth of her ten recommendations in "Understanding the Economic

Burden of Scholarly Publishing" (B9).

WORKS CITED

Davidson, Cathy N. "Understanding the Economic Burden of Scholarly Publishing." Chronicle of Higher Education 3 Oct. 2003: B7+.

Dougherty, Peter J. "Science Can Help Cure University Presses." Chronicle of Higher Education 12 Dec. 2003: B10+.



JUDITH RYAN ||| 13

Germano, William. Getting It Published: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious about Serious Books. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2001.

-. "If Dissertations Could Talk, What Would They Say?" Chronicle of Higher Edu cation 13 June 2003: B9+.

Greenblatt, Stephen. "Call for Action on Problems in Scholarly Publishing." 28 May 2003. <http://www.mla.org>. Path: Professional Resources; Reports and Documents.

MLA Ad Hoc Committee on the Future of Scholarly Publishing. "The Future of

Scholarly Publishing." Profession 2002. New York: MLA, 2002. 172-86. <http://www .mla.org/pdf/schlrlypblshng.pdf>.

Pratt, Linda Ray. "What's Happening at Paradigm U?" ADE Summer Seminar.

Louisiana SU, Baton Rouge. 30 May 2002.

Pfund, Niko. "University Presses Aren't Endangered." Chronicle of Higher Education

28 June 2002: B7.

