Punk Pedagogies

Punk Pedagogies: Music, Culture and Learning brings together a collection of

international authors to explore the possibilities, practices and implications that
emerge from the union of punk and pedagogy. The punk ethos—a notoriously
evasive and multifaceted beast—offers unique applications in music educa-
tion and beyond, and this volume presents a breadth of interdisciplinary per-
spectives to challenge current thinking on how, why and where the subculture
influences teaching and learning. As (punk) educators and artists, contributing
authors grapple with punk’s historicity, its pervasiveness, its (dis)functionality
and its messiness, making Punk Pedagogies relevant and motivating to both
instructors and students with proven pedagogical practices.

Gareth Dylan Smith is Manager of Program Effectiveness at Little Kids Rock,

New Jersey, USA.

Mike Dines is co-founder of the Punk Scholars Network, UK.

Tom Parkinson is Lecturer in Higher Education at the University of Kent, UK.

Punk Pedagogies
Music, Culture and Learning

Edited by Gareth Dylan Smith,

Mike Dines and Tom Parkinson
First published 2018
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Gareth Dylan Smith, Mike Dines and Tom Parkinson;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Gareth Dylan Smith, Mike Dines and Tom Parkinson to be identified as the authors
of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form
or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and
are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Smith, Gareth Dylan. | Dines, Michael. | Parkinson, Thomas, 1980–
Title: Punk pedagogies : music, culture and learning / Gareth Dylan Smith,
Michael Dines and Thomas Parkinson [and fourteen others].
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2018. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017018358 | ISBN 9781138279872 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781138279889 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781315276250 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Education—Philosophy. | Punk culture. | Autonomy
(Psychology) | Freedom.
Classification: LCC LB14.7 .P86 2018 | DDC 370.1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017018358

ISBN: 978-1-138-27987-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-27988-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-27625-0 (ebk)

Typeset in Minion
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
 Contents

Foreword vii
ZACK FURNESS

Preface ix
GARETH DYLAN SMITH, MIKE DINES
AND TOM PARKINSON

Acknowledgements xi
Contributors xiii

1 Presenting Punk Pedagogies in Practice 1

GARETH DYLAN SMITH, MIKE DINES AND
TOM PARKINSON

Part I
Punk Learning and Learning from Punk

2 Art Attacks: Punk Methods and Design Education 13

RUSS BESTLEY

3 “Khas-o-Khâshâk”: Anarcho-Improv in the Tehrani

Music Education Scene 30
NASIM NIKNAFS

4 Should I Stay or Should I Go? A Survival Guide for

Punk Graduate Students 43
DAVID VILA DIÉGUEZ

5 Punk Entrepreneurship: Overcoming Obstacles to

Employability in the UK’s Higher Education
Pseudo-market 57
WARRICK HARNIESS

6 Just Go and Do It: A Blockchain Technology “Live Project”

for Nascent Music Entrepreneurs 73
MARCUS O’DAIR AND ZULEIKA BEAVEN
v
vi • Contents

Part II
Punk Teaching and Teaching Punk

7 “Don’t Know Much About History, and We Don’t Care!”

Teaching Punk Rock History 91
JOHN DOUGAN

8 “Here We Are Now, Educate Us”: The Punk Attitude,

Tenets and Lens of Student-Driven Learning 109
RYLAN KAFARA

9 Laughing All the Way to the Stage: Pedagogies of

Comedic Dissidence in Punk and Hip-Hop 128
JESSICA A. SCHWARTZ AND SCOTT ROBERTSON

