Stanford University Press Blog

125 Years of Publishing

And the pioneer printer and university president who started it all.

 

Stanford University Press—or at least the idea of it—was born in March 1891 in Bloomington, Indiana. It was there that Leland and Jane Stanford offered the presidency of their new university to David Starr Jordan, then the president of Indiana University. Between the time the offer was made and the Stanfords’ departure the next day, Jordan drew up a memo of understanding for the Stanfords’ approval­—“I should like your assent to the following propositions,” Jordan wrote, of which there were four. The fourth and final proposition read: “That provision be made for the publication of the results of any important research on the part of professors or advanced students. Such papers may be issued from time to time as ‘Memoirs of the Leland Stanford Junior University.’” The Stanfords accepted his terms, and the university, with Jordan at the helm, opened in October 1891. The campus’s first publishing ventures were not long in following: In September 1892, it launched the Leland Stanford Junior University Monographs series, and with its first publication, Stanford University Press was born.

The Tarriff Controversy in the United States, 1780–1833 by Orrin Leslie Elliott was the first-ever monograph published by the university.

Or at least, part of it. For that exact same year, Julius Andrew Quelle, a member of Stanford’s inaugural “pioneer class,” established a printing facility on campus—what would come to be known colloquially as “the Stanford University Press.” And though university publications were occasionally shopped out to printers in nearby San Jose or San Francisco, it was Quelle who, out of his cramped quarters in the university power plant, printed the first two books to bear the SUP imprint as it appears today. And it was by President Jordan’s request that the imprint appear on all of the books produced for the university in Quelle’s small shop—a shop that in only a few decades would become the property of the university and an award-winning publishing house.

Thus it was in these parallel strands—President Jordan’s commitment to publish works from the academic community and Quelle’s entrepreneurial endeavors as the campus pressman—that the origins of Stanford University Press are to be found. And this year marks 125 years since both the establishment of Quelle’s print shop and the debut of the university’s first-ever publication. How these two pioneers—Stanford’s first president and one of its first students—laid the groundwork for the publishing tradition at Stanford reveals a great deal about the charter and character of the university in its earliest days, not to mention the mandate that continues to animate the work bearing the SUP imprint.

This year marks 125 years since both the establishment of Quelle’s print shop and the debut of the university’s first-ever publication.

Deals from the Back-to-School Sale

This month take 30% off all of our books, including these quick reads, classics, and magnum opuses.

Photo by Kalie Caetano.

Now through October 1st, all (yes, all) of our books are 30% off for our Back-to-School Sale. Hundreds of titles spanning dozens of disciplines are on offer: you can browse books by discipline, check out our recent award winners and bestsellers, peruse our list of 8 new and noteworthy titles, or take some cues from our deal highlights below. Here we’re showcasing cheap quick reads, must-grab deals on magnum opuses, and a few discounted disciplinary classics.

 

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Stanford Briefs »

A short-form imprint of Stanford University Press

Our Stanford Briefs, weighing in at around 100 pages each, bring considered viewpoints to bear on ongoing debates in short and incisive form. These scholarly hot takes weigh in on a variety of timely issues. For instance, in How Culture Shapes the Climate Change Debate, Andrew J. Hoffman explores how social influences and identity politics trump climate science and engender political inertia; more importantly, he offers his suggestions for how to bridge these divides. In How Civility Works, Keith J. Bybee explores the viability of civil discourse in American public life, amidst media platforms saturated with bluster and vitriol and teeming with trolls and hostility. Leo R. Chavez, meanwhile, unpacks the politics around US race relations and undocumented immigrants and their children in his Brief, Anchor Babies and the Challenge of Birthright Citizenship (now available for preorder). The best part? During our Back-to-School sale, Briefs are just $9.09 plus shipping.

 

OTHER BRIEFS YOU MAY LIKE: Workers and Thieves: Labor Movements and Popular Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt by Joel Beinin, The Burnout Society by Byung-Chul Han, or We Are All Migrants: Political Action and the Ubiquitous Condition of Migrant-hood by Gregory Feldman.

