punctum books: spontaneous acts of scholarly combustion

by EILEEN JOY

This time it is not I who seek it out . . . it is the element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like an arrow, and pierces me. A Latin word exists to designate this wound, this prick, this mark made by a pointed instrument . . . This element which will disturb the studium I . . . call punctum; for punctum is also: sting, speck, cut, little hole—and also a cast of the dice.
--Roland Barthes, from Camera Lucida

punctum books is an open-access and print-on-demand independent publisher dedicated to radically creative modes of intellectual inquiry and writing across a whimsical para-humanities assemblage. We specialize in neo-traditional and non-conventional scholarly work that productively twists and/or ignores academic norms, with an emphasis on books that fall length-wise between the article and the monograph—id est, novellas, in one sense or another. This is a space for the imp-orphans of your thought and pen, an ale-serving church for little vagabonds.
--from the Vision Statement for punctum books

Nicola Masciandaro and I are thrilled to announce the launch of the official website for punctum books, which you can see here:

punctum books: spontaneous acts of scholarly combustion

Tristan Denyer, a former student of mine and now a web- and graphic designer based in San Francisco, designed the website and I give him here my very grateful thanks for such a beautiful job [we've been working on this since April!]. We have some very exciting books in the pipeline, including:

Dark Chaucer: An Assortment, ed. Eileen Joy and Nicola Masciandaro

On an Ungrounded Earth, by Ben Woodard

Leper Creativity: A Cyclonopedia Symposium, ed. Ed Keller, Nicola Masciandaro, and Eugene Thacker

Queering Speculative Realism, by Michael O'Rourke

Wlite: i englisc boc be missenlicum þingum wrætlicum, Vol. 1, trans. Daniel Remein

Thomas Meyer's Beowulf, ed. David Hadbawnik

thN Lng folk 2go, by The Confraternity of Neoflagellants

These are just some of our forthcoming titles, and we have also partnered with Oliphaunt Books, sponsored by The George Washington University's Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute [GW-MEMSI] and directed by Jeffrey, whose first book will be a volume of essays comprising the featured talks, with responses, from the conference held by GW-MEMSI earlier this year, "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods", and you can see the full table of contents here:

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects, ed. Jeffrey J. Cohen

The new website also includes a weblog where you can see current news related to the projects, authors, and forthcoming titles of punctum books:

punctum books blog

Finally, punctum books also has a Facebook page where you can keep track of punctum releases and punctum-related events:

punctum books [Facebook Page]

All books published by punctum will be available in open-access, downloadable format and also as highly affordable print-on-demand [attractively-designed] books, and we will also be exploring releasing versions of each book in Kindle and other mobile device formats! And please, consider sending us a manuscript proposal!

EDIT [15 Aug. @10:45 am EST]: And I forgot to also say, follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/punctum_books.