10 Here’s Some Scissors, Here’s Some Glue, Now Go Make

a Zine! A Teacher’s Reflections on Zine-Making in
the Classroom 144
LAURA WAY

11 Give Violence a Chance: Emancipation and Escape in/

from School Music Education 156
ALEXIS ANJA KALLIO

Part III
Theorizing from Punk Pedagogical Practice

12 Being Punk in Higher Education: Subcultural Strategies

for Academic Practice 173
TOM PARKINSON

13 “There’s Only One Way of Life, and That’s Your Own” 191
GARETH DYLAN SMITH

14 From Punk Ethics to the Pedagogy of the Bad Kids:

Core Values and Social Liberation 210
TIAGO TELES SANTOS AND PAULA GUERRA

Index 225
 Foreword

About five years ago, I put together a book called Punkademics that featured essays
from a number of professors and graduate students who, like myself, had spent
a considerable amount of time navigating the seemingly odd terrain between the
punk scene and the university. I obviously knew there were a number of “punka-
demics” out there when I started the project, but in both the process of editing that
collection and, especially, in the years following its publication, I ran across far more
fellow travelers than I ever thought existed. In addition to making acquaintances
with some of this book’s editors and contributors, I have met or corresponded
with dozens of professors throughout the world who played in bands, wrote zines,
started labels, cooked with Food Not Bombs, hopped trains, participated in protests
and direct actions with other punks, opened DIY venues and put on punk shows—
including, it turns out, the first one I ever attended when I was fourteen.
As both an aging punk and a veteran teacher, I have long been interested in
what punk teaches young people about the pragmatics and ethics associated with
making music, art and other kinds of media where profit is not the central organiz-
ing principle. To put it baldly, I am fascinated by how punk and hardcore scenes
function as pedagogical spaces: spaces in which people can learn to think critically,
experiment with new ideas and practices, embrace a participatory view of culture
and, ideally, cultivate a sense of self-awareness about punk’s own hypocrisies and
dead ends. Given that many of these lessons are ones that professors spend enor-
mous amounts of time trying to instill in their students, it is not surprising that
punk similarly becomes a lens through which one can view the process of educa-
tion itself. After all, university classrooms are some of the few designated spaces
in which young people can also try to make some sense of the crazy world they
inhabit while exploring the contours of a secular social space in which human
beings are not implicitly reduced to their roles as workers or consumers.
This book brings together a new collection of scholars who grapple with the
inter-dynamics of punk and education in their writing and in their classrooms.
Punk Pedagogies: Music, Culture and Learning features the voices of teachers and
academics who draw inspiration and direction from their varied relationships to
punk as a form of music, a set of cultural practices, and a critical vantage point
from which to see, think and educate. Their chapters not only provide us with new
theoretical issues to discuss and debate, they also give us some effective tools for
teaching, as well as rich insights into how the boundaries of the thing we call “punk”
can be pushed, pulled and expanded into new terrain.
Zack Furness
April 2, 2017
vii
 Preface

“Punk” and “pedagogy” might seem like an odd, even contradictory choice of
terms to share the title of a book. “Punk” is far easier to pronounce (is the sec-
ond “g” in “pedagogy” meant to be soft or hard?), and almost everyone knows
what they think punk means or denotes. Punk has enjoyed mainstream media
attention, and as such has various familiar characteristics and associated stereo-
types, whereas pedagogy has the air of a more specialist concept. Punk conjures
(depending on who is doing the conjuring) music, rebellion, filth, anarchy, dis-
respect, criticality, disruption, noise, graffiti, an aesthetic, an ethos, a political
or apolitical stance, particular times and places, and culture. Pedagogy is a less
familiar word to many, albeit one that, once explained, everyone understands
from their own experiences of it. We hope that it might be beguiling enough a
term to attract readers who already understand the rest of our book’s title, and
who, in traditional punk fashion, want to find out for themselves what it means.
If someone picks this book off a library shelf or impulse-buys it online, just to
find out what it’s about, that would exemplify a key tenet of punk pedagogy—
the punk pedagogy of Punk Pedagogies, if you like!
Pedagogy is about teaching and learning. It covers all the stuff that goes on in
learning environments, usually classroom contexts in school, colleges and uni-
versities. But thanks to scholarship and practice in community music contexts,
and the growth in understanding of informal learning praxes internationally,
“pedagogy” now arguably accounts for—however (in)tangibly, temporarily or
contingently this might be—what happens in a far broader range of contexts
and situations of learning. So, while “punk” and “pedagogy” might at first
glance appear to share very little, they in fact are both diverse sites of tradition,
innovation and tension, and can each be understood to encompass both narrow
and diverse practices and perspectives (hence our use of the plural, “pedago-
gies”, in the book’s title).
The chapters are mostly rooted in the individual authors’ own practices as
punks, and consider how aspects of punk can inform teaching and learning.
Since this is not a methods book, we provide no instructions on “how to be a
punk pedagogue”—to do so would be antithetical to almost all interpretations
of punk. Readers can hear in these pages the voices of the authors, all of whom
either self-identify as punks or have been identified by the editors as such. This
being said, very few of the contributors would fit one easy stereotype of punk
such as that perpetuated by, for instance, the North American chain of clothing
stores Hot Topic.

