Reading to find comrades

In their piece “Publishing to Find Comrades: Constructions of Temporality and Solidarity in Autonomous Print Cultures”, Stevphen Shukaitis and Joanna Figiel write:

It is precisely not that one publishes to propagate and spread an already conceived idea; this is not a publishing of revelation, of bringing consciousness to an already imagined fixed audience. Rather, Breton is describing something that might be called a publishing of resonance. It is not a publishing practice that is necessarily intent on trying to convince anyone of anything, but rather is working towards establishing conditions for the co-production of meaning. This is a publishing that takes the production of publics, or more accurately what Michael Warner calls counterpublics, as the core of what it does and is.4 Thus, publishing is not something that occurs at the end of a process of thought, a bringing forth of artistic and intellectual labor, but rather establishes a social process where this may further develop and unfold.

The Radical Reading Room is an attempt to create a liberatory space for silent collisions & collaborations, a counterpublic, a place for reading to find comrades. Whether that is through finding comrades in the authors that have penned the books on our shelves, or the other readers who find themselves compelled to this space and vision.

We hope that it serves you well. Please tell us what this space means for you.