Continuing the look back over the books published by Open Humanities
Press in 2025...
May saw the publication in Open Humanities Press' Combinatorial Books:
Gathering Flowers series, which is edited by Janneke Adema, Simon Bowie,
Gary Hall and Rebekka Kiesewetter, of:
/Publishing Activism within/without a Toxic University/
edited by the Radical Open Access Collective
https://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/publishing-activism-within-without-a-toxic-university/
Co-published by Post Office Press (POP)
(https://hcommons.org/members/pop/) and Open Humanities Press, this
experimental booklet brings together reflections from Radical Open
Access (https://radicaloa.postdigitalcultures.org/) members on
publishing activism and its relationship to the neoliberal university.
Created as a side project to the Radical Open Access III: From Openness
to Social Justice Activism conference
(https://radicaloa.postdigitalcultures.org/conferences/radicaloa3/), it
explores how publishing can respond to the ongoing crisis in higher
education. The authors ask: How can we – as scholars, publishers and
activists – engage with a university in perpetual crisis? How can we
practice publishing activism within/without a toxic institution?
Inspired by the cadavre exquis technique of the Surrealists, the booklet
adapts and (ab)uses this method to foster collaborative, responsive
writing. It shows how multiple, potentially conflicting voices can
coalesce around a shared crisis and move activist strategies forward in
new ways.
It draws from three key ROAC titles published under open licenses: The
Undercommons (Minor Compositions: https://www.minorcompositions.info/),
Luescher, Klemenčič, and Jowi’s Student Politics in Africa (African
Minds:
https://www.africanminds.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/9781928331223_txt.pdf),
and Conio’s (ed.) Occupy: A People Yet to Come (Open Humanities Press:
https://openhumanitiespress.org/books/download/Conio_2015_Occupy-A-People-Yet-To-Come.pdf).
These works, reflecting on protest, activism and student politics,
served as a starting point for examining higher education through the
lens of social justice publishing activism. The first text in the
booklet directly responds to these books, initiating a chain of
responses, each written within ten days. Contributors extended the
preceding response, engaging with the booklet’s theme and, optionally,
the ROAC back-catalogue. Designed by Alex Trencianska, Mia Dawson, and
Lisha Wang, the booklet was 'unfolded' during the 3rd Radical Open
Access Conference.
Editor Bio
Formed in 2015, the Radical Open Access Collective is a community of
scholar-led, not-for-profit presses, journals and other open access
projects. Now consisting of more than 80 members, we promote a
progressive vision for open publishing in the humanities and social
sciences. What we have in common is an understanding of open access as
being characterised by a spirit of ongoing creative experimentation. We
also share a willingness to subject some of our most established
scholarly communication practices to creative critique, together with
the institutions that sustain them (the university, the library, the
publishing house, and so on). The collective thus offers a radical
‘alternative’ to the conservative versions of open access that are
currently being put forward by commercially-oriented presses, funders,
and policy makers.
Like all Open Humanities Press titles, /Publishing Activism
within/without a Toxic University/ is available open access (and can be
downloaded for free):
https://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/publishing-activism-within-without-a-toxic-university/
--
Gary Hall
Professor of Media
Centre for Postdigital Cultures, Coventry University
Director of Open Humanities Press:http://www.openhumanitiespress.org
Blog:http://garyhall.squarespace.com/journal/
Latest:
Book: Masked Media: What It Means to Be Human in the Age of Artificial Creative
Intelligence:http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/masked-media/
Journal issue: Ecologies of Dissemination issue of PARSE Journal #21 - Summer
2025, edited by Eva Weinmayr and Femke
Snelting:https://parsejournal.com/journal/#ecologies-of-dissemination. (I'm one
of the contributors to this experimental issue which emphasizes collective over
individual authorship.)
Video: 'Liquidate AI Art', Computer Arts
Society:https://www.bcs.org/events-calendar/2025/october/webinar-liquidate-ai-art
Talk: 'The Independent Intellectual vs Posting Zero and the Dead
Internet':http://garyhall.squarespace.com/journal/2025/12/2/the-independent-intellectual-vs-posting-zero-and-the-dead-in.html
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