[LINK] Fwd: LIVING BOOKS ABOUT LIFE - Open Humanities Press

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

> From:   Anna Munster <a.munster at unsw.edu.au> 
> Date:   Fri, 28 Oct 2011 09:15:52 +0000 
> Subject: LIVING BOOKS ABOUT LIFE - Open Humanities Press 
 

Open Humanities Press publishes twenty-one open access Living Books About 
Life

LIVING BOOKS ABOUT LIFE

 http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org

The pioneering open access humanities publishing initiative, Open 
Humanities Press (OHP) (http://openhumanitiespress.org), is pleased to 
announce the release of 21 open access books in its series Living Books 
About Life (http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org).

Funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), and edited by 
Gary Hall, Joanna Zylinska and Clare Birchall, Living Books About Life is 
a series of curated, open access books about life -- with life understood 
both philosophically and biologically -- which provide a bridge between 
the humanities and the sciences. 

Produced by a globally-distributed network of writers and editors, the 
books in the series repackage existing open access science research by 
clustering it around selected topics whose unifying theme is life: e.g., 
air, agriculture, bioethics, cosmetic surgery, electronic waste, energy, 
neurology and pharmacology.

Peter Suber, Open Access Project Director, Public Knowledge, said: ‘This 
book series would not be possible without open access.  

On the author side, it takes splendid advantage of the freedom to reuse 
and repurpose open-access research articles.  On the other side, it 
passes on that freedom to readers. In between, the editors made 
intelligent selections and wrote original introductions, enhancing each 
article by placing it in the new context of an ambitious, integrated 
understanding of life, drawing equally from the sciences and humanities’.

By creating twenty one ‘living books about life’ in just seven months, 
the series represents an exciting new model for publishing, in a 
sustainable, low-cost, low-tech manner, many more such books in the 
future. 

These books can be freely shared with other academic and non-academic 
institutions and individuals.

Nicholas Mirzoeff, Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New 
York University, commented: ‘This remarkable series transforms the humble 
Reader into a living form, while breaking down the conceptual barrier 
between the humanities and the sciences in a time when scholars and 
activists of all kinds have taken the understanding of life to be 
central. Brilliant in its simplicity and concept, this series is a leap 
towards an exciting new future’.

One of the most important aspects of the Living Books About Life series 
is the impact it has had on the attitudes of the researchers taking part, 
changing their views on open access and raising awareness of issues 
around publishers’ licensing and copyright agreements. Many have become 
open access advocates themselves, keen to disseminate this model among 
their own scholarly and student communities. 

As Professor Erica Fudge of the University of Strathclyde and co-editor 
of the living book on Veterinary Science, put it, ‘I am now evangelical 
about making work publicly available, and am really encouraging 
colleagues to put things out there’.

These ‘books about life’ are themselves ‘living’, in the sense they are 
open to ongoing collaborative processes of writing, editing, updating, 
remixing and commenting by readers. As well as repackaging open access 
science research -- together with interactive maps and audio-visual 
material -- into a series of books, Living Books About Life is thus 
involved in rethinking ‘the book’ itself as a living, collaborative 
endeavour in the age of open science, open education, open data, iPad 
apps and e-book readers such as Kindle.

Tara McPherson, editor of VECTORS, Journal of Culture and Technology in a 
Dynamic Vernacular, said: ‘It is no hyperbole to say that this series 
will help us reimagine everything we think we know about academic 
publishing.  It points to a future that is interdisciplinary, open 
access, and expansive.’

Funded by JISC, Living Books About Life is a collaboration between Open 
Humanities Press and three academic institutions, Coventry University, 
Goldsmiths, University of London, and the University of Kent.

Books:

* Astrobiology and the Search for Life on Mars, edited by Sarah Kember 
(Goldsmiths, University of London)

* Bioethics™: Life, Politics, Economics, edited by Joanna Zylinska 
(Goldsmiths, University of London)

* Biosemiotics: Nature, Culture, Science, Semiosis, edited by Wendy 
Wheeler (London Metropolitan University)

* Cognition and Decision in Non-Human Biological Organisms, edited by 
Steven Shaviro (Wayne State University)

* Cosmetic Surgery: Medicine, Culture, Beauty, edited by Bernadette 
Wegenstein (Johns Hopkins University)

* Creative Evolution: Natural Selection and the Urge to Remix, edited by 
Mark Amerika (University of Colorado at Boulder)

* Digitize Me, Visualize Me, Search Me: Open Science and its Discontents, 
edited by Gary Hall (Coventry University)

* Energy Connections:  Living Forces in Creative Inter/Intra-Action, 
edited by Manuela Rossini (td-net for Transdisciplinary Research, 
Switzerland)

* Human Genomics: From Hypothetical Genes to Biodigital Materialisations, 
edited by Kate O’Riordan (Sussex University)

* Medianatures: The Materiality of Information Technology and Electronic 
Waste, edited by Jussi Parikka (Winchester School of Art, University of 
Southampton)

* Nerves of Perception: Motor and Sensory Experience in Neuroscience, 
edited by Anna Munster (University of New South Wales)

* Neurofutures, edited by Timothy Lenoir (Duke University)

* Partial Life, edited by Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr (SymbioticA, 
University of Western Australia)

* Pharmacology, edited by Dave Boothroyd (University of Kent)

* Symbiosis, edited by Janneke Adema and Pete Woodbridge (Coventry 
University)

* Another Technoscience is Possible: Agricultural Lessons for the 
Posthumanities, edited by Gabriela Mendez Cota (Goldsmiths, University of 
London)

* The In/visible, edited by Clare Birchall (University of Kent)

* The Life of Air: Dwelling, Communicating, Manipulating, edited by 
Monika Bakke (University of Poznan)

* The Mediations of Consciousness, edited by Alberto López Cuenca 
(Universidad de las Américas, Puebla)

* Ubiquitous Surveillance, edited by David Parry (University of Texas at 
Dallas)

* Veterinary Science: Animals, Humans and Health, edited by Erica Fudge 
(Strathclyde University) and Clare Palmer (Texas A&M University)

Contact the Living Books about Life series editors:
Gary Hall, Joanna Zylinska and Clare Birchall
E: gary.hall at coventry.ac.uk
E: j.zylinska at gold.ac.uk
E: c.s.birchall at kent.ac.uk
W: http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org

Open Humanities Press is a non-profit, international Open Access 
publishing collective specializing in critical and cultural theory. OHP 
was formed by academics to overcome the current crisis in scholarly 
publishing that threatens intellectual freedom and academic rigor 
worldwide. OHP journals are academically certified by OHP’s independent 
board of international scholars. All OHP publications are peer-reviewed, 
published under open access licenses, and freely and immediately 
available online at http://openhumanitiespress.org.

A/Prof. Anna Munster
Deputy Director Centre for Contemporary Art and Politics
College of Fine Arts
UNSW
P.O. Box 259
Paddington
NSW 2021
612 9385 0741 (tel)
612 9385 0615(fax)
a.munster at unsw.edu.au

 


Message sent using MelbPC WebMail Server