Aesthetic Critical Inquiry

Gaye Chan, Specter 1, from Flagrante Delicto, 2002; chromogenic print, 10.875 x 22.25"

Series Editor
Andrea Feeser
Modern and Contemporary Art History and Theory
Clemson University

At least from the beginning of the twentieth century, artists and scholars have created critical investigations presented in aesthetic terms through word and image. Neither conventional academic text nor traditional work of art, this hybrid research produces knowledge by combining rigorous analysis with affective visual and written language. Such material appeals to the mind and the senses, and operates on the premise that learning occurs most powerfully when intellectual study incorporates noumenal and phenomenal experience. Important examples of aesthetic critical inquiry include illustrated essays in Surrealist periodicals; Conceptual art that interrogates theory; poetically written and creatively designed cultural criticism; and digital projects that deliver information and ideas through artful web design.

This series provides a forum for aesthetic critical inquiry through the printed and digital book format and aims to defy developing categories for interdisciplinary research. Interdisciplinarity is currently understood in terms of hybrid subjects and/or methods within academic scholarship. Aesthetic critical inquiry bridges academic scholarship and artistic creation, and thereby fundamentally questions not only what we know, but also how we know it. Because of this emphasis on interdisciplinarity, the series will highlight collaborative endeavors between writers and artists.

The series will publish books and digital projects that explore and reconfigure the following subjects:

• Activism
• Culture
• Epistemology
• Hermeneutics
• Histories
• Politics
• Religions
• Sciences
• Societies
• Technologies

Prospectus Guidelines
For complete submission guidelines, see

http://www.parlorpress.com/submissions

Your proposal should outline the rationale and projected audience for the book and its relation to other books in the field; include the book's table of contents or a chapter outline, the estimated length and the timetable for completion, and the introduction or a sample chapter. Please also send the c.v. of the author or editor.

Contact Information

Queries should be directed to Andrea Feeser, Associate Professor, Modern and Contemporary Art History and Theory Clemson University, 123 Lee Hall, Clemson, SC 29634-0509. Email inquiries should be directed to afeeser@clemson.edu.

Parlor Press is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats, including Acrobat eBook and Night Kitchen (TK3). For additional submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications, visit the website, http://www.parlorpress.com, write to Parlor Press, 816 Robinson St., West Lafayette, Indiana, 47906, or e-mail David Blakesley <editor@parlorpress.com>. 765.409.2649.

Series Launch: 20 October 2003

Free Verse Editions

Jon Thompson
Series Editor
North Carolina State University
Parlor Press and Free Verse: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry & Poetics

Read about the 2009 winner of the New Measure Poetry Prize and selections for Free Verse Editions, to be published in 2010, and download the press release for distribution (iPaper format, suitable for online reading or distribution.)

Free Verse Editions represents a joint venture between Free Verse: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry & Poetics and Parlor Press. The series will publish three to five books of poetry per year.

The New Measure Poetry Prize

Parlor Press’s poetry series, Free Verse Editions, is pleased to announce the second annual New Measure Poetry Prize, which will carry a cash award of $1,000 and publication of an original, unpublished manuscript of poems. Submissions for the prize must be postmarked in April or May of 2010. The non-refundable entry fee is $25.00; checks and money orders should be made out to “Parlor Press.” Parlor Press/Free Verse Editions will announce the winning manuscript no later than December 1, 2010.

Other manuscripts not selected for the New Measure Poetry Prize may still be eligible for publication by Free Verse Editions. Friends and former students of the judge are not eligible for the prize, but may submit for publication to Free Verse Editions (please indicate whether the submission is for the prize or for publication only). Each manuscript should be word processed, paginated, and contain a list of acknowledgments for published or forthcoming poems. The title page should include the name of the author, a postal address, telephone number and email address. Send submissions with SASE to:

The New Measure Poetry Prize
c/o Jon Thompson
Department of English
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-8105

All manuscripts not selected for publication will be recycled. No feedback on submitted manuscripts can be offered.

Download a printable, PDF copy of this announcement for distribution (146 kb).

