Press, nu and Fordham University press make up a large part of what we do here for the past 20 plus years. Have the havely featured in orientses programming, our plays and weekly and yearly best seller liveses so shows our Customer Base loves them as well. A couple of housekeeping things before i move over to the lovely panel. We have a lot of book for sale up here. We do not have a register up here so feel free to take a bunch, get them signed and pay for them on the way out so you can be here from years to come. You may have noticed the cameras. Cspan is here so when we get to the q a portion, if you have a question, make sure you wait for the mic to get to you so that we can hear the question as well as see you. So ill turn it over to our panel. Great. Thank you, kyle. Hello and welcome to our University Press week celebration. Im fred and im the director or Fordham University press. This is our eighth annual up week. Have been a member of the task force since 2014 and chair person for two of those years. This year the theme is read, think, act. To help us prepare for the 2020 election and deal with the tumultuous political and cultural environment we find ourselves in now. How do University Presses contribute to the conversation and create a sense of community and collaboration as we impact the difficult and often controversial topics such as immigration, race, artificial intelligence, climate change, and so much more. Why do we do what we do and why do authors choose to publish with University Presses . Thats why we are here. Well hear from editors and authors from the major new york city presses, columbia, forwardham and nyu. Were Mission Driven and will willing to take chances. Au presses executive director, said University Presses champion authors whose works can make a real difference and how owl of us think but politics, religion, economic, science, technology, human rights and the natural world, among other important topics. Without University Presses many of these ideas would never make it into broader conversation. We are proud to make this aspect of our communes work and the impact it can have, our theme for University Press week 2019, read, think, act. There is a reading list including an online gallery of covers highlighting books from 75 University Presses that best represent the theme of read, think, act go to au presses. Org. I recommend you check it out. A verbal and intellectual feast. Also more than 40 presses have signed up to participate in never week, 2019 blog tour, organized around these themes. How to be a better global citizen, how to speak up and speak out. How to be environmentally steward. How to build community. How to practice compassion. Last week i was entered viewed by a journalist from fox media and she asked me how to do readers engage with University Press books and i said that choo shoo go into book stores and look around so many University Press books here its fantastic and we need to do more to support our local independent book stores. Thanks to poock culture for supporting the University Presses and hosting this event testimony. I want to wednesday we created great bags for University Press week. Read, think, act, and Fordham University press. If you buy a book youll get the back and a readup bookmark. So, id like the editors and authors from the University Presses to introduce themselves and give a brief overview of their book and how i ties into this years theme of read, think, act and then ask questions and turn it over to the audience to ask their own questions and so will reported start with columbia. Great. Really happy to about here. That was a great introduction the value of the University Presses. My name is hannah, and im a professor at nyus gal lat tan school of individualized study, and we have the books im here to talk about today specifically is a book that is being published by columbia University Press, its called whistleblowerring nation, the history of National Security disclosures and the cult of state secrecy. And so everyone knows theres a lot of talk about hissing blowing in the news today and in contemporary politics but outside of a few major figures, the history of that phenomenon is really underexamined. This is an edited volume that examines that history from the era of world war i to the present, and it really attempts to apply interdisciplinary approaches so we have historians, we have political theorists, literary scholars, trying to move beyond cliches that tend to dominate the way we talk and fight over whistleblowers so generally speaking whistleblowers are heroes or traitors. How can we break past that binary and examine some more structural develops over the last century with respect to thisphone. Phenomenon so its trying to get more systemic and think but the whistleblower, the phenomenon, the states response it to, the historical conscious of that phenomenon, the popular cultural of that phenomenon, and needless to say, it would be really difficult to publish that kind of book with a commercial press. There are loads of booked but hissing blowing whistle blowing but they tend to reinforce the clear shares were trying to get past, whistleblower are heroes, theyre traitor, always had whistleblowers. Its american as apple pie. Or that the state only clamps down on whistleblowers. Theres nothing in between. So its really the place of University Presses, i think, that value a more nuanced a progression, a more indepth approach and also multiauthorred book. The idea of an edited involve is becoming increasingly difficult to publish, wind the University Presses and certainly in a commercial environment. Impossible. So, briefly, read to dig deeper, into the phenomenon of whistle blowing, think beyond the tired binaries that too often constrain the way we think and talk and act about in