Graham Harman posts in support of Steven Shaviro, who has decided to withhold his contribution to an academic book because of Indiana University Press’s egregiousy slow publication process. Indiana UP’s pace is typical of the academic publishing infrastructure.
I find it pathetic that a handful of academics are cheerleading Shaviro’s stand»,pathetic not because the issue is unimportant, but because the action is futile. Whole institutions are foundering and the best some academics can do, learned as they are, is boycott the presses to which they are addicted?
The real question is why academics in the humanities have not yet completely ditched physical academic publishing and organized a structure of multi-instiutional peer review for online-only documents. You know, like the scientists are doing.