Aug. 28, 2025
Dear President Bravman and Provost Sternberg,
We, the undersigned, write to you as members of the
American Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS) to express our dismay at the intended closure of Bucknell University Press, which we learned about through various channels, including The Chronicle of Higher Education. As you may know, Bucknell University Press has long championed eighteenth-century studies and remains, to this day, one of the most internationally renowned publishers in our field, which includes affiliate societies around the globe. We author this letter to articulate what Bucknell University Press has meant to our membership and society over its nearly six decades,
not just as scholars but also as teachers of undergraduate and graduate students who rely on Bucknell University Press publications. We sincerely request that Bucknell’s administration reconsider the decision to close the Press at the conclusion of this academic year.
As a member of the American Council of Learned Societies, the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and the National Humanities Alliance, ASECS represents a diverse, global membership—
with 1400 members from 11 different countries, 36 affiliate societies throughout North America and Europe, and an Annual Meeting of 800 scholars—that contributes to humanistic and interdisciplinary inquiry. We affirm that a university press, such as Bucknell’s, is the hallmark of scholarly and public good that we currently see under threat with attacks against higher education writ large. The closure of Bucknell University Press threatens to endanger the international circulation of eighteenth-century studies scholarship and do away with an esteemed press that has long supported dedicated communities of members, either through the well-established Transits series, or through the innumerable associated monographs, anthologies, and edited editions of primary texts. Indeed, Bucknell University Press texts are mainstays in our classrooms and commonly enfolded and cited in our scholarship. Put simply, the loss of Bucknell University Press will be, to us and without question the wider academic community, immeasurable.
As intellectuals and teachers committed to the nurturing and growth of eighteenth-century studies, we encourage you, Bucknell’s administration, and other university stakeholders to rescind this decision. We hope to impress upon you the significance of the Press to us, as a learned society, but also to us as individuals committed to the growth of critical and scholarly inquiry, which, without Bucknell University Press, is jeopardized.
Sincerely,
[Signatories have been verified as ASECS members and appear on the ASECS website here.]