relation whistle blowing and then act supporting whistleblowers, certainly, but not just in partisan ways, not just thinking about the current moment and people who are speaking out against trump, though thats great. But how do we think in a more antisystemic fashion about the whistleblowers that dont get attention. That historically both democrats and republicans have persecuted and jailed and also protecting journalists who are increasingly being then threatened in the same ways that whistleblowers have historically, so read, think, act. Great. So im will. I work in editorial at Fordham University press and the book im their discuss, along with lauren, a contributor to book, asia another edited collection whose middle ages, teachable moments for an illused past. This is also a very interdisciplinary book of the kind that really could only happen at a University Press. A lot of our historians talking with literary people, with historians, all across the spectrum of people who study the premodern field. This book is growing out of a longstanding need within that field, which is the field that attracts a great number of reactionaries among its fans. Adolph hitler was a huge fan know middle ages as are lot of spree shooter, the shooters in norway and new zealand, about considered themselves crusaders and were not only using the language of civilizational warfare but were citing crusade scholarship in their manifestos and their construction of what they were trying to do. So, in many ways the need for work like this has existed since the 30s and its been happening but happening within the confines of the academy. Occasionally people will speak out but more so the middle ages have existed as a space for imagination and play and religious, putting whatever you want to communicate on to them. Theyre a canvas. So, in the wake of the charlottesville protest. The unite the right rally, there was this moment when a lot of mid evillists said we need to do something about this, and this book came out of that. That was not the only such effort. I should mention, jonathan shoe and julies park short bib logograph of race in the middle ages. They have been active trying bring about to structural change in the academy and how we deal with the power structures especially in the field of studies and outside of them. What the book looks at in 25 essays is stuff thats broken through into the popular consciousness, Something Like sharia law, which is used as a punching bag but actually means something much dryer and more benign that what sean hannity talking about it for. Trade routes. So much ivory in Midevil Europe and all coming from africa so obviously there was contact with africa. A basic thing that is left out of most history, most popular history. I hate it when people say historians dont know about this because historian does know and they tell University Presses. So, among those various responses to charlottesville and just all of the heated and heightened rhetoric around the past, i like to think of this as the distinctly up response, written for general audiences but in that writing the authors are all constrained by the rigor of the academy. Its not like its a bit like a textbook but it is its maintains the thing that make scholarship different from other writing. Its original scholarships, it is careful writing that makes special point to be rigorous and Peer Reviewed and all that stuff that makes it a University Press book. I would be remiss not to mention that as a product of the University Press system, this book contains replicates many of the power structures that grouped live the midevillists of color speak out against and continue to speak out against, questions about what kind of work counts and what kind of work is cvable which may not be the right crowd to discuss this with but we need to discuss ourselves, read, think and act about, as we build our publication programs. Butve all, University Press publishing is an ecosystem. Not every book that we push, many books we pressure do not directory address the present social need and every book that addresses a pressing social need is necessarily going to leave a whole lot out but as long as we listen generously and work together, we are contributing to the better world that is knowledge and thoughtfulness can create. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. Im lauren and one of the authors in this edited collection and ill tell you but my essay so you get a sons the, we and also an assistant professor of history at brooklyn college. This editor of of this will volume asked me to respond to the book the benedict option pushed in 2017. And rod dreher is a Christian Conservative who is actually one of the favorite goto darlings of the liberal media, so the liberal media enjoys rod dreher and quote him often and interview him often. A new new yorker piece about hid david brooks called his book the most important religious book of our decade. And this book spends time sort of speaking to Christian Conservatives and saying that the republican establishment has betrayed Christian Conservatives, that it has not protected them from the ideals of the enlightenment, from capitalism, the lgbtq agent which is what he callsle and they should make like st. Benedict who is a sixth century monk and and they should police in little arcs in the bar barrett of the how people should live and his experience living with benedictine commune in italy. One of the first things i do to critique drehers argument is to note that medieval months did not monks did not call what theyre were doing living in arcs. They called what they were doing living in tabernacles which is different, dwelling pace among the people. And monks in establishing monasteries war not interested in homogenous voters and reconciling a diversity of experiences