Free Verse Editions

We are especially interested in collections that use language to dramatize a singular vision of experience, a mastery of craft, a deep knowledge of poetic tradition, and a willingness to take risks. As the series title suggests, the series is oriented toward free verse, but we will happily consider poetry written in traditional forms. Collections should have individual poems published in well-known journals. We will read collections that do not have a track record of publications, but it is unlikely that they will be accepted for publication.

Given the series' commitment to publishing a diverse array of styles, Parlor Press will not make a practice of regularly publishing second books by Free Verse Editions authors.

An announcement about the manuscripts accepted for publication will be made by December 1 each year. The announcement will appear on the Free Verse website as well as here.

• Manuscripts should be between 48 and 150 pages in 12-point type. Manuscripts should be clean and professionally presented. For submission purposes, do not use email or computer disks (if the manuscript is accepted, computer disks and/or email will be necessary).
• Manuscripts should be original, unpublished works. Original translations are welcomed.
• Each manuscript submission should be accompanied by a $25.00 check for the reading fee; the check should be made out to Parlor Press. International submissions are welcome, but the reading fee will need to be made out in US dollars on a bank check, not a personal check. Please specify whether you want your submission to also be considered for the New Measure Poetry Prize (see above).
• The editor of Free Verse Editions reserves the right to accept for publication as many as five manuscripts or none if he deems the quality of the submissions insufficient. The editor also reserves the right to solicit manuscripts for the series. Needless to say, not all the manuscripts accepted in a given year will be solicited. Free Verse Editions is committed to publishing new voices, as well as being open to more established ones.
• Manuscripts may be accompanied by a very brief cover letter (no more than half a page) introducing the manuscript. Please also cite journals that have published poems in the collection. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, if noted (however the reading fee is not refundable, even if the manuscript is withdrawn). Contact information should include an address, a phone number, and an email address, if possible.
• Manuscripts not accepted for publication will be recycled, so do not send your only copy as it cannot be returned.
• Manuscripts accepted for publication can be revised before publication.

Submission period: April 1 - May 31, annually.

Submit a manuscript of original poetry or translation to:

Jon Thompson, Editor
Free Verse Editions
Department of English
North Carolina State University
Raleigh NC 27695-8105

Note: Please do not call, write, or email the editor, or Parlor Press, to inquire about your manuscript during the reading period.

Parlor Press is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats, including Acrobat eBook, iPaper, and Night Kitchen (TK3). For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications visit the website. <http://www.parlorpress.com>, write to Parlor Press, 816 Robinson St., West Lafayette, Indiana, 47906, or e-mail David Blakesley <editor@parlorpress.com>. 765.409.2649

Glassbead Books

Editor
John Holbo
National University of Singapore

Glassbead books will exemplify what academic book publishing should be in an age of electronic publishing: namely, a generous gift culture. All Glassbead books will be available as quality, affordable paperbacks, but also as free PDF downloads. All will be released under a Creative Commons (non-commercial) license. Academic book publishing has poor circulation, which is variously diagnosed but generally goes by the name 'the publishing crisis in the humanities'. We propose that free e plus CC will scour a few clogged arteries and—not only will our patient not die—we predict she will feel a  bit better right away. 

Glassbead will exemplify what academic book publishing should be in another sense: namely, healthy public intellectual culture. We will purvey a wide variety of content—ranging from academic specialist works to journalism to critical editions of public domain fiction to new fiction. But we aim to make our mark with works that solve intellectual circulation problems—within the ivory tower and without. We will make books that are maximally available, searchable, usable—by the public and by academics. We will make books the general reader (not so mythical as sometimes reported) and the academic reader will want to make use of. 

