So that’s where theory’s got to — it’s living above the shop.

Metaphorically, the phrase 'living above the shop' carries several layered meanings:

1. A blurring of personal and professional life

2. Deep embeddedness in one’s practice

3. Precarity and hustle

4. Para-academic or DIY cultural spaces

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Last night, I was part of the audience for an event on the theme of ALTEREGOISM, asking: 'What are the consequences of "weirdness" entering the mainstream? How can the fluidity of identity online be used to increase play, connection, and experimentation rather than induce anxiety?'

Organised by the everyone is a girl collective in collaboration with APEX zine, it featured an exhibition of artwork, a durational performance, an open mic jam session and music, and began with a panel discussion featuring 'post-internet stars' Shumon Basar, Nella Piatek, Marisa Müsing, Zaiba Jabbar and Bailey Davis.

Not so long ago, a panel such as this - moderated by everyone is a girl's Ester Freider and Andrea Evgenieva from APEX, whose reference points, judging from the copy I picked up, include Timothy Morton, Mark Fisher, Sherry Turkle, Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze and Guy Debord — would have taken the form of a cultural theory or cultural studies seminar. It’d most likely have been found in a university setting — or, back in the 80s and 90s, an arts venue such as the ICA perhaps.

But ALTEREGOISM didn’t happen in an established, formal institution. It took place in a packed room above a vintage clothes shop called Bread & Butter in Shoreditch (it had to be East London!).

Nor did it involve just theory: it also brought together art, music, fashion, new media and performance. And it wasn’t only academics either but artists, designers, curators, writers, musicians, DJs, film-makers, publishers …

These are people who may be doing 'serious' research but — having grown up with social media — feel no need to wait until they’ve (nearly) got PhDs to start sharing their work and ideas. And when they do publish, it’s not (just) in academic spaces such as peer-reviewed journals. They’re used to publishing themselves — so they're creating their own journals, magazines, newsletters, podcasts, Tumblr communities, collectives and multi-media live events.

Of course, we shouldn’t get carried away about all this activity. It's not entirely new. There’s a long history of scholars and para-academics operating in 'third spaces' between the university and corporate mainstream, including small artists' bookshops, independent cafés and bars, and the back rooms of pubs. Nor should we get swept up by the romance of it all. A lot of this energy is about finding – or forging – a means for some kind of authentic personal expression of ‘who I really am’ in a cultural economy that increasingly refuses to offer secure, liveable wages for work that's interesting and fulfilling, let alone critical and creative. Consequently, it's not an arena free of ‘artrepreneurs’ either: people acting as entrepeneurs of themselves, their own lives and ideas. Nevertheless, events like this create a collective space to gather, to experiment, to have fun and play together — and so can be seen as a means of pushing back against the individualism and ‘main character energy’ that saturates much of cultural life, online and off.

At this point, it's tempting to try to come up with a spreadable phrase like 'universities are sooo over'. But that would be inaccurate. It'd also be unfair. Much of this would be impossible without higher education. Many of those involved are doing or have done MAs and PhDs as well as undergraduate degrees. If they're not currently employed in HE in some part- or full-time capacity, then they’re very much engaging with — and building on — the work academics continue to produce from within the university.

Still, for what are obvious reasons — job cuts, precarity, casualisation, managerialism, excessive workloads, the general shift away from theory to more conservative intellectual formations and frameworks — university events today often feel a lot less alive than what’s happening here above the shop.

Me and Bobby D

Yeah, right!

Apparently, Pirate Philosophy was an influence on Bob Dylan. Specifically, his track ‘Key West (Philosopher Pirate)’ from Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020), where the Nobel Laureate gives himself yet another moniker to set alongside all the rest: that of Pirate Philosopher.

As Steven Thwaits puts it: ‘Dylan’s borrowings from academics are … comedic skits of both admiration and mockery. He takes their work, which is often based in his work, creates something new, and sends it back.’

Never written on Dylan, so not sure how much it applies in this (very, very hard to believe) case. Still, can’t wait to see what he does with Masked Media.

See Steven Thwaits, ‘Bob Dylan’s Pirate Philosophy’, Substack, June 22, 2024, https://sjthwaits.substack.com/p/bob-d

What Do We Not Think About When We Think About Money?

The following is a version of a post to the Radical Open Access mailing list written in response to the Radical Open Access III: From Openness to Social Justice Activism conference. Organised by the Radical Open Access Collective, the conference was held at Cambridge University Library and online on 10-11 April, 2025.

