From: Bill Cohen <[log in to unmask]> Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 18:19:59 -0400 Sandy's points are well-taken, and arise from the voice of obvious experience. A skilled editor can bring remarkable revisions, fleshing-out, and refocusing to some or even many types of dissertations. In this age of do-it-yourself book publishing, the advantages of "a second perspective" and "another pair of eyes" may be devalued, but that does not mean they have disappeared. Bill On 7/28/13 5:13 PM, LIBLICENSE wrote: > > From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 19:02:41 -0500 > > My hesitation about Jim's proposal is that during my 45+ years in > acquiring books for two university presses, I have had the privilege > of working with authors of many revised dissertations that turned out > to be major successes in every way, both in sales and in critical > reception. Just to mention two among many off the top of my head, > Susan Okin's WOMEN IN WESTERN POLITICAL THOUGHT and Peter Evans's > DEPENDENT DEVELOPMENT played critical roles in their respective fields > of feminist political philosophy and comparative politics and became > staples in many college classrooms, selling in the tens of thousands > of copies. Had the authors been told to shelve their dissertations > and move on to new work, the world would have been deprived of the > considerable intellectual value these books brought to their > respective disciplines. I daresay they would not have been > "discovered" as UMI products and turned into books if the authors had > not been encouraged to do so, both by their academic advisors and me > as an acquiring editor. The latest such example I can give is a > revised dissertation in the field of history itself, which was awarded > the top prize of the Latin American Studies Association at its annual > convention in 2012: > http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-03769-1.html. I think > Jim does a disservice to such authors in suggesting that they only > "lightly" revise their dissertations. > > Sandy Thatcher > > P.S. Whether the AHA's new policy is well justified or not I do not > want to address here. The Chronicle will be following up the original > story with more discussion to come. Stay tuned.... > > > >> From: Jim O'Donnell <[log in to unmask]> >> Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 19:37:58 -0400 >> >> Academics are buzzing about the American Historical Association's >> recommendation that history dissertations be eligible at author's >> choice for an embargo from open internet dissemination for up to six >> years. (Text below my sig.) To one who in my provost days read a lot >> of tenure dossiers, this seems a one-variable attempt to address a >> complex problem. It is essentially the members of the AHA, as senior >> faculty reviewing junior colleagues, who have created the dependency >> on the university presses, who have in turn pushed back by insisting >> on publishing only books that are really worth publishing as books, >> whatever their former history. >> >> Wouldn't we be better served by a system that encouraged people to do >> good work in graduate school and put it behind them to climb new >> mountains as quickly as possible? Instead, we have folks who spend a >> decade lightly revising a book and then discover that their thirties >> and half their forties have elapsed in the meantime and somehow fresh >> ideas and fresh ambition have gotten harder to find. >> >> It's probably unrealistic to evoke the days when the dissertation was >> in fact published -- printed, bound, distributed to libraries, at >> candidate's expense -- and the scholar could move on to fresh work >> immediately. I knew a man, born 1925, who got his PhD at Catholic U. >> in Washington in about 1960 and was the first rebel who refused to do >> this and sent his off instead to the newfangled "University >> Microfilms" (as then was), which had sprung up as the low-cost, >> high-tech path to swift publication; but access to work on a microfilm >> in Ann Arbor was cumbersome and rarely achieved. With vastly easier >> access, it would be easy to speed up the process dramatically; and >> greater transparency would put pressure on advisors and students to >> make better dissertations. >> >> Jim O'Donnell >> Georgetown U.