Our most distinctive offerings—our first releases—will be "book events." Born on blogs as massive, multi-reviewer online seminars, the book events are hybrid creatures, unknown in a paper age. We are proud of the critical work they do, the range of participants they have attracted. And, after the fact, they look quite nice on paper. And we hereby demonstrate what an intellectual gift culture can do for the rest of academic publishing. Not all of these books will be narrowly academic, but the case for their intellectual functionality is clearest in the scholarly cases, and perhaps clearest of all in the humanities. Every book published in the humanities should be widely read, discussed, publicly reviewed—should have its own lively comment box, not to put too fine a point on it. Because any scholarly book incapable of rousing a measure of sustained, considerate, knowledgeable, intelligent criticism and downright bookchat from a few dozen souls specializing in that area . . . needn't have been published, after all. Turning the point around: in an age in which technology assures any book worth publishing can be accompanied by such an event, any book that lacks one has been sadly failed by the academic culture in which it was so unfortunate as to be born. We hope to do our part and, even more so, set an excellent example of how to keep ideas circulating.

The book events staged to date have been hosted, primarily, at Crooked Timber (crookedtimber.org) and The Valve (thevalve.org). Our first "book event" Glassbead book is Chris Mooney's The Republican War on Science. Behind it will follow book versions of some subset of the events dedicated to Theory's Empire; The Literary Wittgenstein; How Novels Think; Maps, Graphs and Trees; Freakonomics; The Wealth of Networks; Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell; Iron Council. And we have more events to come.

New books . . .

Framing Theory's Empire
Edited by John Holbo

A Valve Book Event

The PDF version of the book is available free-of-charge. Read it online in iPaper format here or download it here. The book will open in your browser if you have the Adobe Reader plug in (5.0 or higher).

Looking for a Fight: Is There a Republican War on Science?

A Crooked Timber Book Event

The PDF version of the book is available free-of-charge. Read it in iPaper format here or download it here. The book will open in your browser if you have the Adobe Reader plug in (5.0 or higher).

Parlor Press and Glassbead Books

The emergence of  Glassbead represents a convergence of just a few of the publishing opportunities enabled by digital technologies. Parlor Press—itself an independent publisher run entirely by scholars and writers--has the flexibility and track record to help foster new publishing ventures like Glassbead. Since its beginnings in 2002, Parlor Press's goal has been to promote independence and innovation in the publishing world, helping others create their own opportunities for cultivating first-rate scholarly and creative work. Collaborative efforts like the one between Parlor and Glassbead, or between Parlor and the WAC Clearinghouse, are new formations in an attention economy. We're looking forward to creating more such alchemic moments.

Lauer Series in Rhetoric and Composition

Series Editors
Patricia Sullivan, Purdue University
Catherine Hobbs, University of Oklahoma
Thomas Rickert, Purdue University
Jennifer Bay, Purdue University

The Lauer Series in Rhetoric and Composition honors the contributions Janice Lauer Hutton has made to the emergence of Rhetoric and Composition as a disciplinary study. It publishes scholarship that carries on Professor Lauer’s varied work in the history of written rhetoric, disciplinarity in composition studies, contemporary pedagogical theory, and written literacy theory and research.

Submission and Contact Information

Queries and submissions should be directed to Parlor Press, 816 Robinson St., West Lafayette, IN 47906; email: editor@parlorpress.com. Prospectus guidelines: http://www.parlorpress.com/submissions

Parlor Press is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats, including Acrobat eBook and Night Kitchen (TK3). For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications visit the website. <http://www.parlorpress.com>, write to Parlor Press, 816 Robinson St., West Lafayette, Indiana, 47906, or e-mail David Blakesley <editor@parlorpress.com>. 765.409.2649

Lenses on Composition Studies

Series Editors
Sheryl I. Fontaine
California State University Fullerton

Steve Westbrook
California State University Fullerton

Lenses on Composition Studies offers authors the unique opportunity to write for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students who are new to the discipline of Composition Studies. While the series aims to maintain the rigor and depth of contemporary composition scholarship, it seeks to offer this particular group of students an introduction to key disciplinary issues in accessible prose that does not assume prior advanced knowledge of scholars and theoretical debates.  Lenses on Composition Studies will provide to instructors of advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate students texts that are both appropriate and inviting for this less experienced but professionally directed audience.

