Collective Studies in Knowledge and Society, published by Lexington Books (Rowman and Littlefield International), models social epistemology in practice. Our series promotes social epistemology both as a field and as a way of conducting inquiry. We envision our titles as a means for scholars from a range of backgrounds and perspectives to collaborate on investigating contemporary issues in the social production, circulation and governance of knowledge. Topics include but are not limited to:

• Normative social dimensions of pursuing and organizing knowledge;
• Policy-making principles shaping scientific and/or technological innovation;
• Changing conceptions of humans and humanity;
• The university as a setting for developing knowledge practices; and
• Philosophy as a necessary, vital, public activity.

Our series emerges from a larger project rooted in the journal Social Epistemology and expanded in the online forum Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, SERRC, in particular, promotes sustained dialogue among a growing group of international scholars interested in issues related to knowledge and society. Exchanges conducted among SERRC members on our Collective Vision page germinated the ideas for a currently proposed title in the series.

Among other initiatives, SERRC requests replies — and responses to those replies — to articles published in Social Epistemology. On many occasions, these discussions proceed far beyond the article initially under consideration. We host exchanges that have continued for more than eighteen months and that involve four or more interlocutors. We publish special issues including “On the Future Direction of Social Epistemology” and on “Normative Functionalism and the Pittsburgh School”. We perform reviews that include a book’s author and as many as six interlocutors. These forays into cooperative thinking offer unique and promising pathways to series titles that may invigorate and circulate scholars’ ongoing work.

We encourage scholars interested in contributing to Collective Studies in Knowledge and Society to consider participating in SERRC. Successful book proposals may result from ideas that begin and are cultivated through the SERRC publication and exchange process.

At the same time, we enthusiastically welcome proposals for titles written absent any connection to SERRC.

We seek book ideas that address — in both conception and form — the fundamentally social nature of the production and reception of scholarly work. We encourage imaginative approaches to question formation and collaborative authorship. We presuppose no singular idea of what knowledge is, or what knowledge ought to be. Consequently, we invite submissions by scholars representing various academic backgrounds and at various stages of their careers.

Ultimately, Collective Studies in Knowledge and Society goes beyond disciplinary orthodoxy to promote innovative, cogent scholarship that advances a shared, if hardly consensus, understanding of the social aspects of knowledge.

Please get in touch with me, jim.collier@vt.edu, or any of the members of our Executive and Advisory Boards, about your ideas. Preliminary queries about the series and about SERRC are welcome. We look forward to working with you.

James H. Collier, Associate Professor of Science and Technology in Society, Virginia Tech, US.