I've been reading this guy's masters thesis on punk zines and how they function as organizing tools and a means of resistance, and it's fascinating. His name is Jason Kucsma, the thesis is titled Resist and Exist: Punk Zines and the Communication of Cultural and Political Resistance in America, and it's the second thesis in something called the People's Papers Project vol. 1 that I got at a booksale last week. It's all about the history of the underground press and its relationship to political dissent, and how zines frequently address (in different, less formal ways) issues such as antiracism that are also being discussed in more "respectable" venues. He recommends a book by Stephen Duncombe called Notes from Underground that I'd really like to find and read. It's got me all riled up about the radical potential of self-publishing. Here's a nice quote:
"...The world of underground publishing is primarily anti-establishment. Whether the messages of certain publications are overtly radical or not, the act of publishing your thoughts and distributing them for people to read is an affront to corporate-controlled mainstream media that privileges passive consumption of news, entertainment, and politics."
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