that people came into the monastery with, instead of streamlining them and making them all one they had to reconcile with that very complicated diversity. And the point of this is say and one reason why it does way in a University Press book is its trying to notice the gray in history instead of the black and white. Very similar to what hannah was saying but people look at the middle ages and say barbarian arizona dark age or arcs in he mid of a bare bare rick age and we need to understand that people were elsewhering with a diverse and complicated sew it. The same way we and are in order to understand or diverse and complicated society we can loot at societies that have elsewhered he with something sim lawyer and understand though they grappled with the gray area instead of just a black and white understanding to the historical past. Fabulous. I am coauthor with kenneth smith. Our book is stay woke, peoples guide to making all black lives matter, and the process for us working with nyu press has been fabulous and very mump the idea for the book started in house at the press, and came to i feel like you so be the one telling the story, but since were going in order i guess ill tell part of that. So, because candace has pressured previously with nyu press and they knew this was part of her wheelhouse is looking at black politics in the United States, and seeing what is happening what was unfolding with black lives matter she we were starting to collect data in a nationwide survey about peoples opinions about black lives matter, and so she asked if i wanted to do part of this. As we started to craft the book it started to become a different book than what we had originally thought it would be. It wasnt going to be so much a book about what people thought about black lives matter or precisely what were the politics involved in black lives matter so much as why did this even happen at all . What was setting the stage for this and why was it necessary . And we like to sea to point out, in second term of americas first black and biracial president and we started writing this book to fill what we felt like was a bit of a void in our own to talk to our students and to get them engaged and make this information that she and i have been reading other University Press books, learning about the United States and race and racism and trying to distill is in a way that was accessible to students but also to readerships beyond the classroom and so we ended up writing this book, which has now like something that really digs deep into uncomfortable questions but is providing some guidance and some questions to mull over in Group Settings together. So, i feel like shy kind of spread this around a little bit. Hi. Theres a small emergency in the background that other people cant see. My name is candace smith. Im associate professor of Political Science and africanamerican studies a penn state and the coauthor. This miss second book with nyu press. Its my third University Press book. And i wanted to highlight two things, i think really just kind of mimicking and mirroring what folks have contribute it already is i think people who are really interested in who follow the news, we tend to interact with the news as if every is an anecdotes or happening for the first time and we know that many scholars spend their lives digging into one particular set of patterns and so turns out there are an array of scholars who know a lot of stuff about sometimes one thing but the thing were talking about at the moment, like whistle blowing, people that study patterns and we know that the plural of anecdote is not data. Data is data. Thats for me one of the Important Reasons to shift ahead and give attention to University Presses. I think the book at University Presses that form is really important, too, because in academia, one of the kind of current sis currencies of deem ya is the article and the article is often published in a place where very few people can access that thing. Or its very expensive. And eileen and the folk at nyu press have been i dont know how they do it. You can explain. But our work becomes more accessible just by the sheer being in a book store and being affordable and n a way that the kind of highly technical, hard to read, Journal Articles arent. And so those are two reasons i would say that makes University Presses important to me and my work and my career, that just to dovetail that the University Press process produces credibility because our peers are reviewing it, our peers are critiqueing it, our peers are helping to make what we do better and that allows to us produce a work that people can read, think about and can better understand the way that our world works. We can and can act. We can call our legislators, we can rant on twitter. We can write and inform our nyu press. And so i get to work on all manner of book in the social sciences. A lot of books on politics, current events, books on womens steweds lgbtq studies and booked that are important, cutting edge, that have something to say, and i think one thing to think about is that the University Presses do really well, which is to go out like to think about what are the ideas in sort of the atmosphere out there, that are important and how can we distill them, and n a serious, thoughtful, deep way, to a broader audience, and so i think that this book is a great example of the ideas behind black lives matter, and putting the book together, i think both for a general reader, this isnt written like a journal article. This is absolutely written in a way thats minute to be accessible, meant to be for anyone who has heard about the movement, wants to know more about the movement, theres great images in the book that were really important to just visually show some of the ideas, how can we do that . And so its for a general