Michigan State University Press is the scholarly publishing arm of historic Michigan State University (1855), the nation's pioneer land-grant university. Scholarly publishing at MSU was a vital part of the institution's mission from its founding; significant and influential technical publications were regularly issued by the colleges as early as 1870.
Made in Michigan Writers Series
The Made in Michigan Writers Series is devoted to highlighting the works of distinguished statewide writers to showcase Michigan’s diverse voices. It publishes poetry, creative nonfiction, short fiction, and essays by Michigan writers with the aim of encouraging recognition of the state’s artistic and cultural heritage throughout the Midwest and the nation.
The writers in the series include acclaimed poets and other literary practitioners. Several of these contributors are also members of the MSU Press literary staff.
In addition to promoting the work of Michigan’s best writers, the Made in Michigan Writers Series features readings of these authors with their audiences at MSU Libraries events and recordings on the Internet. The series is a great way to learn about and get acquainted with new authors, as well as hear about the writing that goes on in Michigan today.
Some of the writers featured in the series are also members of MSU Press’s staff, including Editor Terry Blackhawk and Senior Writer Peter Markus. In To Light a Fire: 20 Years with the InsideOut Literary Arts Project (Made in Michigan Writers Series), Blackhawk and Markus collect the experiences of writers who have participated in InsideOut over the years, giving readers an inside look at the urban classroom and the creative spark of Detroit’s students.
Among the series’ authors are Glenn Shaheen, who was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and currently teaches at Grand Valley State University; Amorak Huey, who is an Assistant Professor of Writing at GVSU; Chris Haven, who grew up in Oklahoma and now lives in Michigan; Traci Brimhall, who won the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award for Our Lady of the Ruins; and Brandon Rushton, who is the author of The Air in the Air Behind It.
The writers featured in the series have published work in journals and anthologies such as Alaska Quarterly Review, The Southern Review, The Denver Quarterly, Pleiades, and the critical anthology A Field Guide to the Poetry of Theodore Roethke. They have been awarded fellowships from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing and the King/Chavez/Parks Foundation, as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Journal of West African History
The Journal of West African History is a new, important initiative in the field of African Studies published by Michigan State University Press. It is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed research journal that publishes the highest quality articles on West African history. It is located at the cutting edge of new scholarship on the social, cultural, economic, and political history of West Africa.
It is a forum for serious scholarship and debate on women and gender, sexuality, slavery, oral history, popular and public culture, and religion. Its editorial board (Nwando Achebe, Saheed Aderinto, Trevor Getz, Vincent Hiribarren, Harry Odamtten, Mark Deets et Ndubueze Mbah) encourages authors to explore a wide range of topical, theoretical, methodological, and empirical perspectives in new and exciting ways.
In the Atlantic Era, West African centralized states emerged as a crucial part of trans-Atlantic trade and political dynamics. The most powerful of these, Dahomey, forged a unified urban-rural framework that was more extensive than that of its rivals Allada and Hueda.
Over time, this urban-rural framework was adapted to meet the demands of expanding trade. Archaeological sites across the coast and in interior regions show how long-distance trade products like exotic spices and palm oil were incorporated into everyday West African life, transforming regional food production and providing a new source of livelihood.
These changes were especially dramatic in West African kingdoms such as Dahomey and Allada, which faced intense competition for political and economic power from neighboring empires and coastal merchants. Despite this pressure, Dahomey managed to consolidate control over the primary slave trade route and the broader region.
One of the most striking archaeological findings of this period was a cluster of subterranean structures found throughout the Abomey Plateau and immediately adjacent areas. Carved out of solid lateritic rock with locally available iron tools, these structures feature cylindrical entryways that lead to multiple interconnected chambers. BDArch has dated these structures to the late 17th to early 19th centuries, corresponding to the era of the slave trade and the rise of Dahomey.
The emergence of these subterranean structures represents a critical intervention in the study of urban-rural dynamics and long-distance trade in West Africa during the Atlantic Era. They offer a valuable perspective on the region’s settlement patterns and reveal how the Abomey Plateau was transformed by Dahomey’s expansion.
MSU Press Publications
MSU Press is a scholarly publisher of books and journals in the humanities and social sciences. The Press publishes a wide range of books and a diverse range of journals, including peer-reviewed scholarly monographs, edited collections, and book series. In addition to publishing the work of MSU faculty, students, and staff, it also produces publications in partnership with other institutions and nonprofit organizations around the world.
The mission of MSU Press is to serve the scholarly needs of Michigan State University and to advance its research. Its goal is to make scholarly research accessible to as many readers as possible, with special focus on creating the best possible impact and visibility in the field.
Through a combination of traditional publishing and scholarly communication strategies, MSU Press helps connect MSU's diverse research community, enhances the impact of MSU's publications, and supports the university's teaching and research missions. The Press's publications are published by a team of MSU faculty and graduate students, many of whom are authors themselves.
As part of its mission to support the research and scholarship of MSU's faculty and students, MSU Press also collaborates with other institutions to produce open access content. This allows researchers to disseminate their work quickly, easily, and at little or no cost to the public.
Several major publishers and societies have partnerships with the MSU Libraries that cover unlimited open access publishing by MSU corresponding authors in their journals. These include De Gruyter, Hindawi, and Wiley.
The MSU Libraries also signed a "transformative" read-and-publish agreement with Cambridge University Press that covers open access publishing for MSU corresponding authors in over 370 CUP gold and hybrid journals during 2021-2023. This is in addition to the library's ongoing subscriptions to CUP's print journals, which are covered under the Midwest Collaborative for Library Services.
MSU Press is a member of the Association of University Presses, and participates in the Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication program, the Open Access Scholarly Journals program, and other initiatives to increase the visibility and reach of its publications. In addition, MSU Press is committed to the environment, and all new publications are printed on paper that meets environmental standards.
MSU Press Books
Founded in 1947, MSU Press has a legacy of publishing pathbreaking scholarship. With a focus on African studies, animal studies, environmental and natural resources studies, higher education, Latinx history and contemporary issues, Michigan and Great Lakes history and politics, mimetic studies, Native American history and culture, and rhetoric and communications, MSU Press is dedicated to publishing the work of scholars and intellectual communities across disciplines.
MSU Press publishes books and journals that are scholarly, accessible, and represent the shared values of historic Michigan State University. These values include a commitment to scholarship that is reflective of diverse populations, the preservation of knowledge, and an emphasis on fostering intellectual, social, and technological change.
The MSU Press Books Division offers a full range of subscriptions, single issues, and articles, as well as books and book excerpts through the MSU Press web catalog, MSU Press Online, and by phone or email. MSU Press also publishes non-scholarly books on topics of interest to students and faculty at Michigan State University and around the world.
Aside from books, MSU Press publishes a variety of scholarly journal series and anthologies in the humanities and social sciences. These journals are available online through the MSU Press Scholarly Publishing Collective, Project MUSE, and individual journal subscriptions.
As part of its commitment to open access, MSU Press supports open monograph publishing. This includes participating in Knowledge Unlatched, SCOAP3, ArXiv, and other open access projects. It also encourages publishing e-books and reusing research data in open-access publications.
In addition to open access, MSU Press supports the development of new scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. It does this through its publishing program, which features books and journals in the fields of African studies, animal studies, environmental and natural history, Latinx studies, higher education, Michigan and Great Lakes history and politics, and rhetoric and communications.
MSU Press is a member of Open Book Publishers (Cambridge, England), the leading publisher of open access humanities and social science books. As a member, MSU Press does not charge its authors to publish their books open access and applies a full peer review and editorial process.
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