WMU Medieval Institute names new publications director

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—An international leader in medieval studies has been named the new director and managing editor of Medieval Institute Publications at Western Michigan University.

Dr. Simon Forde, who most recently served as the head of acquisitions at Amsterdam University Press and publisher of the press' European History list, took the helm of the Medieval Institute's publishing arm, effective Monday, Feb. 23.

"With Simon Forde as its director, Medieval Institute Publications now has a deeply experienced and internationally minded expert at the helm," says Dr. James Murray, director of the WMU Medieval Institute. "We expect new and exciting initiatives in the future."

Simon Forde

Within a year of taking the Amsterdam University Press position, Forde established a platform to publish more than 60 books a year. He also served as director of the Arc-Humanities Press, the open access and conventional publishing arm for CARMEN, a global learning society of institutes and centers for medieval studies for which Forde served as executive director.

From 1996 to 2013, Forde was commissioning editor for medieval and Renaissance studies at Brepols Publishers, initiating and expanding a list of books in English that reached 90 titles in 2013. While there, he also developed a global copyediting and intern program. From 1988 to 1996, Forde was director of the International Medieval Institute in Leeds and editor of the International Medieval Bibliography. He also was the founding director of the annual International Medieval Congress in Leeds.

With a doctoral degree from the University of Birmingham, Forde's background is in medieval history and English literature. Before embarking on a career in editing and publishing, he held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies at the University of Toronto and a research fellowship at Lady Margaret Hall at the University of Oxford. He has published on various topics relating to late medieval sermons and their authors.

Medieval Institute Publications

Medieval Institute Publications assumed its present structure in 1978 as the publishing arm of the Medieval Institute and became a member of the Association of American University Presses in 2011. MIP contributes to the research function of the institute by publishing scholarly journals, books for classroom use, and academic books and book series. Those book series include Studies in Medieval Culture; publications of the Richard Rawlinson Center; Studies in Iconography: Themes and Variations; and Early Drama, Art and Music. WMU also publishes non-series volumes and periodicals as well as materials produced by the Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages.

The University is known worldwide as the home each May of the International Congress on Medieval Studies, the world's largest gathering of medieval scholars.

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