Monday 20 October 2014

New Series Announcement - Rethinking the Nineteenth Century



Manchester University Press
Series editors:
Anna Barton, University of Sheffield
Andrew Smith, University of Sheffield

Editorial board:
David Amigoni, Keele University
Isobel Armstrong, Birkbeck, University of London
Philip Holden, National University of Singapore
Jerome McGann, University of Virginia
Joanne Wilkes, University of Auckland
Julia M. Wright, Dalhousie University


‘Rethinking the Nineteenth Century’ is a new series that seeks to make a significant intervention into the critical narratives that dominate conventional and established understandings of nineteenth-century literature. Informed by the latest developments in criticism and theory the series will provide a focus for how texts from the long nineteenth century, and more recent adaptations of them, revitalise our knowledge of and engagement with the period. It will explore the radical possibilities offered by new methods, unexplored contexts and neglected authors and texts to re-map the literary-cultural landscape of the period and rigorously re-imagine its geographical and historical parameters. To that end the series welcomes provocative approaches to the literature of the long nineteenth century that will contribute to or ignite debate on any aspect of nineteenth-century literature. Relevant topics include but are not limited to: the development of the period from ‘Romantic’ to ‘Victorian’ to ‘Modern’ and the complex inheritances that make up and/or challenge the genealogy of the long nineteenth century (1780-1914); the global contexts within which literary and cultural exchanges take place throughout the period; the opportunities provided by cross-disciplinary approaches to rethink the literary in relation to different kinds of textual production and knowledge exchange; and the presence of the nineteenth-century in contemporary literature and culture and the development of the neo-Victorian, which uses text and non-text based media to deconstruct, reconstruct and market the nineteenth-century in ways that might illuminate our own.


Please send expressions of interest to:
 Anna Barton: a.j.barton@sheffield.ac.uk
Andrew Smith: andrew.smith1@sheffield.ac.uk

The making of British bioethics - Open Access Q & A




To celebrate open access week our first open access author, Duncan Wilson, has taken part in a Q and A, with Editorial Director, Emma Brennan, about the open access process and his new book The making of British bioethics.

EB: What is it about open access that appeals to you both in general, and for your book in particular?

DW: I am always keen that my work should reach as many people as possible, including public as well as academic audiences, and I see open access as an important way of achieving this. This is particularly true of my work on the history of bioethics. The emergence of bioethics in recent decades reflects important shifts in the politics of science and medicine, where philosophers, lawyers, social scientists and others now discuss and help regulate issues that used to be left to doctors and scientists, including in vitro fertilisation, embryo research and ‘assisted dying’. The ways in which bioethicists discussed and helped regulate these often controversial procedures influenced public debates and the choices available to patients, so it’s important that we understand how and why bioethicists acquired such authority. Since bioethics continues to have significant public and political impacts, I think my book should be easily accessible to anyone who is interested in the ethics of science and medicine.    

EB: Do you see any downsides to your book being on open access?

DW: Like some colleagues, I was concerned that anyone might be able to copy my work and present it as their own. There are ways to prevent this though, and my book is published under a license that stops anyone copying and not attributing it to me.

EB: Are there specific groups of people who you think will be able to read your book on open access who might otherwise not have been able to do so?

DW: Definitely. High book prices often put off many of the people I’d like my work to reach the most. It would be great if the book was widely read by undergraduate or postgraduate students in history and bioethics, amongst other fields, who’d borrow a book from the library but wouldn’t normally buy it. Articles I’ve previously published open access have been downloaded by students, and I hope the same happens with the book. I also hope it’s read by members of the public who are interested in bioethics, but wouldn’t normally pay for an academic book on the subject.

EB: Would you advise others to go open access with their books too?

DW: Yes, absolutely.

EB: Has open access or open access publishing changed the way you approach a research project?

DW: I wouldn’t say so. I’ve always looked to research issues that interest a wide range of people, both inside and outside of universities. I’ve always tried to write clearly too, in the hope that non-specialists will be interested in my work.  That hasn’t changed with the advent of open access publishing, but I do hope it means that my work will reach a much wider audience than it did before.


Wednesday 8 October 2014

Eva Gore-Booth - Sonja Tiernan


Sonja Tiernan has been interviewed by Susan Cahill, Talking Books, on Newstalk radio. You can listen to the interview in full here


For further information on Sonja's book, Eva Gore-Booth, please visit