CHR and George Mason Libraries: “Open Access Publishing and the Humanities: Mapping the Terrain"
A Panel with OA Publishers
Friday, October 17, 2025 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM EDT
Hybrid (Horizon Hall 6325 and zoom)
Introducing a new series--
George Mason Libraries and the Center for Humanities Research are collaborating on an event series entitled “Open Access Publishing and the Humanities: Mapping the Terrain.”
Please join us for our first discussion, “Models for the Monograph," where we'll speak with leading OA publishers in the humanities. The event will be hybrid, with both an in-person and virtual audience, and with our speakers joining us virtually.
We’re gathering faculty, staff, and students who are invested in or curious about OA publishing to have a wide-ranging conversation with publishers about OA infrastructure in the humanities (what’s out there, how can we find/access it, where do we begin if we’re interested in publishing OA scholarship) and the promise of the OA enterprise (how can OA help bring scholars at under-resourced institutions into dialogue with the wider academic world, how can OA materials serve a bridge/conduit to wider audiences both within the academy and beyond, some of whom may view universities and scholarly work in the humanities with a good deal of skepticism). We are especially interested in thinking through possibilities of and models for OA monographs. A future event might consider scholarly articles and journals.
Organizers: Meg Meiman, Catherine Olien, Anne Osterman, Alok Yadav
Moderator: Meg Meiman is the Associate University Librarian for Learning, Research, and Engagement at George Mason University Libraries. Prior to coming to GMU, Meg was the Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Resources and Services at Georgetown University Library for three years, and the Head of Teaching and Learning at Indiana University Libraries for four years. She has also had the fantastically good fortune of working with motivated students at Smith College, the University of Delaware, and American University, and has written (via her dissertation) about the changing ways humanities scholars conduct research.
Speakers:
Eileen A. Fradenburg Joy is a specialist in medieval literary studies and contemporary cultural studies, as well as a publisher, with a wide variety of publications in poetry and poetics, intellectual history, queer studies, ethical philosophy, affect and embodiment, state violence and sovereignty, object studies, post/humanisms, and scholarly communications. She is the Founding Ingenitor of the happily defunct BABEL Working Group, Founding Editor of postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies, and Founding Director of punctum books: spontaneous acts of scholarly combustion.
Peter Potter is Vice President for Open Access Publishing at Paradigm Publishing Services and Executive Director of the De Gruyter eBound foundation. A historian by training, he has devoted his professional career to scholarly publishing, serving in senior positions at the university presses of Wesleyan, Penn State, and Cornell. In 2017 he launched Virginia Tech Publishing as a digital-first, open-access publisher based in the University Libraries. During his time at Virginia Tech Peter served as a Visiting Program Officer for TOME (Toward an Open Access Monograph Ecosystem), a 5-year pilot project of the Association of American Universities (AAU), the Association of Research libraries (ARL), and the Association of University Presses (AUPresses).
Charles Watkinson is Associate University Librarian for Publishing at University of Michigan Library and Director of University of Michigan Press. Prior to moving to Michigan in 2014, Charles was Director of Purdue University Press and Head of Scholarly Publishing Services in Purdue Libraries for five years, and Director of Publications at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens for five years. He has been a board member (and president) of the Association of American University Presses and the Society for Scholarly Publishing, and was an initiator of the Library Publishing Coalition. He is a publisher because he couldn't get a job in archaeology.
