What it Means to be a Scholar-Led UP: Partnering with Scholarly Organizations and Supporting Contingent Scholars

By Andrew Dorkin, Acquisitions Editor

Day Two of the UP Week Blog Tour: Why Does Clemson University Press Team UP?

At the 2025 Modernist Studies Association conference last month, the MSA announced a new annual award: “The MSA Essay Prize for Contingent and Independent Scholars, Sponsored by Clemson University Press.” Each year, the MSA will award a $250 prize and a travel grant (for the MSA conference where the award will be announced) to the best essay published in a journal or edited volume by a scholar off the tenure track. We are thrilled that the Modernist Studies Association chose Clemson UP to sponsor this prize, deepening the close relationship we have built with the MSA and its members over the past 25 years.

We also believe this sponsorship articulates something integral to Clemson’s identity as a press: why we Team UP to do this work. We hope this award will provide meaningful support and recognition to scholars who make important contributions to modernist studies while precariously employed or employed outside of academia, often with little or no institutional support for their research.

We are proud to stand in solidarity with this community—not only as scholarly publishers but as contingent scholars ourselves.

Clemson University Press has always been scholar-led. This distinctive identity has shaped the mission, values, and priorities of the Press ever since it was founded by Clemson English Professor, Wayne K. Chapman in 2000. Chapman was succeeded by John Morgenstern, who took on the Director role after working as contingent faculty in the Clemson English Department. Today, as we celebrate the Press’s 25th anniversary, our team is led by CU Press Director Alison Mero (PhD in Musicology), Clemson Extension Publishing Imprint Director of Drew Griffin (ABD in Ethnomusicology), and Acquisitions Editor Andrew Dorkin (PhD in English). Before becoming publishing professionals, each of us worked as teacher-scholars and experienced forms of contingency and precarity in our careers.

Being scholar-led means that the way we do business as a Press is shaped by our experiences and expertise as scholars. We collaborate with authors on and off the tenure track to publish books that advance scholarly conversations. We prioritize approachability and flexibility. We know that scholarly organizations are essential to their fields, as networks of conversation and as communities of support.

We hope the MSA Essay Prize will inspire other organizations and other presses to continue to find new ways to support vulnerable and under-supported scholars.

The close relationship we have built with the MSA is but one of many examples of how Clemson UP partners with organizations and institutions in South Carolina, around the US, and across the world. Much of our list has been built around such partnerships, and we’re always looking for new connections and opportunities.

Here are some more details about how we Team UP to publish book series, imprints, and journals:

Book Series and Imprints

Clemson-Converse Literature Series, in partnership with the Converse College MFA in Creative Writing Program

Ezra Pound Center for Literature Series, with the Ezra Pound Center for Literature at the University of New Orleans

IN-CSA Book Series, with the International Nineteenth-Century Studies Association (IN-CSA)

Seminal Modernisms Book Series, with the Société d’Études Modernistes (SEM)

SCALE Imprint, with the Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries (PASCAL)

Studies in British Musical Cultures, with the North American British Music Studies Association (NABMSA)

Journals

International Yeats Studies, with the International Yeats Society

Journal of Wyndham Lewis Studies, with the Wyndham Lewis Society

Journal of Youth Development, with the National Association of Extension 4-H Youth Development Professionals (NAE4-HYDP) and the National Afterschool Association (NAA)