Anthropocenes—Human, Inhuman, Posthuman and other new collections from the University of Westminster Press!

Welcoming the University of Westminster Press

We are pleased to announce the University of Westminster Press (UWP) as the most recent university press to partner with ScienceOpen! We are delighted to be partnering with UWP, just after the enthusiastically received launch of their global interdisciplinary journal, Anthropocenes—Human, Inhuman, Posthuman. Together, we have released five new collections of UWP publications that comprise entirely open access articles and books from a wide array of subjects including: the social sciences and humanities, science and technology, and communications. Explore content from each UWP collection that we have showcased for you below!

Anthropocenes—Human, Inhuman, Posthuman

Anthropocene: n. the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment (Oxford Languages)

Poised to be at the centre of conceptual debates on current epoch, social sciences, humanities, political theory, and more, Anthropocenes’ first issue presents views of the Anthropocene from a diverse range of disciplines, theory and practice: 

• Jessica McLean considers the wishful thinking embedded in frontier technologies and naïve faith in digital ‘solutions’.
• Is there life after coal? Andrew Long’s visual essay digs deep into deindustrialisation in Pennyslvania’s anthracite region. 
• What can the eel tell us about the Anthropocene? Extinctions are a field of emergent knowledge not only about species but also the environment  – Casper Bruun Jensen
• Human agency is challenged by the Covid-19 quarantine and lockdown. Luigi Russi and Katarina Rohtfjell, alone, together, in a visual essay, venture out. 
• The history and future of dunes requires attention, and action against inertia amidst a global environmental crisis – J. G de Freitas. 

University of Westminster Press Books

Currently, the UWP has published 40 peer-reviewed, open access books, making the UWP a significant proponent for open scholarly communications. We are thrilled to be able to index the books and individual chapters in our discovery platform so that we can increase their reach. Here are several titles we have picked out from the collection to give you a taste of UWP’s scope and most read book titles:   

UWP’s most widely read title, Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism (editor J. Morelock) is a warning from history applying the insights of Frankfurt School Critical critical (and quantitative) research to today’s political environment. 

A clear context for assessing the worth and ethics of Big Data research methods in medicine (especially in epidemiological surveillance): The Big Data Agenda: Data Ethics and Critical Data Studies by Annika Richterich

TOUCH the most vital of the senses according to Aristotle, is approached in the latest of the ‘Law and the Senses’ series. See also TASTE and SEE. 

Communication and Capitalism: A Critical Theory is a major new overview of communications theory going beyond the work of Jürgen Habermas by the series editor of UWP’s flagship, ‘Critical Digital and Social Media Studies’ series.

Highlights from WPCC and Silk Road: A Journal of Eurasian Development

Additional new content indexed on ScienceOpen from the UWP includes the Press’s most established journal, Westminster Papers in Communications and Culture, focused on the relationship between communication, culture and society in the 21st century, and Silk Road: A Journal of Eurasian Development, dedicated to evidence-based research and policy studies on Silk Road countries, Central Asia and their international interactions. Both have their own collections  on ScienceOpen and are additionally in the UWP Super Collection. Here are some featured articles for easy exploration:

• How to go viral: via audience data or editor’s judgement? BuzzFeed and Vice’s decision-making – Viral Media: Audience Engagement and Editorial Autonomy at BuzzFeed and Vice
• How Chinese Internet corporations are global financial entities too – Going Public and Going Global: Chinese Internet Companies and Global Finance Networks
• Research Ethics and Whats App. What’s up?  Do Not Harm in Private Chat Apps: Ethical Issues for Research on and with WhatsApp
• Locative Media and Geomedia – Cornelia Brantner’s theoretical survey of seeing via emplaced visuality. New Visualities of Space and Place: Mapping Theories, Concepts and Methodology of Visual Communication Research on Locative Media and Geomedia
• Transnational Higher Education and Students’ Life Trajectories – Directions Going Beyond the Local: Exploring the Role of Transnational Higher Education in Shaping Students’ Life Trajectories in Uzbekistan

We are pleased – with ScienceOpen – to offer a new discovery channel for potential readers for much of our output and highlight the possibilities afforded by open access for the world’s new university presses in particular.

– Andrew Lockett, UWP Press Manager