We invite prospective authors to write about any of the topics or “lenses” that define our discipline: writing in the disciplines, peer response, administration, active learning, etc. Using this topic as a lens through which to see the entire discipline, authors present to students the specialist’s understanding of the topic and of the discipline itself using theoretical terminology and historical explanations that beginning students in the field need and can understand. These brief (200-page) books should engage novices to the field with interviews, student voices, collaborative writing, quotes from colleagues in the field, or other devices that similarly lend a “real,” immediate quality to the writing.  Authors are also encouraged to use descriptive headings throughout each chapter, include activities such as journal entry topics, questions for discussions, informal writing prompts, as well as works cited list and a list of works for further reading.

Submission and Contact Information

Queries should be directed to:

Sheryl I. Fontaine, California State University at Fullerton
sfontaine@fullerton.edu

Steve Westbrook, California State University at Fullerton
swestbrook@fullerton.edu

For complete submission guidelines, see

http://www.parlorpress.com/submissions

Your proposal should outline the rationale and projected audience for the book and its relation to other books in the field; include the book's table of contents or a chapter outline, the estimated length and the timetable for completion, and the introduction and a sample chapter. Please also send the c.v. of the author or editor.

Parlor Press is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats, including Acrobat eBook and Night Kitchen (TK3). For additional submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications visit the website, http://www.parlorpress.com, write to Parlor Press, 816 Robinson St., West Lafayette, Indiana, 47906, or e-mail David Blakesley <editor@parlorpress.com>. 765.409.2649.

New Media Theory

New Media Theory

Series Editor
Byron Hawk
George Mason University

The New Media Theory series investigates both media and new media as a complex ecological and rhetorical context. The merger of media and new media creates a global social sphere that is changing the ways we work, play, write, teach, think, and connect. Because this new context operates through evolving arrangements, theories of new media have yet to establish a rhetorical and theoretical paradigm that fully articulates this emerging digital life.

The series includes books that combine social, cultural, political, textual, rhetorical, aesthetic, and material theories in order to understand moments in the lives that operate in these emerging contexts. Such works typically bring rhetorical and critical theories to bear on media and new media in a way that elaborates a burgeoning post-disciplinary "medial turn" as one further development of the rhetorical and visual turns that have already influenced scholarly work.

Possible Topics

• Visual Rhetoric
• Complexity Theory
• The Mediated Body
• Rhetoric and New Media
• Media Ecologies
• Media and Discursive Politics
• Digital Writing
• Posthumanism
• Embodied Writing
• Digital Art
• Globalism and Technology

Queries should be directed to Byron Hawk, Editor, New Media Theory, George Mason University, Department of English (MSN 3E4), 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030. Email: bhawk@gmu.edu.

Parlor Press is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats, including Acrobat eBook and Night Kitchen (TK3). For submission information, see http://www.parlorpress.com/submissions. Or write to Parlor Press • 816 Robinson St. • West Lafayette • Indiana • 47906, or e-mail David Blakesley, editor@parlorpress.com.

Perspectives on Writing

Editor
Susan McLeod
University of California, Santa Barbara
WAC Clearinghouse and Parlor Press

The Perspectives on Writing series addresses writing studies in a broad sense. Consistent with the wide ranging approaches characteristic of teaching and scholarship in writing across the curriculum, the series presents works that take divergent perspectives on working as a writer, teaching writing, administering writing programs, and studying writing in its various forms.

The Perspectives on Writing Series is a collaborative publication venture between Parlor Press and the WAC Clearinghouse designed to make new books available freely on the Web and in low-cost print editions.

Submission and Contact Information

Queries and proposals should be directed to:

Susan McLeod
mcleod@writing.ucsb.edu

For submission guidelines, see Parlor Press's Prospectus Guidelines

Proposals should outline the rationale and projected audience for the book and its relation to other books in the field; include the book's table of contents or a chapter outline, the estimated length and the timetable for completion, and, if available, the introduction and a sample chapter. Please also send the CV of the author(s) or editor(s).