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Just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone involved in making the third Radical Open Access conference last week such a great success. It was fantastic hearing about everyone's projects. And the range of topics was inspiring: from the thoughtful provocations on infrastructural politics and the messy labour of maintenance (including those relating to recent developments with PubPub), to the generous comments on collaboration, community and collective care. I came away with a renewed sense of hope and possibility, and you can't ask for much more than that.

Thinking about it over the weekend, it has all left me with a question I'd like to raise by way of continuing the discussion with both those who were able to attend the conference and those who weren't.

It's a question about money.

I often worry about money, although not in the way one might imagine. I mean, when it comes to open access publishing projects, financial sustainability matters - of course it does. But, I wonder, to what extent has the toxic, 'neoliberal', 'managerialist' university shaped even us to focus on the money, funding and funding models, the business side of things, paid/free/volunteer/service/recognised & rewarded labour? Even how radical OA can capitalise on the current financial crisis of the university (at least in the UK and US)?

In common with many 21st century academics, I've been encouraged, over recent years especially, to think about money a lot and to ask questions such as: have I generated enough of it to keep my job? To keep the jobs of others? To do the things we really want to do (like organise conferences such as Radical OA III, or have the time to run OA journals and presses)? The toxic university has been very effective in making its problems our problems in that respect.

And this is only going to get worse as we move further into the current 'masks-off' era, where many employers have abandoned the pretense of making work attractive with free parking, nice 'creative' open-plan spaces, crayon-colored furnishings, coffee shops, mindfulness sessions, horizontal-ish management structures and an expressed concern for work-life balance. Instead, what we're seeing is a return to an overt emphasis on top-down micromanagement, hypersurveillance, monitoring and control - only now with the added bonus of AI that can check emails. (Hello, good you could join us!)

So, to repeat, money is extremely important, yes, I appreciate that. But what gets lost when it becomes one of the main lenses through which we view radical open access, including its relation to social justice activism? (Not the only one, but one of the main ones.)

I guess this is a variation on Naomi Klein's question: 'What aren’t we building when we are building our brands?' What might we not be thinking about when so many of us are so focused on thinking about how to financially sustain our OA projects?

Take social justice. Do we need to consider whether, these days, it's mainly activists and those in some way connected to institutions such as universities, museums and art galleries who strongly and overtly align themselves with social justice activism? In the US and the UK, many interpret Kamala Harris’s 2024 defeat by Trump as signalling the close of the era shaped by movements like Occupy, #MeToo, Black Lives Matter and the rise of DEI initiatives. Witness articles such as this one from just yesterday, arguing that an interest in social injustice and activism shows galleries like Tate Modern to be out of touch and is the reason why their visitor numbers are down. From this perspective, the dominant political divide is no longer so much left vs right, but insider vs outsider, between those who are part of the liberal establishment and those who are not.

If so, where does this leave us in the Radical Open Access Collective?

I appreciate we ourselves might argue in turn that the deeper issue remains the concentrated wealth and power of the 1% - financial institutions, multinationals (including academic publishers), Big Tech, BigAI, Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos et al; and that the 'liberal elite' is just being used as a diversionary tactic so populist politicians and/or neoliberals can protect the rich and powerful while still presenting themselves as being on the side of 'ordinary' people.

Nevertheless, the question stands, given that in the above 'liberal establishment' insider v outsider framing that is now dominant in numerous places around the world, many of us - as highly educated professionals involved in publishing works that are often of specialist, minority interest - are no longer seen as necessarily being on the side of the angels, simply because we're on the left: How do we respond? How can we respond?

Of course, I understand all this is probably raising issues far larger than anything we can realistically resolve in terms of radical open access. Still, I'd be interested to learn what people think.

Thanks again to all those involved for such an intellectually stimulating and fruitful event.

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Publishing Activism Within/Without a Toxic University, an experimental booklet bringing together a series of short reflections from members of the Radical Open Access Collective on publishing activism and its relationship to the neoliberal university, and co-published by Post Office Press (POP) and Open Humanities Press to accompany the Radical Open Access III conference, is available here: https://works.hcommons.org/records/jg2as-46424

Thinking with AI: new open access book

Announcing the latest title in Open Humanities Press's Technographies series:

Thinking with AI, edited by Hannes Bajohr:

https://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/thinking-with-ai/

This edited volume explores a novel approach to the intersection of artificial intelligence and the humanities, proposing that instead of merely writing about AI, scholars should think with AI. Rather than treating AI as an external subject of study, the essays explore how concepts from artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science can provide ways to rethink core humanistic questions of meaning, representation, and culture.