The Economic Puzzle of Japan

Socio-political factors may explain Japan's perplexing stagnation in the global economy.

by KENT E. CALDER

Tokyo, Japan. Photo by Francisco Diez. CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

For a century and more Japan was regarded globally as a pacesetter for economic growth. Then, in the 1990s, its economic bubble suddenly collapsed. The country’s growth engine has never really re-started, despite two decades of macro-economic stimulus, a variety of reformist governments, and most recently Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “three arrows” stimulus program. Japan’s protracted stagnation has global implications, both economic and strategic. Most importantly, within the past decade, China has replaced Japan as the largest economy in Asia, and the second largest in the world. Japan’s ability as a US ally to balance China is eroding as a result, and its capacities as a provider of development assistance and global financial stabilizer are waning as well.

For a century and more Japan was regarded globally as a pacesetter for economic growth. Then, in the 1990s, its economic bubble suddenly collapsed.

Japan’s checkered economic course raises at least three puzzles of broader global and theoretical relevance. First, observers continue to debate what precipitated the country’s stunted growth of recent decades; Japan grew rapidly for generations, from the 1880s through the 1980s, and then abruptly stagnated. Second, questions remain around why the country’s response to globalization has produced mixed or less-than-ideal outcomes. It enthusiastically supported global institutions like the United Nations and became one of the world’s largest capital and goods exporters but failed to respond rapidly to sweeping international changes in communications, transport, and educational exchange. And third—to compound the paradox—there were significant cross-sectoral variations in Japan’s globalization response. While some industries excelled in globalized markets, others have struggled—why is this?

“What Are you Wearing?”

On aural sex and the mysterious disappearance of audio porn.

by DOMINIC PETTMAN

Public domain via pxhere.

You are feeling frisky.

You are home alone.

What do you do?

If your blood is pulsing with testosterone, the chances are that you will reach for the laptop and browse around. You will likely click until you find pixels arranged in such a way that an attractive face and body is convincingly simulated on the screen. This digital body is no doubt in a state of nakedness (or near undress) beckoning you with a come-hither expression. It may also be in the midst of being ravished by another two-dimensional body, playing the role of your proxy. Your eyes drink this image in, as you project yourself into the scene. If your system is more infused with estrogen, however, you are more likely to rely on imagination and memory; projecting erotic visions on the insides of your eyelids (even as there is an increasing chance you might succumb to the Internet’s infamous capacity to provide “porn on tap”).

We all have different libidinal triggers: olive skin, long eyelashes, bangs, freckles, cleavage, ribbons, stiletto heels, stockings, tattoos, abs, beards, and so on, ad infinitum. But the point is that most of these are visual. Given the modern privileging of sight (“seeing is believing”), we tend to neglect, or even forget altogether, that the ear can be one of our most sensitive erogenous zones. Indeed, psychoanalysts tell us that the ear is often the primary source of the libido, given that we are likely to hear things as children that excite and stimulate us. Even if we have no idea what these sounds are, they comprise the sonic gateways through which we enter the erotic realm of egoistic fantasy. As grown-ups, we may find particular voices to be “sexy.” And we certainly tend to find the noises produced by lovers to be a crucial element of arousal, during the torrid bedroom tango. But intriguingly, such sounds have slipped further and further away from our collective consciousness in the twenty-first century, as the Internet has absorbed and replaced previous media forms. Why is this?

Given the erotic power and potential of sound, why are there so few places online that cater to the ear?

Top Picks from the Back-to-School Sale

This month, take 30% off all of our books, including these 8 popular and timely reads.

Photo by Kalie Caetano.

Now through October 1st, all (yes, all) of our books are 30% off for our Back-to-School Sale. Hundreds of titles spanning dozens of disciplines are on offer: browse books by discipline, or check out our recent award winners and bestsellers, or, for those looking for a few quick recommendations, check out our list of 8 new and noteworthy titles below.

 

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A Practical Education »
Why Liberal Arts Majors Make Great Employees

by RANDALL STROSS

RECOMMENDED READING FOR:
humanists, headhunters, and anxious parents of college-aged progeny

That liberal arts degrees are a poor choice for today’s job market is a seemingly unimpeachable truism—yet Randall Stross is on a mission to impeach it. Following the career paths of a few contrarian humanities majors, Stross points to their success as proof positive that a liberal arts education is vocational; that in an era where industries evolve at breakneck speed, the versatility and critical thinking skills of a humanist education are rare and valuable assets. Weaving these case studies together with a history of one of the nation’s top universities and an account of the longstanding pull-and-tug between humanist disciplines and technical learning, A Practical Education shows that liberal arts majors can excel not in spite of, but because of, their education.

