Ronald Schleifer
April 1, 2023
Ronald Schleifer, Ph.D., is George Lynn Cross Professor of English and Adjunct Professor in the College of Medicine at the University of Oklahoma. His scholarship encompasses three areas of literary and cultural studies: he works in the “Culture of Modernism,” early twentieth-century studies with books focused on literature, music, economics and, most recently (with Tiao Wang, a colleague from China, 2022) on “literary modernism” in late twentieth-century China and early twentieth-century Euro-America. He has also worked since 1999 with his colleague Jerry Vannatta, MD, former Dean of the OU College of Medicine, on the “Health Humanities,” that is, on the ways that education in the humanities can help healthcare professionals more fully engage with their patients. For his work in the Health Humanities, he received the inaugural Norman Campus-Wide Research and Creative Activities Award for Excellence in Research, Design, and Creative Expression in the Humanities and Fine Arts. And he also works in “Semiotics,” which is the systematic study of the ways in which meaningful linguistic signs, language, and comprehensive narratives are produced and structured.
During his career at OU – which now spans more than forty-five years – he has worked on the production and dissemination of academic and general knowledge. He edited the scholarly-literary journal Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture, edited here at OU for twenty-four years (1976-1999); was co-editor (with Robert Con Davis-Undiano) of a book series, Oklahoma Project for Discourse and Theory, published by the University of Oklahoma Press 1986-2000; and served as interim editor of Configurations: A Journal of Literature, Science, and Technology (The Official Journal of the Society for Literature and Science), 2012-12. Finally, he recently became co-editor of a book series, Humanities and Healthcare: Practical and Pedagogical Guides, published by Palgrave-Macmillan, and authored the open access book Literary Studies and Well-Being: Structures of Experience in the Worldly Work of Literature and Healthcare, published by Bloomsbury in 2023.
How have you benefited from publishing open access?
Open access publication builds upon and significantly enhances the widening of scholarship and knowledge affected by the internet in our lifetimes. It sets forth scholarly and creative work, which is freely available to readers across the world. This is particularly important to the more practical work I have pursued in the health humanities, which attempts to enlarge the understanding of men and women who are committed to improving and preserving the health and well-being of their fellow citizens. I think the best aspect of open access publishing is the free availability to all readers throughout the world.
Why do you choose to publish open access?
I am particularly proud that articles published in Genre are available open access. And I am greatly pleased that my latest book, Literary Studies and Well-Being: Structures of Experience in the Worldly Work of Literature and Healthcare (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023), has appeared open access with the generous support of OU Libraries, the Provost’s Office, the Office of Vice-President for Research and Partnerships, and the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences. Scholarship in general builds upon traditions of learning and thinking, and access to ongoing work – especially world-wide access – creates a broad network of colleagues working together for common ends. This is particularly true, I believe, in the practical work of the health humanities, which seeks to allow as many people as possible to discover wider ways of serving the health and well-being of individuals and communities. In the last number of years, I have worked with colleagues in China, Taiwan, Australia, Denmark, the UK, and throughout the United States. We are working together to find strategies and programs to enhance health and well-being throughout the world. Open access publication is a natural way to promote this program and other programs pursuing other aspects of human well-being.
What are some general benefits of open access publication?
A good way to emphasize the benefits of open access publication might be grasped in the call for books for Humanities and Healthcare, which was developed by the editors from the US and the UK. Books in the series, we note, will be dedicated to particular topics designed to further biomedical education in healthcare while putting the human experience at the center and contributing to the targets of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3, Good Health and Well-Being. These books provide practical guidance for postgraduate professional students in healthcare and related areas, undergraduate students in the humanities and pre-health training, practicing healthcare workers, and informal carers. With the goal of bringing local and global concerns together, the series promotes and publishes studies that widen understanding of healthcare, well-being, and systematic care-taking. The aims of the series are to take a broad definition of healthcare and therapeutic practices in relation to physical and mental health in order to highlight practices within and beyond the clinic. Such a wide program in encouraging and disseminating learning and practices, which will benefit people throughout the world, is significantly served by open access.