Critical AI Studies typically focuses on AI’s societal implications—its role in surveillance, exclusion, and global capitalism. This volume extends that critique, but also explores how AI brings our already existing understanding of aesthetics, language, history, and knowledge into relief and stands in an often productive conflict with them. AI’s pattern recognition and generative capabilities, for example, provokes new ways to grasp aesthetic unity, reimagine language as an autonomous system, and reconsider the boundaries between text and image.

The essays illustrate how AI can be used as a productive metaphor and intellectual tool for the humanities. From formalizing concepts like Stimmung and vibe to challenging traditional distinctions between writing and thought or between history and data, the book shows how AI can be not just an object of study but a conceptual catalyst that ignites unexpected connections to long-standing humanistic concerns. By engaging AI in this way, scholars can not only critique it but also expand the horizons of their own fields.

With essays by Peli Grietzer, Leif Weatherby, Mercedes Bunz, Hannes Bajohr, Fabian Offert, Lev Manovich, Babette Babich, Markus Krajewski, Orit Halpern, Christina Vagt and Audrey Borowski.

The Rest Is Substack: Mehdi Hasan, Zeteo and the Parallel Establishment

I recently watched a February 2025 interview on the BBC’s Media Show with Mehdi Hasan, the journalist behind Zeteo. He’s using paid subscriptions to Substack to build a left-leaning media company (complete with branded hoodies) as an alternative to legacy outlets such as the BBC. Naomi Klein, Owen Jones and Cynthia Nixon are already involved in delivering content.

I'm not uncritical of Substack, nor unaware of how it works. Still, at first glance, I could see the appeal. OK, Zeteo is largely comment and opinion-driven - because, as we know, these platforms require a constant stream of (ideally clippable) content to keep engagement high. And it’s much easier to come up with that on a regular basis if you're offering 'hot takes'. Yes, Gary Lineker's The Rest Is ... podcast empire, we're looking at you. And, indeed, a lot of the material on Zeteo does come across as filmed podcasts and Zoom calls. Podcasts and Zoom calls with high production values maybe, but podcasts and Zoom calls nonetheless.

However, I can understand why liberal-left journalists might be drawn to Substack, and to Zeteo - especially given what's going on at the likes of the BBC, Washington Post and Guardian right now. (The Observer’s John Naughton can’t go a week without recommending something from a Substack newsletter in his Networker tech column - usually by a man. What's that about?) So I got intrigued.

But before even more of us rush out to join Substack, let me say that lasted all of about five minutes.

Then I came across this piece from a few days ago on America 2.0, which delves deeper into the politics of Substack. It highlights how the platform isn’t just a neutral tool for independent writing and journalism - it’s also a key pillar of what Marc Andressen, Balaji Srinivasan and other advocates of the 'Network State' call the 'parallel establishment'.

At the inaugural Network State conference in Amsterdam in October 2023, Srinivasan laid out a vision in which Silicon Valley elites replace existing legacy institutions with their own alternatives:

So for example, at the top there's San Francisco and we're replacing San Francisco with things outside it like Cul-de-Sac in Arizona and Prospera in South America and Cabin, which is in Texas, but also around the world ....

We're gonna take out Harvard, and we have parallel education that's Replit, that Synthesis ... but it's also AI tutoring, the Thiel Fellowship, Emergent Ventures ....

We replace media with parallel media. It’s Twitter and X, it’s Substack. ... This concept of the parallel establishment, if you take up all of these new institutional replacements ... that’s a parallel establishment.

The goal? Pretty much what we're seeing unfold in the US right now. Disrupt and dismantle democratic societies and their institutions - governments, government departments, federal agencies, universities, the courts, the press, even cities - and replace them with decentralized, corporate-backed alternatives that function as competing fiefdoms. Seen in this context, Substack isn’t just an outlet for independent writing and journalism; it’s part of a broader push to erode traditional public institutions in favor of privatized, libertarian tech enclaves.

So, just in case anyone is tempted, while Substack and Zeteo may seem like promising alternatives to legacy media, you know... best keep in mind how they fit into the bigger picture.