Thoth Archiving Network Pilot at Cambridge
Cambridge University Library (CUL) is piloting participation in the Thoth Archiving Network, which will allow small presses to use a simple deposit option to archive their publications in multiple repository locations, creating the opportunity to safeguard against the complete loss of their open books catalogue, should they cease to operate.
This is a pilot repository site hosting open access books by a range of publishers depositing content in Thoth. This site is maintained and managed by the Open Research Systems Team at Cambridge University Library (CUL).
More information about this pilot and the Open Book Futures Project is available at this page.
Open Book Futures
Recent Submissions
Active Speech: Critical Perspectives on Teresa Deevy
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-04-07) Kealy, Úna; McCarthy, Kate
'Active Speech' is a groundbreaking collection of scholarly essays and practitioner interviews focused on the work of Irish playwright Teresa Deevy. Acts of recovery in the 1980s and 1990s challenged Deevy’s exclusion from the literary canon, reclaiming her contributions as significant to Irish drama and theatre. The recent resurgence of scholarship and productions evidences that, as a deafened woman and Irish playwright, Deevy’s creative power continues to disrupt and tilt the canon of Irish drama, theatre, and performance.
Essays within the collection explore how Deevy’s work interrogates early to mid-twentieth century Irish social norms and ideologies and provide a rich context for understanding her plays. The collection highlights the interdisciplinary nature of research on Deevy and offers insights on her work through archival research, literary analysis, and practitioner perspectives from Deaf and hearing theatremakers.
One of the collection's strengths lies in its collaborative and inclusive approach, showcasing diverse methodologies and rigorous scholarship. The chapters on archival research and practitioner perspectives offer compelling models and avenues for future studies. This volume is an essential resource for scholars, educators, and theatremakers alike.
Improvising Otherwise: A Decolonial Feminist Approach to Improvisation in Early Modern English Culture
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-04-30) Lahham, Fatima
This volume redefines how we approach early music and cultural histories, intertwining feminist, decolonial, and creative perspectives. Fatima Lahham delves into the improvisational practices of early modern England, situating them within a rich tapestry of musical sources, theological texts, travel narratives, and natural histories. Inspired by Sara Ahmed’s notion of the “feminist ear,” the book amplifies voices and histories often unheard, re-examining the cultural interplay between England and the Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth century.
This groundbreaking study bridges disciplines and engages with critical race studies to explore decolonial methodologies. Lahham challenges traditional historiographies, integrating improvisation studies and early modern creativity to transform our understanding of historical performance and inspire new practices today. Tracks from her album punctuate the text, fostering an innovative, multi-modal reading experience, while creative prompts invite readers to craft their own improvisations.
At once scholarly and imaginative, this book expands the boundaries of historically informed performance and cultural studies. By mobilizing improvisation as a tool for understanding and re-imagining history, Imagining Otherwise offers a vital contribution to early music, feminist theory, and the study of England’s global engagements.
Coral Conservation: Global Evidence for the Effects of Actions
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-04-22) Thornton, Ann; Morgan, William H.; Bladon, Eleanor K.; Smith, Rebecca K.; Sutherland, William J.
Coral Conservation: Global evidence for the effects of actions provides an essential resource for anyone dedicated to conserving or restoring corals. This comprehensive synthesis of global scientific evidence examines the effectiveness of conservation and restoration actions targeting stony, soft and cold-water coral species inhabiting a diverse range of marine habitats in tropical, temperate and arctic waters from shallow coasts to the deep sea.
Addressing the urgent threats posed by climate change, invasive species, overfishing, and habitat destruction, this work summarizes evidence from actions in three core themes: protecting healthy reefs, mitigating human impacts, and undertaking active restoration. From establishing Marine Protected Areas to innovative techniques like coral gardening, the synopsis summarizes the evidence for practical actions and offers insights into their outcomes and applicability.
Designed to guide decision-makers—resource managers, conservationists, policymakers, and local advocates—as well as those curious to learn about actions that could help corals, this accessible guide provides succinct information to support evidence-based conservation.
By identifying the existing evidence and highlighting gaps in the knowledge, Coral Conservation can support practitioners and policymakers to allocate resources effectively by prioritising actions that work. By doing more of what works, we can reverse the loss of coral species and restore these vital habitats for the benefit of current and future generations.
The authors consulted an international group of coral experts and conservationists to produce this synopsis. Funding was provided by A.G. Leventis Foundation and Oceankind.
Coral Conservation is the 25th publication in the Conservation Evidence Series Synopses, and is freely available from the online Conservation Evidence database (www.conservationevidence.com) ensuring that users have ongoing access to updated research and assessments. Others in the series include Eel Conservation in Inland Habitats, Biodiversity of Marine Artificial Structures, Sub-tidal Benthic Invertebrate Conservation, Marine and Freshwater Mammal Conservation, and Marine Fish Conservation.
A Cyborg's Father: Misreading Donna Haraway
(punctum books, 2025-04-04) Brennan, Dave
When his daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as an infant and became dependent on technology to stay alive, Dave Brennan set off in search of a vision: what does it mean to live as a cyborg? And how might he best help his daughter navigate the relationship between machine and flesh?
Beginning with a line plucked from Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” — “Their fathers, after all, are inessential” — A Cyborg’s Father blends memoiristic poetic fragments with lyric essays that look toward music and literature by women artists who have embraced the technological as a metaphorical or literal means of investigating and owning their experience as women. Traversing the intersecting paths of feminism, chronic illness, disability studies, transhumanism, interdependence, and more, this is the tale of a father whose greatest hope is to be rendered inessential.
Tragedy and the Witness: Shakespeare and Beyond
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-04-15) Parker, Fred
As he dies, Hamlet pleads with Horatio to ‘report me aright … tell my story’. This book deals with the task of bearing witness to anguish, atrocity, and madness, as these are staged in the tragic theatre. Focusing on the relationship between the protagonist and the onlooker or witness, it explores how the tragic figure, often and understandably viewed as alien or culpable or profoundly strange, struggles to be understood. Centred on Shakespeare, its wide-ranging approach also introduces works by (among others) the Greeks, Racine, Ibsen, Pirandello, Kafka, Beckett, and Kane.
The discussion intersects with trauma studies and with psychoanalytic theory, especially around how subjective experience is ‘held’ by others. The challenge of entering into such difficult experience is likened to the offering of hospitality to the foreigner or stranger: the challenge of overcoming xenophobia. Another large concern is with how tragedy represents madness, and how far such states of mind may be shared with an audience, particularly through the lens of King Lear.
Written in an accessible style, this book grounds tragedy in matters that resonate in common experience, from mental breakdown and our need to be heard to questions around grieving, trauma, and the ethics of telling someone’s story.
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