Prospects in Visual Rhetoric

Series Editor
Marguerite Helmers
University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh

The Series includes historical statements on visual culture, art, architecture, costume, and design, republished for the benefit of the modern reader with commentary by contemporary scholars. Prospects in Visual Rhetoric emerges in the scholarly publishing world to offer an opportunity for a new tradition to be forged, not so much to build a canon, but to rewrite rhetorical tradition from a visual perspective. It is our hope that looking backwards at significant writers and noteworthy essays will allow scholars in the emerging field of visual rhetoric to trace their history to the visual theories, critical commentaries, and scholarly studies of the past. Rhetoricians interested in the visual turn of present-day scholarship will be able to extend their inquiry into the styles, genres, and forms of aesthetic discourse of previous decades and centuries. We hope that art historians, designers, and critics of the visual will also benefit from reconceptualizing these key statements.

Submission and Contact Information

Queries should be directed to Marguerite Helmers, Associate Professor of English, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, 800 Algoma Boulevard, Oshkosh, WI 54901. Email: helmers@uwosh.edu

Parlor Press is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats, including Acrobat eBook and Night Kitchen (TK3). For submission information, see http://www.parlorpress.com/submissions. Or write to Parlor Press • 816 Robinson St. • West Lafayette • Indiana • 47906, or e-mail David Blakesley, editor@parlorpress.com

Reference Guides to Rhetoric and Composition

Series Editor
Charles Bazerman
UC, Santa Barbara
Parlor Press and the WAC Clearinghouse

The Series provides compact, comprehensive and convenient surveys of what has been learned through research and practice as composition has emerged as an academic discipline over thelast half century. Each volume is devoted to a single topic that has been of interest in rhetoric and composition in recent years, to synthesize and make available the sum and parts of what has been learned on that topic. These reference guides are designed to help deepen classroom practice by making available the collective wisdom of the field and will provide the basis for new research. The Series is intended to be of use to teachers at all levels of education, researchers and scholars of writing, graduate students learning about the field, and all who have interest in or responsibility for writing programs and the teaching of writing. 

Parlor Press and The WAC Clearinghouse are collaborating so that these books will be widely available through low-cost print editions and free digital distribution. The publishers and the Series editor are teachers and researchers of writing, committed to the principle that knowledge should freely circulate. We see the opportunities that new technologies have for further democratizing knowledge. And we see that to share the power of writing is to share the means for all to articulate their needs, interest, and learning into the great experiment of literacy.

Submission and Contact Information

Queries should be directed to

Dr. Charles Bazerman
Education Department
Univ. of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Email: bazerman@education.ucsb.edu

General prospectus guidelines:

http://www.parlorpress.com/submissions

Parlor Press is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats, including Acrobat eBook and Night Kitchen (TK3). For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications visit the website. <http://www.parlorpress.com>, write to Parlor Press, 816 Robinson St., West Lafayette, Indiana, 47906, or e-mail David Blakesley <editor@parlorpress.com>. 765.409.2649

Renaissance and Medieval Studies

Editor
Charles Ross
Purdue University

The Renaissance and Medieval Studies series focuses on editions, comparative studies, translations, and reprints of primary texts of the Renaissance and earlier in Italy, England, and France. The series also offers an outlet for electronic distribution of supplementary material for each printed volume from art history, film, and the history of the book.

Submission and Contact Information

Queries should be directed to Professor Ross at rosscs@purdue.edu or by mail at Department of English, Purdue University, 500 Oval Dr., West Lafayette, IN 47906. Questions can also be sent to Parlor Press at editor@parlorpress.com.

For submission and prospectus guidelines, see http://www.parlorpress.com/submissions.

Parlor Press is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats, including Acrobat eBook and Night Kitchen (TK3). For more information, write to Parlor Press • 816 Robinson St. • West Lafayette • Indiana • 47906, or e-mail David Blakesley, editor@parlorpress.com.

Rhetoric of Science and Technology

Series Editor
Alan G. Gross
University of Minnesota

The rhetoric of science and technology is a branch of rhetorical criticism that has grown rapidly since its inception four decades ago. Its initial focus was the texts of such well-known scientists as Darwin, Newton, and Watson and Crick. The field has since expanded to encompass important work on interdisciplinarity, the role of rhetorical schemes,  the popular meanings of the gene, the rhetorical history of the scientific article, the question of incommensurability, and the critical engagement with emergent technologies.  But this work and these topics by no means exhaust the field. Although the point has already been made that science and technology are in some sense rhetorical, the field remains open to new topics and innovative approaches. The Rhetoric of Science and Technology series of Parlor Press will publish works that address these and related topics:

