Monday, February 20, 2012

PARTY! Or is It a Panel on Para-Academic Publishing, or BOTH?

by EILEEN JOY

I'm truly excited [am I ever not excited? should I be less excited sometimes? what's wrong with me?] to announce that on TUESDAY, APRIL 17th, starting at 7:00 pm, punctum books and The Public School New York will be co-hosting in Brooklyn, at Observatory, a panel discussion on para-academic publishing and also a "show your wares" party. The participants will comprise representatives from punctum books [me and Nicola Masciandaro], the totally rad new alt-lit-cult journal continent. [Paul Boshears], Sequence Press [Katherine Pickard and Miguel Abreu], Cabinet Magazine [Sina Najafi], Whiskey & Fox + PELT [Daniel Remein], and Peanut Books [Valerie Vogrin]. Here is how we are describing the para-academic and what we're envisioning for the event [term coined by Nicola, I might add]:
The term ‘para-academic’ captures the multivalent sense of something that fulfills and/or frustrates the academic from a position of intimate exteriority. Para-academia is that which is  beside academia, a place whose logic encompasses many reasons and no reason at all (para-, “alongside, beyond, altered, contrary,” from Greek  para-, “beside, near, from, against, contrary to,” cognate with Sanskrit  para “beyond”). The para is the domain of: shadow, paradigm, daemon, parasite, supplement, amateur, elite. The para-academic embodies an unofficial excess or extension of the academic that helps, threatens, supports, mocks (par-ody), perfects and/or calls it into question simply by existing next to it. Following a series of classes organized through The Public School New York on the subject of “Para-Academia and Theory Fiction,” this event brings together a group of editors whose work in publishing falls within the para-academic, in one sense or another. Presenters will address the practice and theory of para-academic publishing, its relation to various areas of life (art, pedagogy, politics), and present some of their recent titles. [Go HERE for TPSNY's web-page on the event, where you can also sign up to attend.]
Pursuant to this forthcoming "springtime in New York!" event, I would also like to share with everyone that we have some exciting titles forthcoming and already published from punctum books's Dead Letter Office, Glossator Special Editions, and Oliphaunt imprints, and you can see more about that HERE.

4 comments:

i said...

Oh fine. Fine, Eileen. I suppose you don't at all think this is cruel of you.

It's not enough that I'm already spending my days dreaming of flying to New York, eating raw oysters with champagne (for breakfast), and attacking the underground malls of Flushing for lunch, with sushi, martinis, and cigars for dinner... now you have to give me one more thing to regret missing?

Eileen Joy said...

i: I couldn't have said it better myself!

Jeffrey Cohen said...

Para-academic: congratulations to Nicola for coining the perfect word.

Michael Sarabia said...

I find this very interesting as I consider what I'm going to do after the PhD should no decent job in academia come along. I figured one consolation would be some kind of continued participation in the exciting and creative thinking that goes on in these circles. To what extent can the 'para' include PhDs and former grad students who could not find a permanent position in academia?