Notes from Underground

A timely new critical study…throws some light on the current state of zines and what’s at stake. Duncombe, a professor of American Studies and a zine-maker himself, locates zines within a wider bohemian tradition, and maps out both the potential and the limits of their cultural radicalism. -The AtlanticIt was punk rock that gave us the current zine explosion, with its emphasis on authenticity, sneering disdain for slickness and consumerism, and determination to forge a community based on these principles…clever and funny…we’ll always need the malcontents to show us creative ways to flip the bird to Massa. -High TimesReaders are introduced to a remarkably diverse world of zines and their publishers, whose interests run the gamut: crusading for anarchy in our time, or for the revival of the eight-track tape…but for all of these subjects, silly or serious, Dr. Duncombe argues that zines represent a model of participatory cultural production. -Chronicles of Higher Education

Stephen Duncombe is an associate professor at New York University’s Gallatin School in the department of Media, Culture and Communications and is a lifelong political activist. He is the author and editor of six books including Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy, Notes From Underground: Zines and the Politics of Underground Culture, The Bobbed Haired Bandit: Crime and Celebrity in 1920s New York, Cultural Resistance Reader, White Riot: Punk Rock and the Politics of Race, and (Open) Utopia. He lives in New York City.