read are but importantly we are often always thinking about the classroom and students and what is happening on college campuses, and we know students would care about this movement and they want to know more about it and they want to know more than just what can be written on a post card. Want thoughtful, serious, but also in a lot of ways fun. This is a great read, an easy to read book, and so we were really happy and excited to work on a book like this, that could reach such a broad audience on such an important topic, and i sill say that this book i will say this book was different than what you first proposed because i think if you remember, they said two things, it was going to be about half as long, and they said it would also be written in like three months. Neither of those things happened. But i think in some ways its the book that it was supposed to be. Right . So, yeah, whatever the tell you theyre going write it in three months. Thanks, everyone. Its really nice to see such diversity of books and the different formiateses that have developed at the different presses and some were kind of home grown and developed within the presses. Ive work at both commercial trade houses and Academic Presses and University Presses truly are missiondriven, and the foundation of a University Press is the process of peer review, and thats something that when i entered the world of University Presses i wasnt familiar with that process, but it really does make a difference, and it really does make the book a better book. I always tell my authors, dont get defensive. This is something that is really meant to improve your work, and improve your methodology, and provide a real framework for why youre doing this work and what your theory mens means, what yor argument and point of view is. So it really is important, and i just wanted to ask, a lot of this is already unpacked in your presentation but why are University Presses and the process of per review important . Peer review important . Okay. Yeah. So, i think theres nothing comparable to peer review in the sense that youre getting feedback from people who have thought about and wrestled with these ideas for in many cases as long as or sometimes longer than you. And so it also gives you a chance to step outside of your head space and to see what theyre reading. And almost always it forces you to clarify and refine your own ideas in ways you hadnt imagined, something you thought was really clear, so i coedited this book with kate, and to us it was very clear, we defined the concept, but to the peer reviewers it wasnt so clear so we lad to spend a lot of time really in a rigorous manner, what do we mean when we say, whistleblowerring. How can we sedes the terminology from the very beginning and that was invaluable. Just add, not all University Presses are equal. I know this isnt a forum for celebrating presses in general, but its been my experience that the best University Presses also are very good at finding the best peer reviewers, and some of the bigger University Presses put less energy into that and put less energy into individual books more generally, and if youre not the star author, you wont get that attention. So i think this is also a chance to celebrate the press that are not the biggest, and to see that makes also better work for more scholars and not just the elite few whose books are often read by already kind of wellknown. So i would say peer review and also peer review for all authors, not just the famous ones. Politics, columbia for environmental studies and economics and so forth, really know your abefore you submit proposals. There are presses that take peers much more seriously. I know at the new york presses and we follow the best practices in peer view which is put out by the association of University Presses and we take it very seriously. I have a funny anecdote from a couple days ago. This ties into abi dont want to talk about the post truth world 11 because its kind of a dead metaphor but there really is so much Information Available to people, especially people outside of the University System who dont necessarily know how to critique sources and look thoughtfully, not to keep using the word thoughtfully, and what they are reading and come to their own conclusions of that. I was engaging in some guerrilla marketing whereby i was arguing with strangers on the internet and ended up citing the book in order to get people to look at it. It was an argument about whether there were dark skinned people in bohemia and 1400. There were. I said check out this book. This book will tell you all about it. The gentleman said, that can be a real book, it only costs 20. So being able to come back and say, thats not what matters, what matters is the you p book really does give it a certain cachet sort of divide the wheat from the chaff in terms of facts. If that makes sense. The other thing i feel University Press books ensure the reoriginality of arguments not only the rigor but the originality of them. In peer review part of the processes to triangulate what you are reading as a viewer with the scholarship out there to make the persons argument really fly beyond where the scholarship already is. That is something as somebody whos been interviewed by journalists writing trade books about the middle ages they are not necessarily interested or even have the training to make arguments that are interventions with scholarship. Arguments based entirely on the scholarship. Peer review often is carbon new roads where there were roads before. I think what i can add about the peer review process particularly for our book is that when some of the chapters for the book went out for peer review fully at the end of the process before it went into publication was to get the feedback about clearly trying to make an