[spectre] Publishing Activism within/without a Toxic University: open access booklet

[Gary Hall]

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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