Punkademics, edited by Zack Furness

Zack Furness (ed). (2012). Punkademics. Brooklyn, NY: Minor Compositions.

p7. " And despite my initial anxieties over the prospects of compromising my then-entrenched punk ethics by turning into a stuffy academic, I actually ended up spending more time playing in bands and participating in various aspects of DIY punk culture as a graduate student and eventual professor than I did when I was younger."

p10. "At their best, the combinations of people, places, cultural practices, social relationships, art and ideas that co-constitute punk are rife with possibilities: creating new kinds of music or revelling in the ecstatic moments at the best shows; forging bonds of group solidarity and personal identity; carving out non-commercial spaces for free expression and the staking out of positions; and pushing people toward a participatory, ‘bottom up’ view of culture. Through the often conflicting accounts and histories of punk, one can identify the ebb and flow of countless scenes, interwoven subcultures, and a broader ‘Do it Yourself ’ (DIY) counterculture in which people put ethical and political ideas into practice by using music and other modes of cultural production/expression to highlight both the frustrations and banalities of everyday life, as well as the ideas and institutions that need to be battled if there is any hope of living in a less oppressive world. And crucially, people have a lot of fun doing it."

p15-16. "There are, of course, completely legitimate reasons why punks should be radically skeptical about the ways their music, ideas and cultural practices are documented by representatives of institutions (colleges & universities) that are, by design, the antithesis of DIY. But in general, staking one’s claim on the grounds that punk is inherently “anti-academic” isn’t to state an uncontested fact; it is rhetorical move that, in part, allows punks to avoid dealing with thorny questions or critiques raised by outsiders (some of whom, it is true, may be utterly clueless), just as it simultaneously reinforces academics’ tendencies to chalk up hostile critiques of their work (some lodged by people who may also  be utterly clueless) to anti-intellectualism as opposed to taking them seriously. But more to the

point, the perpetual debate over whether its acceptable to ‘intellectualize’ (the offense of academics) punk is a moot point: professors, music journalists and punks themselves have been doing it for well over thirty years."