Here Be Monsters: A Punctum Publishing Primer – Eileen Joy on the current state of academic publishing. Much to think about here.

punctum doesn’t publish books for your grandmother’s tenure and promotion committee, which somehow, through a strange process of zombie-fication, is still operating within the ossifed crevasses of the Groves of Academe and calling the (parting) shots with a thousand (cutting) sneers and impact factors. punctum believes that the only consideration that should be taken into account when assessing a colleague’s or student’s work is whether or not it makes a unique contribution to Thought, regardless of its form, style, subject matter(s), or “place of publication.” We further believe that the job of tenured faculty and administrators in the Public University (among other things like Research and Teaching) should be to improve the Working Conditions of their so-called junior colleagues and students so that unique Thought Acts, and the means and spaces for articulating those, become more possible for more persons. In this scenario, the Public University does not regulate and officiate Thought, but rather creates the hospitable Open Conditions for its creative (and groovy) emergence. [continues here]