1. The history of science and technology approached from a rhetorical perspective
2. Science and technology policy from a rhetorical point of view
3. The role of photographs, graphs, diagrams, and equations in the communication of science and technology
4. The  role of schemes and tropes in the communication of science and technology
5. The methods used in rhetorical studies of science and technology, especially the predominance of case studies
6. The popularization of science by scientists and non-scientists
7. The effect of the Internet on communication in science and technology
8. The pedagogy of communicating science and technology to popular audiences and audiences of scientists and engineers
9. The inclusion of science and technology in rhetoric and composition courses

Submission and Contact Information

Queries should be directed to:

Alan G. Gross
Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
agross@umn.edu

For complete submission guidelines, see             

http://www.parlorpress.com/submissions

Proposals should outline the rationale and projected audience for the book and its relation to other books in the field; include the book's table of contents or a chapter outline, the estimated length and the timetable for completion, and, if available, the introduction and a sample chapter. Please also send the CV of the author or editor.

Second Language Writing

Series Editor
Paul Kei Matsuda
Arizona State University

Second language writing emerged in the late twentieth century as an interdisciplinary field of inquiry, and an increasing number of researchers from various related fields—including applied linguistics, communication, composition studies, and education—have come to identify themselves as second language writing specialists. The Second Language Writing series aims to facilitate the advancement of knowledge in the field of second language writing by publishing scholarly and research-based monographs and edited collections that provide significant new insights into central topics and issues in the field.

This Series seeks submissions that expand, refine or challenge the existing knowledge in the field by using various modes of inquiry, such as philosophical, historical, empirical (quantitative and qualitative) and narrative. Some of the possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• the nature, backgrounds, and characteristics of second or foreign language writing and writers;
• issues in second language writing instruction, assessment, and program administration;
• the experience of second language writers, writing teachers, and writing program administrators;
• institutional policies, politics, and practices that affect second language writers;
• instructional practices in various institutional and disciplinary contexts;
• implications of technological innovations on second language writing;
• the relevance of theories developed in other fields;
• the definition and historical development of the field and its relationship with other fields; and
• approaches to inquiry in studying second language writing and writers.

Manuscripts that explore the implications of second language writing issues in other related fields are also welcome.

Following the common practice in the field, submissions to this Series should follow the current APA style.

Submission and Contact Information

Queries should be directed to:

Paul Kei Matsuda
Arizona State University
Department of English
Box 870302
Tempe, AZ 85287-0302 USA
Email: pmatsuda@asu.edu

For complete submission guidelines, see

http://www.parlorpress.com/submissions

Your proposal should outline the rationale and projected audience for the book and its relation to other books in the field; include the book's table of contents or a chapter outline, the estimated length and the timetable for completion, and the introduction and a sample chapter. Please also send the c.v. of the author or editor.

Parlor Press is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats, including Acrobat eBook, iPaper, and Sophie. For additional submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications visit the website, http://www.parlorpress.com, write to Parlor Press, 816 Robinson St., West Lafayette, Indiana, 47906, or e-mail David Blakesley <editor@parlorpress.com>. 765.409.2649

Visual Rhetoric

Series Editor
Marguerite Helmers
University of Wisconsin-Oskosh

Visual culture studies and visual rhetoric have been increasing areas of emphasis in scholarly studies. Drawing on the work of a variety of theorists, from Kenneth Burke in rhetorical studies to Roland Barthes in semiotics, and addressing a wide range of subjects, from supermarkets to new media, scholars established visual cultural studies as a thriving and significant area of inquiry for the new century. The impetus for such study has been the awareness that Americans’ primary information sources (television and the World Wide Web) are strongly graphic (or visual) rather than print- or text-based in nature. This series will encourage scholars working in rhetoric, cultural studies, and communication to create new scholarly works that analyze visual phenomena. The intent is to assist in the development of a dedicated publication venue for visual rhetorical studies in order to establish coherence in what is currently a disparate discipline.

