AcademiaAmia SrinivasanoxfordPhilosophy

It’s not just beleaguered premiers who are on their way out: there was also an important announcement from the academic world this afternoon. The feminist philosopher Amia Srinivasan, best known for her 2021 essay collection The Right to Sex, today posted her decision to step down from her position at the journal Philosophy & Public Affairs, along with all “the executive, associate, and advisory editors and members of the editorial board”.

In a fuller statement, the journal’s staff explained the exodus by stating that key aims of scholarly publications are “not well-served by commercial publishing”, which exploits its “monopoly position to sharply raise prices, unduly burdening subscribing libraries and shutting out other institutions and individuals from access to research”. The editors are thus deciding to set up a new “diamond open-access journal”, a model which doesn’t charge fees for either authors or readers. Making academic publications more accessible is a noble aim, but cutting out some of the wordier bits of jargon might help too…