ix
x • Preface

The contributors look at punk through, broadly, three overlapping and

mutually constituting frames: music, aesthetics and ethos. While each of these
“frames” or “lenses” informs the others, and to separate them seems somewhat
artificial, the chapters emphasize these aspects of punk to varying degrees. We
are not trying to claim or to construct punk as anything that it is not; rather, our
aim is to draw attention to the complex and multifaceted nature of what peda-
gogies could be when construed under the malleable, iconoclastic and evasive
rubric of punk.
The book is divided into three parts: punk learning and learning from punk,
punk teaching and teaching punk, and theorizing (from) punk pedagogical
practice. The section headings are intended as broadly descriptive rather than
narrowly prescriptive, so chapters in the punk learning section include much
that could have fitted under punk teaching, and vice versa. Similarly, the final
part of the book contains chapters that might have worked in the preceding
pages, but which emphasize a more theoretical orientation to punk pedagogies.
The section headings describe the main orientations of the chapters in each sec-
tion, and will hopefully help guide the reader through the book.
Punk pedagogies are yours, the reader’s, to embrace, reinvent, copy, paste,
smash, critique, adopt, mould to your needs, or to disregard and ignore. We
believe there is a need for punk pedagogies, in our lives and in the education of
others. We invite teachers and students, pedagogues and learners (for all of us
are, to some extent, both) to take from this book what you will. Perhaps it pres-
ents an affront to your assumptions or convictions about what, how and why
teaching should be done. Maybe it affirms a suspicion you had, that learning
can be more democratized, dangerous, diverse and disruptive, and will inspire
you to pursue new approaches with your students and in your own learning
journey through life. Hopefully you will devour and digest the discussions, divi-
sions and declamations that characterize this book. We invite you to savour the
tensions, embrace the uncertainties and realize (in both meanings of the word)
the ramifications of a set of practices and perspectives that threaten and aspire
to emancipate individuals and groups from the shackled and un-punk mind.
Gareth Dylan Smith, Mike Dines
and Tom Parkinson
 Acknowledgements

The editors would like to acknowledge the contributions to this book project
of all those people without whom it would not have been possible. The book
began as an idea proposed by Louise Jackson, and Louise’s time became con-
sumed with her commitments along the way; we owe Louise a considerable
debt of gratitude for conceiving of the project and inspiring us to take part.
Mary Stakelum saw promise in our proposal to discuss this book at the 2017
Research in Music Education conference at Bath Spa University; Mary’s confi-
dence in the project reassured us that we could be on to something worthwhile.
We are tremendously thankful to all the contributing authors, for their diligence
in attending to feedback from us, and for continuously aspiring to produce the
best possible work in construing and critiquing punk pedagogical practices. A
special thank-you is owed to Russ Bestley, who designed the book’s marvellous
cover art. We also wish to thank Constance Ditzel for her enthusiasm for this
volume, and the team at Routledge for helping us to produce a book dealing
with complex subject matter that is close to our hearts.
Gareth, Mike and Tom
April 2017

xi
 Contributors

Zuleika Beaven teaches in the Music department of Middlesex University,

where she leads the MA Arts Management. Her PhD was a study of nascent
musician entrepreneurs. For over a decade she has practised and researched the
application of experiential learning for creative enterprise and was the recipient
of a TQEF-funded award for embedding enterprise learning in the curriculum
while at the Arts University Bournemouth.

