On Tuesday, January 18, the Department of African American Studies hosted a virtual event entitled "Everything You Want to Know About Moving from Dissertation to Book." During this event, an expert panel introduced Graduate Students to many concepts, including what editors are looking for, what to expect from the process, approaching the market/readership of one's book, and much more.

This panel discussion featured the following academic press editors:

Kenneth Wissoker is Senior Executive Editor at Duke University Press, acquiring books across the humanities, social sciences, and the arts.  He joined the Press as an Acquisitions Editor in 1991; became Editor-in-Chief in 1997; was named Editorial Director in 2005; and assumed his current position in 2020. In addition to his duties at the Press, he serves as Director of Intellectual Publics at The Graduate Center, CUNY in New York City.  He has published more than a thousand books which have won over one hundred and fifty prizes. Among the authors whose books he has published are Stuart Hall, Donna Haraway, Achille Mbembe, Lauren Berlant, Jack Halberstam, Sara Ahmed, Christina Sharpe, Fred Moten, Jose Munoz, and Lisa Lowe.  He speaks regularly on publishing at universities in the US and around the world.

Marcela Cristina Maxfield is Senior Editor at Stanford University Press acquiring books in sociology and law. Across both list areas, her acquisitions focus on social justice and inequality, immigration, science and technology, culture, and politics. Her portfolio includes Phi Hong Su’s The Border Within, I. India Thusi’s Policing Bodies, Oliver Rollins’s Conviction, and Tahseen Shams’ Here, There, and Elsewhere (all of which are first books based on dissertation work). She also supports work for Stanford University Press’s Redwood Press imprint and the Stanford Briefs imprint, publishing books intended for the general public and short-form books on pressing issues related to current events, respectively. 

Priya Nelson is Senior Editor at Princeton University Press, where she publishes scholarly monographs and general interest books in history. Her area of acquisition reflects her academic training at the University of Chicago and the University of Texas at Austin.