Nearly a decade after its university press closed, Howard University announced a collaborative publishing project with Columbia University Press (CUP) earlier this month. The press will publish a new, ongoing book series in the field of Black studies, providing Howard with the unique opportunity to reenter the curatorial world of scholarly publishing.
Titled “Black Lives in the Diaspora: Past/ Present/ Future,” the series will be curated by an eight-member editorial board consisting of four faculty from Howard’s College of Arts and Sciences and four faculty from Columbia’s African-American and African Diaspora Studies Department. With Howard as an historically Black college and university (HBCU) and Columbia a wealthy Ivy League institution, the partnership is considered to be the first of its kind in publishing.
It first began when CUP reached out to Howard with the idea last year. At the time, CUP wanted to expand its reach within Black studies scholarship, so it consulted with the African diaspora professors at Columbia, who strongly recommended that the press collaborate with an HBCU, said Dr. Frank Guridy, one of the project’s editorial board members and an associate professor of history and African-American Studies at Columbia.
“[CUP] immediately agreed with us that soliciting participation from a historically Black college or university would be instrumental, really vital and important,” said Guridy. “So we decided on Howard because it had this historic impact on the field of Black and Africana Studies.”
In addition, CUP will add a new full-time Black studies editor to its staff.
Dr. Clarence Lusane, a political science professor at Howard and also a member of the editorial board, said CUP’s invitation to collaborate is indicative that “a lot of university presses are beginning to recognize that the scholarship on African Americans and African Diaspora has become more urgent than ever.
“The rise of Black Lives Matter and the demonstrations and protests last year … all of that energy has pushed smaller publishers, and university presses as well, to recognize the importance of this particular constituency,” he said.