The previously unquestioned hegemony of verbal text is being challenged by what W. J. T. Mitchell labels the “pictorial turn” (Picture Theory)—a recognition of the importance and ubiquity of images in the dissemination and reception of information, ideas, and opinions—processes that lie at the heart of all rhetorical practices, social movements, and cultural institutions. In the past decade, many scholars have called for collaborative ventures, in essence for disciplining of the study of visual information into a new field, variously labeled visual rhetoric, visual culture studies, or “image studies.” This proposed new field would bring together the work currently being accomplished by scholars in a wide variety of disciplines, including art theory, anthropology, rhetoric, cultural studies, psychology, and media studies.

Mission

The Visual Rhetoric series of Parlor Press will publish works that address the following themes:

• Political examinations of the role of the image in society;
• Analyses of the production of images, objects, or visual phenomena in society;
• Historical considerations of the reception of the image to particular times, places, and people;
• Analyses of the relationship between representation, communication, and knowledge;
• Studies of perception, reception, and interpretation of images;
• Focused rhetorical analyses of various media, including, but not limited to television, film, photography, computer imaging, illustrated books, billboards, and propaganda.

Submission and Contact Information

Queries should be directed to Marguerite Helmers, Associate Professor of English, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, 800 Algoma Boulevard, Oshkosh, WI 54901. Email: helmers@uwosh.edu

Parlor Press is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats, including Acrobat eBook and Night Kitchen (TK3). For submission information, see http://www.parlorpress.com/submissions. Or write to Parlor Press • 816 Robinson St. • West Lafayette • Indiana • 47906, or e-mail David Blakesley, editor@parlorpress.com.

Writing Program Administration

Series Editors
Susan H. McLeod
University of California, Santa Barbara

Margot Soven
La Salle University

In the past few decades writing program administration has emerged as a field of inquiry, a field with its own national organization, journal, and conference. The Writing Program Administration series provides a venue for scholarly monographs and projects that are research or theory-based and that provide insights into important issues in the field. We encourage submissions that examine the work of writing program administration, broadly defined (e.g., not just administration of first-year composition programs). Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• Historical studies of writing program administration or administrators (archival work is particularly encouraged)
• Studies evaluating the relevance of theories developed in other fields (e.g., management, sustainability, organizational theory)
• Studies of particular personnel issues (e.g., unionization, use of adjunct faculty)
• Research on developing and articulating curricula Studies of assessment and accountability issues for WPAs
• Examinations of the politics of writing program administration WPA work at the community college

Submission and Contact Information

Queries should be directed to:

Susan H. McLeod (mcleod@writing.ucsb.edu) University of California, Santa Barbara

Margot Soven, (soven@lasalle.edu) La Salle University

For complete submission guidelines, see

http://www.parlorpress.com/submissions

Your proposal should outline the rationale and projected audience for the book and its relation to other books in the field; include the book's table of contents or a chapter outline, the estimated length and the timetable for completion, and the introduction and a sample chapter. Please also send the c.v. of the author or editor.

Parlor Press is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats, including Acrobat eBook, iPaper and Sophie. For additional submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications visit the website, http://www.parlorpress.com, write to Parlor Press, 816 Robinson St., West Lafayette, Indiana, 47906, or e-mail David Blakesley <editor@parlorpress.com>. 765.409.2649.

Writing Travel

Series Editor
Jeanne Moskal
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The Writing Travel series publishes work in the new field of travel studies.

The series publishes . . .

• Editions of out-of-print travel books or previously unpublished travel memoirs
• English translations of important travel books in other languages
• Theoretical and historical treatments of ways in which travel and travel writing engage such questions as religion, nationalism/cosmopolitanism, and empire; gender and sexuality; race, ethnicity, and immigration; and the history of the book, print culture, and translation
• Biographies of significant travelers or groups of travelers (including but not limited to pilgrims, missionaries, anthropologists, tourists, explorers, immigrants)
• Critical studies of the works of significant travelers or groups of travelers
• Pedagogy of travel and travel literature and its place in curricula
• Original travel writing that explicitly engages its generic precedents or the historically complicated conditions of travel.