intervention. Clearly trying to bring this to people to make it accessible and usable. You are doing something that feels a little bit unorthodox in a really good helpful way. The rigor which is the peer review brings is clearly there and he looked like you are trying to break out of the mold and the mold being that academic article. Since we wanted to make it guide worthy, our peer reviewers and really encouraged us to break out of the box. Lets make something we havent seen quick before. That means that the chapters are going to be different the way the layout is going to be different. We are trying to build we have in chapter 2 is a bit of dictionary of sorts. How do you create that in the book thats not at the back of the book its in the front of the book. The peer review process is very encouraging to us as authors and i think it was also encouraging to the press itself to say that there was other people busoni to us to say that we were onto something and lets really bust out. That process could be very hopeful and if you dont get that kind of third party that mary informed created thirdparty you may not get that kind of feedback. And maybe another press form certainly not an article from the academical standpoint. That was really helpful to us it really gave us encouragement to do some different things. I would just say i totally agree and they do have chapter 2 is definitions of, called all the words we throw around. I had never done a chapter that was all the worlds of definitions and i thought it was a little strange. But okay. Im going to use the peer review process to see lets see what people in the field have to say about this. They liked it. They were encouraging and continue to develop as the booklet but but was definitely a great example of how the process really helped us to make it work for the book. Its probably one of the coolest things of the book. We have gotten the most feedback so far actually. In a matter of time, i might not be able to go through all my questions because we want to open it up to the audience. I might jump around with it. How have other University Presses and scholars shaped your own work . And the countless ways. Talk a little bit about teaching as opposed to scholarship that i have produced. The reality is, we spent many of our days teaching in the books that we assigned to her students are often those that are published by University Presses. So one example just today i teach it course called collected memory of entrusting an injustice and its a course thats about how people artists, scholars, politicians wrestle with the legacy of the past and present and what are the politics of that. Just today we were talking about a book by john dorothy called making whole what has been smashed the politics of reparations. Lets published by harvard University Press. Its a fascinating book because similar to what the book a lot of people talk about debate reparations and tortillas a sociologist is really trying to figure out how we can organize questions around different types of reparative modes from tribunals and trials to commemorative justice and material composition. That really breaks open a whole new conversation for students to think about. He also is very provocative. He asks progressives, is this the most productive way of making social change to dwell on the past . Is this dwelling on the past or is this a way forward . Those are the kinds of questions i think are really actually important for students to consider. Its only a University Press that is going to address reparations at that level as opposed to just reparations for or against . Thats just one example that are just endless actually. Is something that the authors might not appreciate is how tightly knit the you p community is and how much mentorship and professional developments and everything like that goes into bringing people into that world. Its sort of, not to get pollyanna about it but it sort of like that ideal of the academy where people go and Exchange Ideas so that we can all figure stuff out together. Its a beautiful world to work in. To build on teaching, i often advise my students when they are writing papers is to you look at University Press books so they can trace the historiography of the subjects vacancy abthe middle ages was treated this way, during world war ii it was treated that way. I scholars who live in asia is treated this other way. They often can find for the tracing of the history which happens either in footnotes or introductions University Press books they can find that historiography other paperwork topics. And an understanding there is interest one series of historical facts that have always been true but rather interpreted over time. And they can be part of that interpretation. Just to add, our jobs as faculty at universities is to walk toward truths to try to figure that out whatever that is in order to do that we have to stand on the shoulders of giants and we have to depend on people to have written and produced something we can rely on as a Strong Foundation to move to the next step. When you open abfor example if you open any available facility bibliography here that we relied on a great number of individuals to set a that we perched on in order to launch an argument in order to show that there is more nuanced they are then what is typically being treated around various issues. And say we really making an effort to say state walk is mostly about the black lives Matters Movement but its also about racism. Our goal in that book is to make claims of ignorance around racism illegitimate to say that if you look here at the back of this chapter of every chapter there are many people that i work towards answering questions around structural inequality around residential segregation around School Inequality around reconstruction and what