FlashPoints is a series of books in literary studies intended to encourage innovative scholarship and to reach an interdisciplinary audience. The series solicits books that consider literature beyond strictly national and disciplinary frameworks, distinguished both by their historical grounding and their theoretical and conceptual strength. We seek studies that engage theory without losing touch with history, and work historically without falling into uncritical positivism. FlashPoints will aim for a broad audience within the humanities and the social sciences concerned with moments of cultural emergence and transformation. In a Benjaminian mode, FlashPoints is interested in how literature contributes to forming new constellations of culture and history, and in how such formations function critically and politically in the present.

All titles in the FlashPoints series will appear in open-access electronic versions available through the University of California Digital Library and in well-designed paperbound copies for library and individual acquisition. The series will be administered by an editorial group composed of faculty. Books in the series will be rigorously peer reviewed and will be approved for publication by the Editorial Committee of Northwestern University Press. Inquiries and submissions can be directed to the series at Sgillman@ucsc.edu.

“FlashPoints is a savvy, stylish, and timely intervention at a critical moment in literary and cultural studies. The series, an open invitation to intellectual boundary crossing, straddles the digital and print worlds and will attract unusually broad interest. After many lean years, this is one of the most promising new developments in the humanities.”
—Stephen Greenblatt, Cogan University Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University

“FlashPoints is a wonderful initiative. It puts the University of California Press at the forefront of new humanities publishing projects. The free online version will, I am confident, not only make these books more widely available, but also sell more hard copies too. Double publication of this sort is the way of the future for books in the humanities. I applaud the enterprise of the enterprise of the FlashPoints editorial group.”
—J. Hillis Miller, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature, UC Irvine

“It is a pleasure to hear that the University of California Press is re-entering publication in literary studies. The quality of the editorial group assures that first-rate work will be forthcoming. Congratulations.”
—Hayden White, Professor of Comparative Literature and German Studies, Stanford University

“I think this is an excellent solution to the current crisis in humanities publishing. It will also reestablish UC Press's important commitment to scholarship in literature and the humanities.”
—Michael Davidson, Professor of Literature, UC San Diego

“With this series, I believe UC Press can have a genuine and lasting impact on the publishing field not only in the area of literary studies but on academic publishing in general.”
—George Van Den Abbeele, Dean of Humanities, UC Irvine