I acquire Chicago’s books—for both scholarly and general audiences—in sociology, education, and music, especially jazz and blues studies. I am particularly looking for books in the social sciences that challenge our thinking and point us in the right direction. 

If you are an academic looking to expand your book’s audience, look no further than the latest by James M. Lang, Write Like You Teach: Taking Your Classroom Skills to a Bigger Audience.

I welcome books on education broadly—from early childhood education to higher ed and beyond. Sharon Chubbuck and Cynthia Ellwood tell the remarkable story of how one American high school took on systemic racism with Beautiful Struggle. Sarah Miller reintroduces us to bullying in high school, but this time with social media, in The Tolerance Generation: Growing Up Online in the Anti-Bullying Era. And what happens when large urban school systems close their schools? Julia McWilliams and her coauthors answer that complicated question in Schools for Sale: Disinvestment, Dispossession, and School Building Reuse in Philadelphia. Finally, journey with Susan Engel across the country to see the best of what kindergartens have to offer our youngest learners in American Kindergarten: Dispatches from the First Year of School.

Our wide-ranging sociology list features books of theory, history, mixed methods, longitudinal studies, and more, but its heart belongs to ethnography, as exemplified in two new books on precarious urban living: Avelardo Valdez’s Homeboys Forever: The Lifetime Consequences of Gang Membership and Jooyoung Lee’s The Walking Wounded: Festering and Ricocheting Trauma After Gun Violence. In Break the System: Criminalized Black Mothers and the Reproductive Politics of Abolition, Susila Gurusami shows how the law deliberately criminalizes and punishes Black women. Want to know How to Win a Culture War? Lisa Stulberg will tell you in her impressive book on LGBTQ+ social change through pop culture. And raise a glass to Jennifer Jordan’s Beer Ghosts, an exploration of the women at the heart of the hops industry.

In music, Howard Reich champions both jazz and Chicago in the delightful The Majesty of Chicago Jazz. And Steven Rings delves into the actual music of Bob Dylan with What Did You Hear? The Music of Bob Dylan.

My colleague Mollie McFee also acquires many of our books in music.

Senior Editorial Associate Josephine Chaet ably assists me and is a close collaborator in all of these endeavors.

I studied English literature and music at Yale, then taught middle school for a few years before joining Chicago in 2000. Until 2019, I acquired our books in philosophy; that list is now sponsored by Kyle Wagner.

Prospective authors are encouraged to consult our submission guidelines. We also provide an overview about publishing with Chicago here.