Huffington Post on the 17 Most Innovative University Presses

The Huffington Post recently highlighted university presses, their distinctive lists, and what separates them from trade publishers.

Though the list of selected presses is somewhat idiosyncratic (some great presses were not included), the piece by Anis Shivani does nicely summarize what university presses have to offer: “They may not be into showmanship and high-stakes publicity maneuvers, but their steady, unrelenting focus on particular subject areas creates vast bodies of new knowledge….There are books here for everyone’s taste. Check out what these presses have to offer. You’ll often discover history, depth, seriousness, charm, and beautiful design–all at once.”

Here’s what the post had to say about Columbia titles.

If cutting-edge literary theory excites you, CUP is the place for you. Asian studies and literature, with a focus on core teaching courses, is another great specialization. In recent years CUP has published Theodor Adorno, Talal Asad, Peter Brown, Judith Butler, Eileen Chang, Arthur Danto, John Lewis Gaddis, Mikhail Gorbachev, Roald Hoffman, Donald Keene, Julia Kristeva, John Allen Paulos, John Rawls, Jeffrey Sachs, Edward Said, Joseph Stiglitz, Hervé This, and Kenneth Waltz. Film and media studies, Middle Eastern studies, and New York City history are other specialties. Intriguing new titles include Francois Dosse’s Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari: Intersecting Lives; David Foster Wallace’s Fate, Time, and Language; Roland Barthes’s The Preparation for the Novel; Giorgio Agamben et al.’s Democracy in What State?, David Omand’s Securing the State; Qian Zhongshu’s Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts; Xiaomei Chen’s The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama; Salma Khadra Jayyusi’s Classical Arabic Stories; and Steven D. Carter’s Haiku Before Haiku: From the Renga Masters to Basho.