As a not-for-profit university press, UTP is committed to producing affordable and innovative texts for undergraduate and graduate students. We publish materials for course use that are pedagogically valuable and contribute to ongoing scholarship.
Proposals for course books should include the following:
- Description of and rationale for the proposed whole, including a table of contents
- Discussion of the ways in which the project speaks to current teaching practices and scholarly interests:
-
- What are the challenges in teaching the content of related courses? How does the proposed text speak to these challenges?
- Is the treatment of the subject matter expansive, conceptual, or practical?
- Is it at the cutting edge or a better restatement of existing knowledge?
- What distinctive approaches to coverage of specific topics will your project offer?
- Are there topics that others in the field may expect to find but which you will not include? Why not?
- Discussion of the project’s potential market:
-
- What is the primary market for the project?
- What are the secondary markets for the project?
- If primary sources are included, discussion of relevant textual and translation issues
- Overview of competing or complementary books
- Proposed date of completion
- Tentative title
- Estimated total length of the manuscript (approximate word count)
- List of non-textual items (e.g. charts, maps, illustrations, video clips, podcasts, etc.):
-
- How will these non-textual items be delivered (e.g. in the text of the book, in an appendix, on a website, etc.)?
- Do you control publication or re-publication rights for these materials?
- Personal qualifications, including a discussion of the proposer’s unique qualifications for undertaking the project as well as the proposer’s CV
Proposals should be sent as email attachments (preferably in Microsoft Word).
HIGHER EDUCATION SERIES
Proposals for course books may also be directed toward a specific series:
Humanities Series:
International Themes and Issues
This is a joint series by the Canadian Historical Association and the University of Toronto Press. Each volume provides a concise, focused, comprehensive overview of a topic or issue that is of international significance and broad interest in the study of history. Rather than coming from a single national viewpoint, the approach is comparative. Page count is 200–50 pages.
Series editor: Pierre Yves Saunier, Université Laval
Proposal guidelines for the International Themes and Issues series ca n be downloaded here.
Readings in Medieval Civilizations and Cultures
These readers are born of a desire for a richer, multi-layered approach to the social, political, religious, economic, and intellectual history of the Middle Ages. The series seeks to provide students and scholars with collections of translated primary sources, including many to which they would not normally or easily have access. Each volume contains a mixture of standard documents (those which are central to the field and without which the volumes would be incomplete) and representative texts (those which are often less known and yet reveal important and interesting aspects of the Middle Ages). Both period and thematic readers are included.
Series editor: Paul Edward Dutton, Simon Fraser University
Proposal guidelines for the Readings in Medieval Civilizations and Cultures series can be downloaded here.
Companions to Medieval Studies
This series consists of relatively short books of 100–25 pages designed to serve several functions: to act as general introductions to important medieval subjects covered in many college and university undergraduate classrooms; to accompany and complement the source books which appear in the Readings in Medieval Civilizations and Cultures Series; and to act as handy reference books on a topic as students and instructors make their way through courses on the subject (whether or not they are using the relevant reader).
Series editor: Paul Edward Dutton, Simon Fraser University
Proposal guidelines for the Companions to Medieval Studies series can be downloaded here.
Rethinking the Middle Ages
Rethinking the Middle Ages is committed to re-examining the medieval era: its themes, institutions, people, and events. These are short studies, overviews of a particular topic or theme that provoke discussion among students and scholars, inviting them to think about the problems and issues of the Middle Ages in new and unusual ways.
Series editor: Paul Edward Dutton, Simon Fraser University
Proposal guidelines for the Rethinking the Middle Ages series can be downloaded here.
Social Sciences Series:
Teaching Culture: Ethnographies for the Classroom
This series is an essential resource for instructors searching for ethnographic case studies that are contemporary, engaging, provocative, and created specifically with undergraduate students in mind. Written with clarity and personal warmth, books in the series introduce students to the core methods and orienting frameworks of ethnographic research and provide a compelling entry point to some of the most urgent issues faced by people around the globe today.
Series editor: John Barker, University of British Columbia
Proposal guidelines for the Teaching Culture series can be downloaded here.
Anthropological Insights
This series offers an opportunity to bring contemporary scholarship to an undergraduate audience. Ethnographically grounded and conceptualized as pedagogical tools, these very short books provide instructors and students with foundational information about key topics and ethnographic regions. These books may accompany and complement more comprehensive textbooks, readers, and ethnographies. They may also stand on their own as handy reference works or serve as the main component in class modules.
Series editor: John Barker, University of British Columbia
Proposal guidelines for the Anthropological Insights series can be downloaded here.
ethnoGRAPHIC
This groundbreaking series realizes ethnographic and anthropological research in graphic form. The series speaks to a growing interest in comics as a powerful narrative medium and to the desire for a more creative and public anthropology that engages with contemporary issues. Books in the series are scholarly informed works that combine text and image in ways that are conceptually sophisticated yet accessible to broader audiences. These books are open-ended and aesthetically rich, and encourage conversations that build greater cross-cultural understanding. Beyond the graphic narrative, each book in the series will include a reader’s guide with discussion questions, background information on the research behind the story, and a discussion of the challenges and benefits of transforming research into graphic novel form.
Series editors: Sherine Hamdy, University of California, Irvine, and Marc Parenteau
Proposal guidelines for the ethnoGRAPHIC series can be downloaded here.