Jewish studies is an exceptionally vibrant interdisciplinary field that spans the Hebrew Bible to today, stretching from the Middle East to the Americas and beyond. In particular, Jewish studies has always been attuned to the changing nature of media: from parchment scrolls, illuminated manuscripts, and codices to printed books, digitized paper, and now social media and heebster blogs. Leveraging the new opportunities afforded by open access digital publishing is thus a logical next step for the field. Sponsored by the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies and the Center for Jewish History, this series is governed by the following principles:
1. We will seek to publish cutting-edge scholarship that takes advantages of the digital medium, including the capacity to integrate visual and auditory materials as well as to annotate, contextualize, and interpret primary materials. One of the chief goals of the series will be to solicit cutting-edge research that has a multi-media quality and that pushes new conceptual and methodological horizons.
2. We will seek to publish the best interdisciplinary scholarship in Jewish studies that has the potential to make an impact on and achieve recognition in numerous fields of study.
3. We will seek to publish first-rate scholarship by both emerging scholars and senior scholars in the field. Given the global reach and access of the digital platform, we believe that it is an essential service to the field to find compelling, globally-oriented venues for scholars to publish and disseminate their work in the broadest possible way.
Jewish History and Cultures will be an open access book program in partnership with the University of California Press’s Luminos program. Books in the series will be made available as free e-books as well as an affordable paperback edition.