that means for possibilities for change in our political present. For what each of us can do and what has been done. But most of that is in University Press books. She simply we rely on the knowledge produced by others to get us toward a more equitable future anymore. The question for eileen and will. What has changed working at a University Press. The book acquired the mission of the University Press. When we start with you eileen. What has changed since when you say of the past 5 to 10 years. You and i have worked together with eileen and why you before that privilege. A lot has changed. A lot has changed. When i think about ive been in publishing for a really long time like 25 years i think. Weve seen a total change. One funny thing that happens now is no one males back their contracts anymore. In fact, actually i have someone i feel really bad she was posted to this code should as an attachment where she was in california and she had to flee from the fires. Then she managed to get back to her house and printed it out and mailing back to me. Technology has changed so much of how we physically produce these things. In our contract it says youre supposed to turn in the doublesided typewritten manuscript and nobody does that anymore either. Its all on disk all on the cloud somewhere. We were actually just talking about like how many ebook have sold of this. Just the whole way that knowledge is transmitted, turned over to one another and thought about, the one thing that i would say has not changed is my editing process. I still print it out and use a pencil and edit it by hand. I swear by it and i swear theres Nothing Better than doing that and seeing the physical thing in front of you you can react to it in a different way than i think you can on the screen. For the most part i still prefer to read a book. I definitely read things on my phone and so forth. For me thats one of the things to think about about whats changed is technology and thinking about the future. Thinking and talking about eileens comment about Technology Even the way people find books is change. Its all about the keywords and the data and how you transmit information about the books to the world. The amazons and other fine retailers and Library Platforms like jstor and project news. When your writing copy for these books, you no longer have to build up this great description of the book. Keywords upfront so when they are doing a search that book says preparations or whistleblower or coopting middle ages by the works of promise. Get it up there so that what the book is about is up there. That for me has changed drastically and i come from a marketing and sales background moved over to editorial at fordham so ive seen that change. I dont know if you have anything to add . Ive only been in the game for 10 or 15 years depending on how you count it. I came in at the end of the salad days when he stopped printing a thousand copies of whatever. Just because the Consumption Patterns have changed one of the biggest things that has happened in the last several years was the emergence of the big jstor ask aggregation platforms where you dont see the sales necessarily. You might kind of feel like you are not accomplishing as much. But those are now available to a much wider audience then back in the day when every library ordered every book. In terms of discoverability theres a thing you may have noticed about the covers which is that the titles got way bigger because you need to be able to read the title and the amazons unveil. Theres a reason for that. Thats true. We have about 10 minutes i will do my last question we will do it like lightning round. The last you p book read not from your press that everyone should read now. I heard this author speak at the last conference of University Press her name is sophia noble and she wrote this book called algorithms of oppression by nyu press and shes a great speaker and she really just drove home how these online searches are built to perpetuate racism and stereotypes. She showed examples which was mind blowing. I would recommend that book. Algorithms of oppression and its by sophia noble. I would recommend kelly little hernandez book history of the u. S. Border patrol. Theres a lot of great books coming out on border stuff is particularly well done and gives you a much deeper sense of the kinds of backgrounds to the xenophobia and institutionalize xenophobia along the border. I will recommend the book by joshua expect, redmeat republic a hoped table history of princeton you p. Im a lifelong vegetarian so it was weird for me to read but its a fascinating commodity history of beef and how really the production and mechanization to fill the need for beef as an identity piece really radically reshapes the huge plots of the United States and touches on indigenous history because you have to eradicate the above logo to replace them with cattle. It touches on labor history because you get into the meatpacking plants and so on. Transit history because the railroads were built just to move the cows in a lot of cases. Its a wild read for how much our society is built on cows. Am going to recommend one of my colleagues books called writing on the wall by karen stern its about ancient jewish graffiti. The cool thing about it is that is using sources that havent been looked at material culture and graffiti to tell the story of ancient and late antique judaism where usually we use theological sources is very cool. The past couple weeks in my classroom i believe in an edited book by rupa benjamin called Captivating Technology capturing technology . I think its Captivating Technology. Its racecar smell tech moral science and resistance in everyday life. Some of the chapters we been touching on have to do with the use of food in prisons and thinking about that as a Technology