Publisher installs new board
Maria Alice da Cruz
Upon taking over as Editor at Unicamp, the professor Paulo Elias Allane Franchetti admits to having lots of work ahead. Among the innovations is the institution of professional training courses for both the unit's employees and civil servants interested in learning the various activities involved in editorial production. “The project is to open up to the community, as far as possible, so that the publisher functions as a school publisher”, he observes. “The first thing we are going to do in terms of human resources is create a course,” she says.
The first initiative taken by the publisher's management was the installation of the new editorial board, whose president is Professor Alcir Pécora, from the Institute of Language Studies and is made up of five professors from different teaching areas. At the moment, the new management is preparing an internal regulation for the publisher, which envisages the expansion of the board, with the participation of people from the University's external community.
The new publisher brings back the collections, which means that the titles are not published in isolation. According to Franchetti, a floor and ceiling will be determined for all of them, with annual schedules. The circulation will be established based on the repercussion, book sales and the academic need for a given title.
The expectation is that the entire academic community can get involved in the task of selecting the publisher's books. The idea is to create several editorial committees, in charge of organizing special collections. For next year, the new director also intends to increase the publication of theses produced at the University. “We will be able to have a specific collection of theses and other basic and applied research works”, he reveals.
In Franchetti's opinion, the publisher currently works in an improvised and passive way. It is in your plans to create a schedule so that the unit works in a more professional manner. This, in his opinion, involves a more aggressive marketing policy of distribution and dissemination. The first step towards achieving this project was the hiring of technical editorial coordinator Márcio Nogueira, with extensive experience in the area of editorial production. This professional is currently responsible for training employees and creating strategies to improve the publisher's financial performance and make the books known and the catalog more comprehensive. Another priority is improving the graphic quality of books.
In the sales area, the director negotiates authorization for the issuance of an invoice by the Unicamp Development Foundation (Funcamp), in order to reach a larger network of distributors. The idea is to establish a specific agreement for the foundation to take on the sales work. It is also being negotiated with professor Helena Jank, who is responsible for Espaço Cultural Casa do Lago, an environment that should serve as a library for the Publisher, where publications can be viewed.
Another space for the dissemination of the Editora's products should be the ground floor area of Ciclo Básico 2, which should house a bookstore with coffee and internet. These, among other projects, are already gaining the attention of the Editora's new management and should be completed in the coming months.
Hungarian philosopher donates library to Unicamp
Raquel do Carmo Santos
On the afternoon of June 5th, in the auditorium of the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH), researchers and students received one of the best news of recent times: the library of Hungarian philosopher István Meszáros, a direct disciple of George Lukásc, will be donated to Unicamp after his death. The announcement was met with applause from the local community. According to IFCH professor Ricardo Antunes, it is a “masterful library” that includes works of German and Hungarian literature. Meszáros, who was on tour around the country last week, came especially to Unicamp for the launch of the book Para Além do Capital – a work that consumed more than two decades of his academic research. The publication contains 1.100 pages and is published by Unicamp and Boitempo. The first edition was launched in England, in 1995, and subsequently was also published in the United States, India, Venezuela, Greece and Iran. In Brazil, the translation work was developed over five years and brought together a significant number of researchers from Unicamp and other Brazilian universities.
In the opinion of Daniel Singer, who writes the text on the back cover of the book, “after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, many adhered to the idea that there is no alternative to capitalism. Here is a powerful book that brings the opposite message. Beyond Capital is a carefully coherent construction, which opens up entirely new horizons for us.” For professor Ricardo Antunes, organizer of the book and personal friend of the researcher, “the work is configured as one of the most acute critical reflections on capital in its forms, gears and mechanisms of socio-metabolic functioning”. Antunes also adds in the text introducing the work that Meszáros “undertakes a devastating critique of capital and carries out one of the most thought-provoking, provocative and dense reflections on contemporary sociability and the logic that presides over it”.
During his visit to Unicamp, the Marxist philosopher gave the conference “Economic theory and politics beyond capital”. It is the third time that the philosopher has come to Brazil. In 1983, Meszáros toured the country participating in a series of seminars. In 1996, he was at Unicamp as a special guest at events held in honor of George Lukács. This time, he participated in the launch of the book in four Brazilian capitals – Florianópolis, Rio de Janeiro, Belém and São Paulo. Due to the launch, the book is being sold at a price of R$70,00 and information about sales can be obtained by calling 3788-1604 or 3788-7783/7786.
Who is István Meszáros – His intellectual production is one of the most important, including the following books: Marx: the theory of alienation; The need for social control; Destructive production and the capitalist state; Sartre's work: search for freedom, Philosophy, ideology and social science; The power of ideology. He is considered one of the most original Marxist thinkers today. He was born on December 19, 1930 in Budapest. He graduated in philosophy in 1954 from the University of Budapest, where later, in the run-up to the Hungarian crisis of 1956, he worked with another renowned Hungarian philosopher, Georg Lukács, at the Institute of Aesthetics. He subsequently worked at the Universities of Turin (Italy), St. Andrews (Scotland), York (Canada) and, finally, at the University of Sussex (England), where he received, in 1991, the title of professor emeritus. In 1995 he was elected a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
