Professor of History Lisa Trivedi was a featured speaker on the University of Michigan’s recent Open Access Publishing in Asian Studies Workshop.
As a member of the editorial board of Lever Press, an academic press founded by more than 50 liberal arts college libraries, and consultant on the University of Michigan’s Open Access Asian Studies Books Collection, Trivedi explained that “The NEH Humanities Open Book Michigan Asian Studies Books Collection is an important step in making scholarship about Asia available to communities across the globe. By ensuring that these scholarly works are available free of charge to scholars and the public in Asia, the project promotes equity in access to knowledge and supports scholarly cooperation globally.”
Trivedi presented on a panel titled “Extending Impact and Reach through Open Access: Toward Equity and Inclusion?” She emphasized how important it is for scholars to engage wider reading publics beyond the liberal arts community in which she teaches. “Ensuring that students in community colleges and large public institutions have access to the kind of critical reading and analysis featured in the small liberal arts college is key to re-engaging the public and producing knowledge that supports democratic societies,” she said.
Noting that equity and inclusion are paramount for her, Trivedi also explained “it is important for many scholars of Asia to directly engage the societies about which we research and write not only so that they too can read our work, but also to encourage them to collaborate, challenge and transform scholarship on Asia as creators of knowledge about their own societies.”
She said she hopes that “open access will continue the work of decolonizing scholarship begun in the last generation and contribute to the creation of new reading publics that can sustain a more equitable global future.”
