Why self-publish under fascism? A reading group

Saturday 21 November , 2 - 5 PM

This session will host a collective reading on self-publishing as a tool in increasingly hostile informational landscapes, where control over platforms, narratives, and speech is intensifying in the UK and around the world.

Together we will think about why we publish now, and what self-publishing opens up beyond digital infrastructures, exploring the assumptions about reach and visibility produced by social media platform economies. Alongside this, we will consider community alternatives and begin to map ways of printing with and for our communities. What forms of publishing become possible when we shift our infrastructures? How might these be useful as we organise now and in the future? 

The session takes the form of a reading and discussion space, drawing on Public Collector’s archive of radical texts on the infrastructures of self-publishing:

• Why self-publish under fascism? by Marc Fischer (Public Collectors, 2022)

• How to Prepare Yourself for the Collapse of the Industrial Publishing System by Eric Schierloh (Public Collectors, 2022)

• ISBN? No Thanks and Other Notes Before Starting a Publishing House by Barba de Abejas (Public Collectors, 2023)

Invited guest contributors to be confirmed.