About Ohio University Press

Incorporated in 1947 and formally organized in 1964 by Ohio University president Vernon Alden, Ohio University Press is the oldest scholarly publisher in Ohio. Since its founding, the press (including its trade imprint, Swallow Press) has developed into a leading publisher of books about Africa, Appalachia, Southeast Asia, and the Midwest, as well as on many other topics. From academic monographs to regional guides to internationally acclaimed literary works, its books have established the press as an essential member of its many communities: scholarly, literary, and geographic.

The press publishes between forty-five and fifty books a year. Distributed worldwide, its books are regularly covered by prominent national and international news and review media; in countless academic journals; and in a wide variety of literary and cultural outlets.

The press regularly partners with other scholarly and cultural institutions. In recent years, these have included the State Library of Ohio, the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, the Ohio University Center for International Studies, the Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland museums of art, and the Polish American Historical Association.

Swallow Press

What began as a publishing partnership with the distinguished literary publisher Swallow Press has continued with Ohio University Press’s acquisition in 2008 of Swallow. Under the Swallow Press imprint, the Press continues to publish its esteemed literary list—including reissues of the works of such iconic authors as Anaïs Nin, Janet Lewis, Frank Waters, and Anna Akhmatova—as well as guidebooks, regional interest titles, and general nonfiction.

New Titles

The Muridiyya on the Move
Islam, Migration, and Place Making
Representations of diasporic Murid disciples often depict them as passive recipients of change wrought by powerful clerics left behind in Senegal. In this study, Cheikh Anta Babou examines the construction of their transnational collective identity and its influence on cultural practices, identities, and aspirations.

The Long Red Thread
How Democratic Dominance Gave Way to Republican Advantage in US House Elections
Election analyst Kyle Kondik examines House elections since the 1964 Supreme Court “one person, one vote” rulings to explain the Republicans' consistent advantage from their 1994 takeover to the present.

Embodied Engineering
Gendered Labor, Food Security, and Taste in Twentieth-Century Mali
Common narratives about development in Africa miss the critical technological work of women. Twagira’s study instead positions Malian women as rural engineers whose strategic planning and labor over the course of the twentieth century assured their food security.

Village Work
Development and Rural Statecraft in Twentieth-Century Ghana
This detailed and groundbreaking history of rural Ghanaian statecraft details the crucial importance that local village development systems have on regional and national scales.

Africanizing Oncology
Creativity, Crisis, and Cancer in Uganda
Combining methods from African studies, science and technology studies, and medical anthropology, Marissa Mika considers the Uganda Cancer Institute as a microcosm of the Ugandan state and as a lens through which to trace the political, technological, moral, and intellectual aspirations and actions of health care providers and patients.