OUP is proud to announce Imagining the Americas, a new interdisciplinary series. Seeking out the best new work, the series explores the cross-fertilization among cultures and forms in the American hemisphere.  “Imagining the Americas” seeks innovative, interdisciplinary book-length manuscripts that address the new points of convergence across disciplines as well as regions emerging out of hemispheric approaches. The series targets the intersections between literary, religious and cultural studies that materialize once the idea of nation is understood as fluid and multi-form. Extending from the northern most regions of Canada to Mexico, the Caribbean and beyond, this series moves beyond a simple extension of U.S. based American studies and engages the American Hemisphere as a geopolitical entity that shifts over time and space.

With its focus on the intersections between literary, historical, religious and cultural studies that emerge when scholarship puts pressure on long-standing national divides, the series asks: what common languages do the different disciplines of religion, literary studies, and cultural history speak? How does approaching disciplines as well as regions as interlocking transform cultural practice? How might new work that challenges time-worn geographic boundaries undo, reshape, or transform the ways by which we imagine self, identity, and social formation?

Books published or under contract include:

Thomas Beebee, Millennial Literatures of the Americas, forthcoming   November 2008. 
Caroline Rody, The Interethnic Imagination: Roots and Passages in the   Contemporary Asian American Novel, forthcoming 2009.
Elizabeth Russ, Modern and Postmodern Plantations: Gender, Race   and Nation in New World Imaginaries, forthcoming 2009.
Elizabeth Fenton, Religious Liberties: Anti-Catholicism, Liberalism, and   Nineteenth-Century American Literature, under contract.
Terrence Johnson, Tragic Soul-Life: WEB Du Bois and the Redemption   of American Democracy, under contract.

To submit a proposal for consideration, contact the series editors:

Caroline F. Levander, Professor of English and Director of the Humanities Research Center, Rice University
Department of English--MS30
6100 Main St; Houston, TX 77005-1892
Email: clevande@rice.edu

Anthony B. Pinn, Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities & Professor of Religious Studies, Rice University
Department of Religious Studies
213 Humanities Building - MS15
6100 Main Street; Houston, TX 77005
Email: pinn@rice.edu

Consideration and Review Process

If the series editors decide that a proposal seems promising, they will send it to the house editor at OUP, Shannon McLachlan, who will send it out for scholarly review.  OUP seeks to publish outstanding works that will contribute significantly to a discipline. Referees are asked to evaluate a project’s originality, argument, thoroughness, and prose style, as well as to suggest ways that the proposed book might be improved.   The author will then be asked to respond to the reviews. The review process can take as long as 4-6 months, depending on the time of the year, how specialized the argument is, and other factors.  Feel free to check in with the series editors, the press editor, or her assistant, Christina Gibson, to determine how soon you can expect reviews back. 

If the editor believes it to be a good project, she will lobby for a contract before OUP’s editorial board.  The board will weigh the series editors’ recommendation, the reviewers’ comments, the author’s response, and the original proposal to decide if the book should be given a contract. 

If the Editorial Board agrees with the editor about a project’s value, they will accept the project and the editor will extend a contract offer.  If not, the house editor will explain their concerns to the series editors, who will pass that information along to the author. 

The series editors will work with the authors in the series to refine their manuscript in line with reviewer recommendations and their own extensive experience.  Once the book is in final form, it is submitted to the press for publication. The publication cycle takes 7-8 months, on average. 

Contact information for OUP editors:
Shannon McLachlan, Editor for Humanities, Shannon.mclachlan@oup.com
Christina Gibson, Assistant Editor, Christina.Gibson@oup.com.