University Times

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a $390,000 grant to the University of Pittsburgh Press and two partners for a publishing initiative in Russian, East European and Central Asian studies.

The grant will support publication of books in the humanities by providing resources to improve and promote them to the widest possible audience. Pitt’s Press and its partners, the University of Wisconsin Press and Northwestern University Press, will cooperate in the selection, development and publication of these monographs. Grant funds can be used, for example, for the editorial development of manuscripts, to include more illustrations or to produce reasonably priced editions. Funds also are available for additional marketing, advertising and lecture tours.

In seeking the grant, the University Press and its partners made the case that the study of Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia is redefining itself in response to the transformations made in the post-Soviet period, yet many university presses have reduced their publication of books on this part of the world.

According to Jonathan Harris, Pitt professor of political science and editor of the Russian and East European Series published by the Press, “This cooperative agreement opens up extraordinary opportunities. It will enable us to publish the works of a new generation of scholars, foster research that cuts across the traditional disciplinary boundaries and help scholars in Russia and Eastern Europe to make their own work more accessible to the English-speaking world.”