Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture (The Haymarket Series) - Hardcover
Slug & Lettuce, Pathetic Life, I Hate Brenda, Dishwasher, Punk and Destroy, Sweet Jesus, Scrambled Eggs, Maximunrocknroll—these are among the thousands of publications which circulate in a subterranean world rarely illuminated by the searchlights of mainstream media commentary. In this multifarious underground, Pynchonesque misfits rant and rave, fans eulogize, hobbyists obsess. Together they form a low-tech publishing network of extraordinary richness and variety. Welcome to the realm of zines.
In this, the first comprehensive study of zine publishing, Stephen Duncombe describes their origins in early-twentieth-century science fiction cults, their more proximate roots in 60s counter-culture and their rapid proliferation in the wake of punk rock. While Notes from Underground pays full due to the political importance of zines as a vital web of popular culture, it also notes the shortcomings of their utopian and escapist outlook in achieving fundamental social change. Duncombe’s book raises the larger questionof whether it is possible to rebel culturally within a consumer society that eats up cultural rebellion.
Packed with extracts and illustrations from a wide array of publications, past and present, Notes from Underground is the first book to explore the full range of zine culture and provides a definitive portrait of the contemporary underground in all its splendor and misery.
In this, the first comprehensive study of zine publishing, Stephen Duncombe describes their origins in early-twentieth-century science fiction cults, their more proximate roots in 60s counter-culture and their rapid proliferation in the wake of punk rock. While Notes from Underground pays full due to the political importance of zines as a vital web of popular culture, it also notes the shortcomings of their utopian and escapist outlook in achieving fundamental social change. Duncombe’s book raises the larger questionof whether it is possible to rebel culturally within a consumer society that eats up cultural rebellion.
Packed with extracts and illustrations from a wide array of publications, past and present, Notes from Underground is the first book to explore the full range of zine culture and provides a definitive portrait of the contemporary underground in all its splendor and misery.
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About the Author:
Stephen Duncombe, an Associate Professor at the Gallatin School of New York University, is the author of Dream and Notes from Underground, editor of the Cultural Resistance Reader, and coeditor (with Maxwell Tremblay) of White Riot.
Review:
“Notes from Underground is an impressive book, illuminating the possibilities and limits of democratic communication in a world where colossal media trusts make small-scale media activity both difficult and invisible. In its subject matter and its original conception, Duncombe’s pioneering study engages some of the elemental issues of our time.”—Stuart Ewen
“At long last, somebody’s got it right. Duncombe does the essential work of cultural analysis that neither the national weeklies with their demographic fantasies, nor the czars of cultural studies with their determination to locate dissent in daytime television, can never bring themselves to perform.”—Tom Frank, The Baffler
“At long last, somebody’s got it right. Duncombe does the essential work of cultural analysis that neither the national weeklies with their demographic fantasies, nor the czars of cultural studies with their determination to locate dissent in daytime television, can never bring themselves to perform.”—Tom Frank, The Baffler
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- PublisherVerso
- Publication date1997
- ISBN 10 1859848273
- ISBN 13 9781859848272
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages240
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Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture
Published by
Verso Books
(1997)
ISBN 10: 1859848273
ISBN 13: 9781859848272
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Hardcover
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Book Description Condition: Brand New. b41557 (illustrator). This is a comprehensive study of zine publishing. The book describes their origins in early-20th-century science fiction cults, their more proximate roots in 1960s counter-culture and their rapid proliferation in the wake of punk rock. It also provides a portrait of the contemporary underground. Seller Inventory # 300
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