Bucknell University Press was founded in 1968 as part of a consortium operated by Associated University Presses and is currently partnered with Rutgers University Press. The first title was published in 1969. Run by its director and editorial board, the Bucknell Press is an editorially independent organization. The editorial operations of the Press are supported and funded by the office of the Provost at Bucknell University. The current Press Director is Suzanne Guiod.
About the Press
Traditionally the Press's focus has been on English and American literature, French literature, German literature, Hispanic Studies, philosophy, and religion, though its work is interdisciplinary, including scholarship in cultural studies and other sub-disciplines in the humanities. The Press maintains headquarters in Taylor Hall on the Bucknell University campus in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
In July 2010, the Press joined with Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, an independent and international publisher of academic, trade, and popular books.
In 2018 Bucknell University press partnered with Rutgers University Press, which is largely responsible for the production and worldwide distribution of books, and for issuing contracts for accepted manuscripts.
Past series
''Bucknell Review''
From 1954 until 2004, the Press published the , a biannual scholarly journal of letters, arts and sciences, which ceased publication after 47 volumes. The Bucknell Review was published in hardback and paper cover and included work from some of the leading scholars in the humanities of the time. It was under the long editorship of Harry Garvin that the journal came to prominence. Bucknell Review evolved out of Bucknell University Studies . It was succeeded by Aperçus: Histories Texts Cultures in 2004.
''Bucknell Review'' General Editors
Gladys Cook 1954–1957
Harry Garvin 1957–1984
Michael Payne 1984–1990
James Heath 1984–1985
Mark Neuman 1986–1987
Richard Fleming 1986–1987
Pauline Fletcher 1990–2002
Greg Clingham 2002–2004
Bucknell Series in Contemporary Poetry
In the 1990s, the Press published a series of books of poetry in conjunction with the Stadler Center for Poetry, also located on the Bucknell University campus.
Bucknell Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture
Including 51 titles between 1999 and 2010, this series produced work in interdisciplinary eighteenth-century studies. Titles addressed critical, historical, theoretical, and cultural considerations as they touched the lives and work of particular writers and societies in eighteenth-century Britain, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, and the Americas.
Irish Writers series
In the 1970s, the Press published the Irish Writers Series, under the editorship of J.F. Carens. The series consisted of studies of more than 40 Irish writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Each volume gives a full account of an Irish writer's career and major works, and considers the writer's background in relation to his or her writings as a whole. Given the strong renewal of interest in Irish Studies over the past decade, the Bucknell University Press has commenced a Contemporary Irish Writers series under the editorship of John Rickard, professor of English at Bucknell University.
Current series
Bucknell Press maintains eight series of books in the humanities and social sciences:
''Aperçus: Histories Texts Cultures''
These guest-edited volumes, featuring critical, historical, and theoretical essays by individual scholars, address contemporary issues in the humanities.
Dealing with far-reaching questions of history and modernity, language and selfhood, and power and ethics, Latin American literature sheds light on the many-faceted nature of Latin American life, as well as on the human condition as a whole. This series of books provides a forum for some of the best criticism on Latin American literature in a wide range of critical approaches, with an emphasis on works that productively combine scholarship with theory.
Contemporary Irish Writers
This is a newer, more theoretically-informed incarnation of the format established by the Bucknell Irish Writers series of the 1970s. This series offers monographs introducing a significant contemporary Irish author's life and work and a general discussion of interpretive issues and strategies for understanding this work.
The Griot Project Book Series
The Griot Project Book Series consists of scholarly monographs and creative works devoted to the interdisciplinary exploration of the aesthetic, artistic and cultural products and intellectual currents of historical and contemporary African America and of the African diaspora. It uses narrative as a thematic and theoretical framework for the selection and execution of its projects.
Stories of the Susquehanna Valley is an emerging environmental humanities series that seeks to articulate the largely under-documented cultural narratives of the Susquehanna Valley in central Pennsylvania. General editors of the series are Katherine Faull and Alf Siewers. By using current theoretical models in cross-disciplinary environmental studies, specifically focusing on the key relationships between narrative and the environment, the series seeks to provide a holistic voice to the broader river valley and create a stronger sense of place and pride in the local and regional communities tied together by the Susquehanna River.
Studies in Eighteenth-Century Scotland
Under the general editorship of Richard B. Sher of NJIT and Rutgers, the series is dedicated to producing interdisciplinary scholarship on a wide variety of topics related to eighteenth-century Scotland.
''Transits: Literature, Thought & Culture 1650–1850''
Transits includes monographs and edited volumes that are global in their engagement with arts, literature, culture, and history. Books in the series have engaged with visual arts, environment, politics, material culture, travel, theater and performance, embodiment, writing and book history, sexuality, gender, disability, race, and colonialism from Britain and Europe to the Americas, the Far East and the Middle East.
Recent notable publications
Kay Pritchett's 2011 book, In Pursuit of Poem Shadows: Pureza Canelo's Second Poetics, won the South Central Modern Language Association 2012 Book Prize. Pritchett is a Professor of Spanish at the University of Arkansas.
