Bad Subjects

Infobox Magazine
title = Bad Subjects


image_size = 250px
image_caption =
editor =
editor_title = Executive Editors
frequency = Weekly
circulation = 4,000,000 per year
category = News magazine
company =
publisher =
firstdate = 1992
country = USA
language = English
website = [http://bad.eserver.org/ bad.eserver.org]
issn = 1468-2656

Bad Subjects (more formally Bad Subjects: Political Education For Everyday Life and sometimes The Bad Subjects Collective) is a research collaborative that operate generally out of California, United States under the name "Bad Subjects" as part of the open access electronic publishing cooperative EServer.org. Together, the collaborative creates and publishes an online zine of cultural and political criticism to promote critical thinking and publiceducation about the political implications of everyday life. Originally founded at UC Berkeley in September 1992 as a collection of leftist critiques of popular culture written by college students [Rossney, Robert. (March 17, 1994) "Online archivists share the wealth." Section: Daily Datebook; Page D7.] and published through a Gopher protocol site, [Labovitz, John. (Octiber 9, 1995) John Labovitz's e-zine-list. " [http://www.totse.com/en/ego/on_line_zines/ezinelst.html Very good list of 'Zines available on the internet.] " Obtained June 6, 2007. (noting that old access sites included: (i) Gopher: uclink.berkeley.edu (port 52673); (ii) FTP: english-server.hss.cmu.edu: /English Server/Journals/Bad Subjects/; and (iii) WWW: http://english-server.hss.cmu.edu/BS/Bad.html.)] Bad Subjects may be the longest continuously-running publication on the internet.Jester, Barbara. (December 9, 1997) New York University Office of Public Affairs. " [http://www.nyu.edu/publicaffairs/newsreleases/b_Ba.shtml Bad Subjects: Political Education For Everyday Life, New Book Out From NYU Press.] " Obtained June 6, 2007.]

History

The Berkeley-based cultural journal Bad Subjects was started at UC Berkeley in September 1992 by founding editor Annalee Newitz [Connelly, Phoebe. (September 8, 2006) Chicago Reader "So That's Why Frankenstein Is Green." Volume 35; Issue 50; Page A32.] and Charlie Bertsch [Hanes, Jake. (November 20, 2006) U-WIRE - U. Arizona. "U. Arizona: Wikipedia not your typical resource."] . By 1996, Bad Subjects was both an on-line and hard-copy academic publication. [McMillen, Liz. (April 19, 1996) The Chronicle of Higher Education. "A self-consciously renegade 'zine': Berkeley graduate students hope their iconoclastic journal will help invigorate the left." Volume 42; Issue 32; Page A14.]

In 1998, Bad Subjects was identified as of the most celebrated cultural studies journals on the Internet. [Annett, Timothy. (July 12, 1998) St. Petersburg Times. "Cyberia." Section: Perspective; Page 4D. (also giving the then-website as http://english-www.hss.cmu.edu/bs/ )] Also in this same year, Bad Subjects founded a small educational nonprofit corporation, to promote the progressive use of new media and print publications. The group has co-authored two books, entitled [http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=2-0814757936-1 Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life] and [http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=62-0745321798-0 Collective Action: A Bad Subjects Anthology] .

In 2001, the webzine's popularity had grown to where it was now seen as the West Coast's answer to the Illinois based journal "The Baffler". [Kipen, David. (November 17, 2001) San Francisco Chronicle "In praise of small presses fund-raiser in Oakland honors alternative publishers." Section: Daily Datebook; Page D2.]

Current operations

The collective publishes 4-6 issues per year and also features regular editorials and reviews of a wide range of media. The site provides fifteen years of back content for free online and no longer even produces a print edition. [Lewis-Kraus, Gideon. (May 1, 2007) Harper's Magazine. "A world in three aisles." Volume 314; Issue 1884; Page 47.]

Bad Subjects' stated goal is to revitalize what it terms "a progressive politics in retreat." The group claims to challenge political dogma by encouraging readers to think about the political dimension to all aspects of everyday life and seeks to broaden the audience for leftist and progressive writing, through a commitment to accessibility and contemporary relevance.

References

ee also

*The Baffler

External links

* [http://bad.eserver.org/ Bad Subjects website]
* [http://www.nyupress.org/books/Bad_Subjects-products_id-1305.html Bad Subjects Anthology (NYU Press, 1998)]
* [http://www.akpress.org/2004/items/collectiveactionbadsubjectsanthology Collective Action: A Bad Subjects Anthology (Pluto Press, 2004)]
* [http://www.ojr.org/ojr/blog/Sites/898/ Article About Bad Subjects in the Online Journalism Review (2005)]
* [http://bad.eserver.org/faq/what_is_bad_subjects.html What Is Bad Subjects]