How HSS Scholarly Publishing Supports Social Justice: Future Formats and Emerging Topics
Sponsored by Palgrave Macmillan
Recorded on 08/29/2022
Posted in The Authority File
Episode 276
In the final episode of this four-part series, Felicity Plester, Editorial Director for Humanities, and Tamsine O’Riordan, Editorial Director for Social Science, both at Palgrave Macmillan, discuss the publisher’s future formats and emerging topics in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS). They reflect on the power of e-resources in publishing and scholarly dissemination, in addition to flexible access strategies like single title models and artificial intelligence innovations. Felicity also touches on how popular culture factors into acquisition decisions and the balance between staying current and ensuring longevity in a subject. Next, Tamsine shares her thoughts on emerging topics in social justice and sustainability and how today’s readers want to access knowledge—whether through e-content, hybrid formats, or print. Last, Felicity plugs the upcoming Palgrave Macmillan Annual Lecture Series on September 21st, which will focus on how HSS contributes to the peace agenda.
About the guests:

Felicity Plester
Editorial Director for Humanities
Palgrave Macmillan
Felicity is Editorial Director for Humanities at Palgrave Macmillan with overall responsibility for the literature; film, culture and media studies; and theatre and performance studies scholarly books programmes. She leads a team of seven Editors based in our London and New York offices, who publish high quality, cutting-edge research in a range of formats, including monographs, edited collections, scholarly Handbooks, major reference works, textbooks and Palgrave Pivots across these diverse subjects. Prior to becoming Editorial Director, she headed up the film, culture and media studies team at Palgrave, but also has experience of commissioning into the literature and theatre lists. Felicity joined Palgrave in 2010, having previously been Commissioning Editor for environment, development and public and social policy at Edward Elgar Publishing for five years.

Tamsine O’Riordan
Editorial Director for Social Science
Palgrave Macmillan
Tamsine O’Riordan is Editorial Director for Social Science at Palgrave Macmillan, part of Springer Nature. In this role she leads a global team of 15 editors to respond and deliver cutting-edge and (inter)discipline-defining social science ideas and thought across a range of book types, as well as leading the Social Science Matters campaign. She has been with Palgrave since 2012 and before that built successful programmes for a variety of social science scholarly, trade and professional publishers over 20 years, working in the past for Practical Action, Earthscan and Zed Books.
Enjoy the conversation? Listen to the rest of the series:
- Bringing Together Social Sciences and Humanities
- DEI Policies and Practices
- Imprint Evolution and Community Engagement
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