From monograph to gem of scholarship

John Donatich, director of Yale University Press, admits that funding for scholarly monographs is getting scarce. And with the advent of the internet, who reads them anyway? Thus, he shares what makes the occasional monograph into a gem worth reading.

John Donatich (2009). Why books still matter. Journal of Scholarly Publishing, 40.4 (July 2009), pp. 329-342, 338-339.

The marketplace demands we ask ourselves the question, What needs to be a book? In particular, what needs to be a scholarly monograph? Aside from tenure and career advancement issues, what does a university press have to publish? And what is a monograph, anyway? Webster’s has an inelegant definition: ‘a written account of a single thing.’ The chair of our Publications Committee, David Bromwich, once defined it as ‘a work of scholarship that will not sell many copies until it does, at which point it becomes a gem of scholarship.’ While there was certainly a twinkle in his eye, his distinction has actually become a useful one, and even prompted a spirited conversation at a recent agenda-less Publications Committee meeting.

We started by thinking about what qualities the scholarly monograph and the gem of scholarship might share:

• original primary research
• blindness to fashion; a love of the ignored and the arcane; providing the culture a way of keeping its neglected history ‘warm’
• rigorous methodology
• compound argument, capable of advancing a dozen or more layers of argument
• scholarly apparatus that not only amplifies the text but enables the reader to reconstruct and replicate the original research, to test the author’s conclusions, or to use the same material to different ends

Where, then, might the two part company? How could a monograph be cut to reveal its lapidary and gemlike qualities?

• The research demonstrates a passionate commitment, an almost athletic joy in uncovering and managing masses of material.
• The structure invents a new model of managing complexity.
• The prose contributes terminology to the lingua franca of the discipline. It challenges yet can be understood by educated nonspecialists. As Einstein is supposed to have said, ‘Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.’
• The book crosses disciplines with ease; it listens to its own internal echoes.
• While perhaps narrow in scope, the book feels close. You can feel the breath of the intellect on the page.

You all know what I’m talking about. I’m sure of it. You have all been entranced by the seamlessness of a narrative and dazzled by the marshalling of dozens of arguments in service of a grand theory. You have been transformed within the alchemy of literature. You have been moved by a book.

Through the Church, wisdom

 "[T]hrough the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory." Paul, Ephesians 3:10b-13