Predictive policing the surveillance used in retail stores. A whole host of issues that will make you very anxious but make you abnow that youre reading about it its ubiquitous. And problematic. We knew this question was coming and i was really struggling. And he reminded me you been under a rock of writing your own other book. That book is called rachel spaces the millennial generation and stagnation of Racial Attitudes coauthored with Krista Santini was at iu bloomington. That book is mostly about the idea that we tend to think about millennials as very racially progressive but when you get to the nittygritty there very similar to gen xers and boomers. The author is cook lenahan jamison shes a political scientist and its called cyber war. She is someone who just had maybe 30 or 40 years of studying Political Communications and elections. Polling and had such a depth of knowledge how elections work. She picked apart the 2016 election and shows what happened in that election really was an act of war a cyber war committed by russia on the u. S. And should be seen as such. She breaks it down as only a very seasoned scholar can. I think is very convincing and i know shes actually working on the second edition of that book because we know that the cyber war continues and hasnt stopped. I would recommend that. Good list of recommendations. We have a few more minutes. Do we have questions from the audience . What is the black girl magic . I happen to know about that. [laughter]. Black girl magic is one of the many concepts you talk about one of our viewers suggested adding it. To the glossary of words that might help us better understand inequality in the u. S. Black girl magic is the idea that black women have something to contribute and have always contributed. Any other questions . Any other thoughts . Do we have time we can ask one more question i didnt ask all of mine so i can continue. Edited ask this question but i think it was kind of built into all your answers on the other questions but ill ask it anyway and see if you have any other thoughts you want to add. Why did you choose University Press for your book and how did you choose the one you went with. As tama mentioned, nyu press wanted a book about black lives matter and were willing to give us a space in the time and the manpower. It takes a lot of people to make woman power. Thats right. To make a good book. Just having that space was something that nyu provided. Eileen and her team were really supportive of that. For your first book with nyu press did you send a proposal or did you meet at economic conference. What is that process like . I think i sent a proposal and a couple chapters i remember you so clearly at access. She had on all black and she was like, why are you excited about this book. [laughter] okay when youre done, send it i was like oh god. Its never to work back you see how she laughs now. Back she encouraged me and there are other presses that were like, this is cool could you do this or this. Same with stay woke where people wouldve tried to constrain it in a certain way. And nyu press didnt call for that. I could add a couple of things. One thing i keep going to nyu press for and i went to them and their website prior to being involved with them at all was because they had such a great concentration of books that are in my lane of interest. Every press has their specialties. To see a price that was so dedicated to issues of race and not just like it wasnt just like race and black people. A lot of things just get blackness somehow is means race and then thats the end of the story. And theres nobody else that pertains to. Nyu its very clear they are treating a series of different groups different identities different intersections. Its really attractive. I love that about the press and different presses have different strengths. That was definitely a reason to go to nyu. This project, fordham has a fantastic center for medieval studies. Which boasts of a lot of medieval lists. Know exactly how many but its something ridiculous like 40 or more. Its little Incubation Center for medieval studies and that has the University Press associated with it was the institution. Allowed for this bunch of editors all at fordham some of whom are specialist in the crusades summer historian some of whom are english professors some are abprofessors some musicologists all working together and i guess they pitch to you. Tell me how it happened. It was homegrown projects i approached are series editors in the midst of charlottesville stuff. Everybody just called up and pulled out their phones and follow their contact list. I saw who had initially wanted to get. On a fast track we had a zeitgeist with the book and sold out of its for printing. We are reprinting it abwhich mentioned a book and link to amazon. A lot of things just kind of unfolded tied to the book which was great. Thats kind of what you want as a publisher and you want more books like that. We are very excited. Other books will come out because of this book. More scholarships will be built upon the scholarship that in this book. Thats really an important point to make and something that University Presses do well they start the conversation. You might get critiques, youre missing this or that, maybe we are but we started the conversation i think thats really what University Presses do well. I think this has been great. We demonstrated how we read, how we think, how we act and what University Presses do. Hashtag read up, hashtag you p week. And thank you very much. [applause] book tv. Television for serious readers. Joining us now is notre dame professor patrick demesne. Here is his book. Why liberalism failed. First of all, if you would, define liberal democracy for us in your view. Im sure many of your viewers want to hear the or liberalism