ALSO SEE: A Practical Education was reviewed in the New York Times Book Review and is excerpted here.

OTHER BOOKS YOU MAY LIKE: [email protected] by J.A. English-Lueck and The Power of Privilege: Yale and America’s Elite Colleges by Joseph A. Soares.

The Legal Limbo of DACA

Only Congress can provide relief for undocumented immigrants—it is time for them to act.

by LEO R. CHAVEZ

Protest near Trump Tower after the announcement of the administration's palns to repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. September 5, 2017. Photo by Harrie van Veen. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.

Attorney General Jeff Session’s announcement that the Trump administration is ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program came as no real surprise. This is what Donald Trump promised to do if elected president. But let’s be honest. The DACA program was always a stopgap measure instituted by President Obama because of Congress’s failure to fix our broken immigration system. For years, Congress batted around the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which would have provided immigrants who came as children a path to citizenship.

The Latino Threat » investigates the stories about recent immigrants to show how prejudices are used to malign an entire population.

When President Obama introduced the idea of DACA, I welcomed the action but noted that it was not a panacea, just another form of legal limbo. As I wrote in my book The Latino Threat: “As a temporary stopgap measure, this new policy does not provide permanent relief from deportation (and those who come forward will be giving the government information on their whereabouts).” I also noted that a new president, one hostile to immigration, could end DACA. This has now happened. Despite assurances that the information collected from DACA applicants will not be shared with ICE for deportation purposes, there is still the risk that such easily available information will be used against DACA recipients. Supposedly confidential data has been used in the past, such as when Japanese Americans were rounded up after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The real problem is Congress’s failure of leadership and the destructive partisanship that pervades our nation’s politics. Polls consistently show that a majority of Americans are in favor of providing undocumented childhood arrivals a means to legalize their status. This is the only real way these young people can use their education to contribute to society, which benefits not only them but all of us.

Immigration, Families, and Solidarity

In transnational families, grandmothers become caregivers to support their loved ones.

by KRISTIN E. YARRIS

Angela, Laleska, and Laleska’s coresident cousin Alexa pictured above. Photo by Kristin E. Yarris.

In a working class barrio of Managua, Nicaragua’s capital city, lives Angela, a mother to four adult children—two who live with their spouses and families in Managua, and two who have immigrated to the United States. One of Angela’s migrant children, Karla, emigrated in an attempt to rejoin her father, who had left for the United States about a decade prior. Upon Karla’s departure, she left behind her then one-year-old daughter, Laleska, for whom Angela assumed care, thus becoming responsible for her granddaughter’s physical and emotional wellbeing for more than a decade.

The story of Angela’s family is shared by many transnational families. Their experience illustrates the trials of transnational life.

While Angela, who is now in her 50s, finds a sense of purpose in caregiving, it has also been hard work: caring for her granddaughter has proven to be both physically demanding and emotionally trying. For Laleska, separation from her mother over more than a decade was not easy either, though Angela’s carework sustained the tie between Laleska and her mother, a tie made tenuous by absence, distance, and the uncertainty of family reunification, all of which are exacerbated by U.S. immigration policies.

During my time in Nicaragua conducting fieldwork with families like that of Angela and Laleska’s, I also volunteered with Servicio Jesuita para Migrantes (SJM, or Jesuit Migration Service), an NGO spearheading a nationwide campaign to protect and defend the rights of migrants. As part of the campaign, SJM produced a weekly radio program called La Mochila Viajera (The Traveling Backpack), which was designed to raise public awareness about immigration. La Mochila Viajera aired short public service vignettes, designed to raise awareness about the challenges facing Nicaraguan migrants and their families at home and abroad.

I reached out to families, like Angela’s, who were participating in my research study and invited them to share their stories on La Mochila Viajera if they were inclined to do so. Laleska decided this was something she wanted to do, and I escorted her to the radio studio one muggy Monday morning to record her vignette. Laleska was visibly nervous, but also committed to telling her story, as she told me, in order to let other children of migrant parents know they were not alone in the challenges they faced.

 

TRANSLATION: "Hi, I’m Laleska. I am twelve years old. I’ve lived with my grandmother since I was one year old because my mom left, for economic reasons, to the United States. Since then, I only see her in December. But for three years, I haven’t been able to see her. We just communicate by phone. Truthfully, I don’t like talking with her because I feel bad about not having her near."