3. Kate:
On the one hand, we do get a historicization of the federation of
working class writers and some wonderful examples of the writing
produced by federation groups. On the other, I kept feeling like
there were so many other important aspects to the project that I
wanted more information about. This made me reflect on my
expectations as an academic reader—that I expect a particular
genre to do particular things. What are some of the tensions that
happen when writers break genre expectations? Breaking genre
can be generative and exciting but there are also consequences. In
regards to this text, what is gained and what is loss in the choices
made in creating the text?
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
4. Rachel:
I find the examples of work that are laid out within this text
interesting as compared to the text of a zine. While both texts
push against the status quo with awareness, does one do it more
effectively than the other? In many ways, it seems like the
literature throughout this text is very much mimicking that which
it wants to challenge, it that it stays within genera that is valued in
the world of publishing, and does not push into the vast array of
possibility that zines do. But then again, if these community
published texts are more widely read, are they more effective?
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
6. “We remain locally organised and federated because
this seems one way of continuing to work together and
share and develop skills, rather than to pass work over
to others who will edit, illustrate, package and market it
in a way that the writer cannot control”
- 19
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
7. Writing does have a very particular magic to it. The idea
that you can, with very little equipment, set down
something which only you have made, and which can
give meaning to who you are and what has happened to
you; and the idea that this can be reproduced in
thousands of copies and come back to you in a form
which can help you recognise yourself in a new way, be
recognised by others as you wish to be recognised, and
enable you to live without the normal constraints of
waged work, i.e. make money... all that is, it must be
admitted, a bit magic!
- 48
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
9. It has taken labour and thought to move away from the
forms of work of the publishing industry - one of
whose characteristics is the division of labour to the
point where responsibility for the shaping of the whole
work gets removed from the writer, dispersed and lost.
- 51
(See also 52)
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
10. What are the technological factors in this equation? How do they
collude/collide with aspects of rhetorical agency?
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
11. When the community press started in the late 1960’s it
did so very much on the basis of ‘we must control the
means of production ourselves.’ The new offset litho
technology has made it possible for many people to
learn basic printing and plate-making on small A4 and
A3 machines. Similarly, access to an electric typewriter
with a carbon ribbon makes elementary typesetting
easy.
- 61
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
12. LaToya:
If this local, process- and cultural production-oriented model of
publishing represents a more democratic process, and it is
achieved by creating more alternatives to dominant modes, what
are the rhetorical implications of such action? In other words, if we
are not “arguing against the current system,” as we are accustomed
to, in what ways can we use rhetoric [and technologies] to create
more alternatives and spaces that challenge Literature and the
power/ authority that comes along with it?
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
13. Rachel:
What does it mean for community publishing to be utilizing a
technological system that they are also pushing against? Is this an
ethical issue?
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
14. Kate:
How does the Federation of Working Writers act or not act as an
imagined community? What is the value of in thinking about these
writers as an imagined community?
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
15. Kate:
[Duncombe] says he was a punk, he lived in the scene, and
participated in zine subculture. Further, Duncombe is definitely
trying to write in as non-academicy and a zine-respecting way as
possible. In contrast, The Republic of Letters feels slightly more
academic and theoretical at times, but nonetheless seems to me
more like an authentic work of praxis. Did anyone else feel like
this? Does this authenticity matter when we are talking about the
democratic tendencies of communities of writers? Or, does the
sense of authenticity stem more from the distinctions between
zine subculture versus working class culture?
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
