Professor Elizabeth le Roux

Qualificatioins: BA (Hons) MIS (Publishing) PhD (Publishing) (University of Pretoria) Postgraduate Diploma in Translation (UNISA)

I coordinate and lecture in Publishing Studies, and conduct research in the fields of publishing history and book history. I am co-editor of Book History.

 

Consultation Hours:

Per Appointment

 

Modules offered:

PUB 110 and 120 - Introduction to Publishing

PUB 220 - Design and Production

PUB 310 - Electronic Publishing

PUB 722 and 723 - Publishing Management

PUB 729 - List-building and Rights

PUB 724 and 725 - Publishing Trends

 

OrcID / ResearchID / Researchgate:

orcid.org/0000-0002-4766-5822 

 

Research Interests:

History of the book and publishing history in South Africa and in Africa more broadly

Contemporary publishing studies especially scholarly publishing and popular genre fiction​​

 

Recent Publications:

Le Roux, EH, ‘Miriam Tlali and Ravan Press: Politics and Power in Literary Publishing during the Apartheid Period’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 44(3): 431–446. Free eprint available at https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/e3c35ac49W79v2WN2vH9/full

Le Roux, EH. ‘Concepts of reading in South African reading promotion campaigns’, Mousaion, 35(3) 2017: 1–17

Le Roux,  EH, A social history of the university presses in apartheid South Africa: Between complicity and resistance (1st ed.). Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 2016.

Naidu, S and Le Roux, EH. A Survey of South African Crime Fiction. Pietermaritzburg: UKZN Press, 2017. 

2015: le Roux EH, The early years of a Dutch publisher in South Africa: a case study of Van Schaik in Pretoria . Image and Text, 25 pp. 86 - 109

2015: le Roux EH,  Publishing South African scholarship in the global academic community . Notes and Records-The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science, 69 (3), pp. 301 - 320.

2015: Naidu S, le Roux EH, South African crime fiction: sleuthing the State post-1994 . African identities, 12 (3), pp. 283 - 294.

2013: E. le Roux, ‘Black Writers, White Publishers: A South African case study’, E-Rea, Fall.

2013: E. le Roux, ‘South African Crime and Detective Fiction in English: A publishing history and bibliography’, Current Writing.

2013: E. le Roux, ‘Compiled Hindsight? Publishers’ Archives in South Africa’, Restaurator, 34(1): 12–29. DOI: 10.1515/res-2013-0002.

2012: E. le Roux, ‘The accidental growth of book history: A literature review of print culture and book history studies in South Africa’, Mousaion, 30(1): 39–64.

2012: E. le Roux, ‘Book history in the African world: The state of the discipline, Book History, 15:  248–300. Winner of the best postgraduate essay, 2012.

2008: E. le Roux and F. Galloway, ‘Assessing the demand for scholarly publishing in South Africa’, Journal of Scholarly Publishing, 39(2), January: 109–126.

 

2015: le Roux EH,. b) Between the cathedral and the market: a study of Wits University Press.In C. Davis & D. Johnson (eds.), New Directions in Book History: The Book in Africa: Critical Debates (pp. 176-197). Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan. 978-1-137-40161-8.

2014: le Roux EH, ‘Unique perspectives on South Africa’: imagining South Africa through the Homebru book marketing campaign, 2002–2012 . Critical Arts-South-North Cultural and Media Studies, 28 (5), pp. 809 - 827.

2014: le Roux EH, Buitendach SA, The production and reception of Deon Meyer’s works: an evaluation of the factors contributing to bestseller status . Scrutiny2 (Unisa English Studies), 19 (1), pp. 18 - 34.

2014: Gaigher SSE, le Roux EH, Bothma TJD, The predictive value of disruptive technology theory for digital publishing in the traditional publishing environment: a South African case study. JOURNAL OF SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING, 45 (3), April: pp. 261 - 288.

2012: E. le Roux, ‘The university as publisher: Towards a history of South African university presses’, in Andrew van der Vlies (ed.). Print, Text and Book Cultures in South Africa. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.

2012: E. le Roux, ‘Does the North read the South? The case of South African scholarly publishers’, in Bethan Benwell, James Procter and Gemma Robinson (eds), Postcolonial Audiences: Readers, Viewers and Reception. Oxford: Routledge, pp. 73–85.

2010: E. le Roux, ‘The ‘politics’ and practice of peer review in South Africa’, in S. Ngobeni (ed.), Scholarly Publishing in Africa: Opportunities and Impediments. Pretoria: Africa Institute of South Africa, pp. 315–326.​

 

Publishing industry surveys:

I coordinate the team working on the annual Book publishing Industry Surveys, for the Publishers Association of South Africa (PASA).

 

Teamwork and collaboration with others:

• Research partnership on ‘Print, Publishing and Cultural Production in South Africa, 1948-2012’ with Dr Caroline Davis, Oxford Brookes University, UK, 2012–13 and 2014–16

• Research project on ‘Research Activity within the Field of Publishing Studies’, with Dr Alison Baverstock, Kingston University, UK, 2013–14

• Organiser / convenor of annual Book History seminars at the University of Pretoria

 

Membership in national and international bodies:

• Member, Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP)

• Member, English Academy of Southern Africa

• Member, informal Book History Study Group, South Africa

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​​Research recognition:

• Fellow of the Tuks Young Research Leaders Programme and Science Africa
• Winner of the Book History graduate student essay prize, 2012
• Winner of the NB Publishers’ Prize for post-graduate research, 2007, for MIS dissertation
• Top post-graduate research student of the Department of Information Science, 2007
• Dorieh Elahi Prize for excellence in English studies, 1995