Kathleen Fitzpatrick and "generous thinking"

As I’ve mentioned before, I have been working with colleagues for some time now on a document about the future of the humanities, both within and without the university — more about that in due course. And some of my recent work has been devoted to this constellation of issues: see this review-essay in Books and Culture and this longish reflection in National Affairs.

So in light of all that I’m delighted to see that the estimable Kathleen Fitzpatrick is engaged in a new project on “Generous Thinking” in the university: see the first two installments here and here. I am really excited about the direction Kathleen is taking here and I hope to be a useful interlocutor for her — if I can get these dang books finished.

university presses

After reading yet another story this morning about the problems university presses find themselves in, with all-too-brief suggestions about the ways that digital publishing could help rectify these problems, I thought, "I need to write a post on this. After all, scholarly writing is tailor-made, more than any other kind of writing, for digital publication" — and then I remembered that someone has already said all that I might say on this subject.