Submission Information

For complete submission guidelines, see

http://www.parlorpress.com/submissions

The Writing Travel series is presently not reviewing new work while we catch up with a high volume of submissions and books in production. Please watch this space for further updates.

Contact Information

Queries should be directed to Jeanne Moskal, Department of English, Campus Box 3520, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC  27599-3520. Email inquiries should be directed to editor@parlorpress.com.

Parlor Press is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats, including Acrobat eBook and Night Kitchen (TK3). For additional submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications visit the website, http://www.parlorpress.com, write to Parlor Press, 816 Robinson St., West Lafayette, Indiana, 47906, or e-mail David Blakesley <editor@parlorpress.com>. 765.409.2649

Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing

Parlor Press is pleased to announce an exciting new collaborative project with the WAC Clearinghouse and series editors Charlie Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing is a new textbook series seeking proposals for essays for the composition classroom. Each volume of Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing will contain peer-reviewed collections of essays all composed by teachers for students, freely available for download under a Creative Commons license.

Volumes in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing will offer multiple perspectives on a wide-range of topics about writing, much like the model made famous by Wendy Bishop’s The Subject Is . . . series.  In each chapter, a rich variety of authors will present their unique views, insights, and strategies for writing by addressing the undergraduate reader directly.  Drawing on their own experiences, these teachers-as-writers will invite students to join in the larger conversation about developing nearly every aspect of their craft. Consequently, each essay will function as a standalone text which will easily complement other selected readings in writing or writing-intensive courses across the disciplines at any level. Thus with your submissions and the publication of subsequent volumes of essays, the Writing Spaces website will become a large library of student-centered instructional essays on writing for all across our field to use in the composition classroom.

The theme for Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Vol. 1 will be first-year composition, and we invite authors to submit a proposal for a chapter on any topic about writing suitable for a first-year class. For example,

   * College writing vs. what you did in high school
   * Freewriting
   * Why invention is important
   * Finding a topic for your personal narrative
   * Drawing on personal experience in your writing
   * Understanding the rhetorical situation
   * What is creativity?
   * What do we mean by that term "style?"
   * Developing the appropriate voice for your audience
   * Getting to the draft
   * What makes a good thesis and how to focus your paper
   * Best practices for conducting research
   * The Internet as a space for communication and research
   * Effective quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing
   * Re-vision as re-seeing your text
   * Why proofreading is important
   * Primary research: the I-search paper, ethnography, or interviewing
   * Logic in argumentative writing
   * Collaborative writing
   * New media writing

Because each chapter in Writing Spaces is an essay, authors will want to strike a balance between instruction and creating a text that demonstrates excellent essay writing, with an appropriate and strong, engaging voice for a student audience. An essay could provide students with good writing advice and strategies. Or it might exemplify the type of essay writing that presents perspectives that stimulate critical thinking and invigorating class conversations. Any essay that incorporates outside material should also serve as a student-friendly model for demonstrating effective attribution and integration of sources.

Chapters in this collection could draw on personal experiences and include narrative writing. Student voices and examples are encouraged (student permission required), and visuals can be included in the text. Collaboratively written essays are also welcome.

Each proposal will be a 300-400 word abstract that clearly states the focus and purpose of the essay and briefly outlines the working structure of the piece. Furthermore, abstracts should indicate whether or not and how student voices and/or visuals will be included.

Proposals are due by April 10, 2009 and are to be submitted online via the Writing Spaces website as a .doc, .pdf, .rtf, or .odt file. Authors will be notified by e-mail about the status of their proposals by May 15, 2009. The publication of the first volume is planned for January of 2010. More information for authors and a link to our submission form is available in the authors area of our website: http://writingspaces.org/authors.

Upon publication, individual essays and a full electronic version of the first volume will be available for free download from the Writing Spaces' website. Teachers may upload these onto their course management websites or integrate them into course packs--royalty free. As they are published, print editions of each volume will be available through Parlor Press.

For more information about the Writing Spaces book series or other questions, please take a look at the materials on our website, http://writingspaces.org/, or contact the editors: editors@writingspaces.org.

Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing is published in partnership with Parlor Press and the WAC Clearinghouse.