Alan Thomas
Editorial Director
I acquire scholarly and trade books in the humanities, particularly literature, criticism, and biography. Across four decades at the Press, I have also published books in history, religious studies, music, art history, media studies, and philosophy. I look for ambitious manuscripts marked by writerly assurance and unorthodox thinking. Recent and forthcoming general-interest books include Alice Kaplan’s Seeing Baya: Portrait of an Algerian Artist in Paris, Amitav Ghosh’s Wild Fictions: Essays on Literature, Empire, and the Environment, and Sarah Mesle’s Reasons and Feelings: Writing for the Humanities Now.
Some notable recent books on my list are Allison Carruth’s, Novel Ecologies: Nature Remade and the Illusions of Tech and John Guillory’s On Close Reading. I am also proud to sponsor the Thinking Literature series, launched in 2018 and co-edited by Nan Z. Da and Andrea Gadberry. In the area of literary translation, I have published works by Thomas Bernhard, Christophe Boltanski, Yves Bonnefoy, Friedrich Durrenmatt, Roger Grenier, Robert Musil, Christa Wolf, and others. I also publish occasional books of photography and photography criticism, such as W. Eugene Smith’s Dream Street and The Jazz Loft Project, Ashley Gilbertson’s Bedrooms of the Fallen, and Walter Benn Michaels’s The Beauty of a Social Problem. My own publications include writings for the Los Angeles Review of Books, Places Journal, and Design Observer, as well as the photobook 55x5. You can also find me on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and my personal website.
I am fortunate to work with assistant editor Randy Petilos, who acquires complementary books in medieval studies and poetry in translation.
Prospective authors are encouraged to consult our submission guidelines. We also provide an overview about publishing with Chicago here. (If you wish to offer freelance copyediting or indexing services, please contact our manuscript editing department at freelance_inquiries_books@uchicago.edu.)