Russ Bestley is Reader in Graphic Design at the London College of Communi-

cation, University of the Arts London. He co-authored and designed several
books, including Experimental Layout, Up Against the Wall, Visual Research
and The Art of Punk, and has contributed articles to publications including
Eye, Zed, Emigré, The National Grid, 360º and Vive Le Rock. He is editor of the
journal Punk & Post Punk, and a member of the Punk Scholars Network.

David Vila Diéguez is a PhD candidate in the Department of Spanish and

Portuguese at Vanderbilt University, with research interests in contemporary
Iberian cultures and languages, subcultural and punk studies, and the
relationship between contemporary popular culture and political activism.
His thesis is on punk and antifascism in the Iberian Peninsula. He plays guitar
in bands around Nashville, Galicia and the Basque Country. He is a founding
member and editor of Furman 217 magazine (www.furman217.com).

Mike Dines is co-founder of the international Punk Scholars Network. He has

published extensively for scholarly and non-scholarly audiences, including
the co-edited Tales From the Punkside (2014), Some of Us Scream, Some of Us
Shout (2016) and The Aesthetics of Our Anger: Anarcho-Punk, Politics, Music
(2016). Forthcoming publications include And All Around Was Darkness
(2017), Postgraduate Voices in Punk (2017) and The Punk Reader: Research
Transmissions From the Local and the Global (2017).

John Dougan has a PhD in American Studies from the College of William
& Mary, and is professor of music business and popular music studies in the
Department of Recording Industry at Middle Tennessee State University. He is
the author of two books: The Who Sell Out and The Mistakes of Yesterday, The
Hopes of Tomorrow: The Story of the Prisonaires.

xiii
xiv • Contributors

Zack Furness is Associate Professor of Communications at Pennsylvania State

University, Greater Allegheny. He is the author and editor of several books,
including Punkademics, and has published various articles and book chapters
on bicycling, media, punk music/culture and the NFL. In addition to his
academic work, his writing has also appeared in Souciant, Bitch, Punk Planet
and Bad Subjects. He has played in punk bands since 1997, most recently in
Barons.

Paula Guerra is Professor of Sociology and Researcher at the Institute of

Sociology at University of Porto. She is Adjunct Associate Professor of the
Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research (GCSCR) and founder and
coordinator of the research network Todas as Artes (All the Arts) and KISMIF.
She is author of numerous scientific articles published in journals such as
Journal of Sociology, Popular Music and Society, European Journal of Cultural
Studies and Critical Arts.

Warrick Harniess is an entrepreneur and a musician. Warrick’s company,

Scandinavia Stories, provides experiential learning programmes and
consultancy services in leadership and entrepreneurship. He’s been playing
punk rock since it changed his life in the mid ’90s. For more info visit www.
scandinaviastories.co.uk or contact him at warrick@scandinaviastories.co.uk.

Rylan Kafara is a PhD student at the University of Alberta. His research

examines the contrast between gentrification and grassroots community
development in Edmonton’s urban core. He serves on the board of directors for
Heart of the City Music and Arts Festival and CJSR 88.5 FM. In addition to The
History of Punk, he also teaches with the University of Alberta’s Humanities
Program, a free course for Edmonton residents facing barriers to formal
education.

Alexis Anja Kallio is a postdoctoral research fellow in music education

at the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland. Her
interdisciplinary research focuses on narratives that construct, reinforce or
unsettle social stratifications that result in inequity and injustice in diverse
arts education contexts. She has published her empirical, theoretical and
methodological work in Finnish and international academic journals and
books, and engages with broader audiences through Finnish news media,
trade journals and blogs.

Nasim Niknafs, the recipient of the Connaught New Researcher Award, Faculty
Mobility Grant, and OMEA’s Agha Khan Initiative, is an Assistant Professor
of Music Education at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. Born and
raised in Iran, Nasim’s selected publications have appeared in Music Education
 Contributors • xv

Research, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical and Qualitative Perspectives on

Assessment in Music Education (forthcoming), The Ashgate Research Companion
to Popular Music Education and IASPM@Journal.

Marcus O’Dair is a Senior Lecturer in Popular Music at Middlesex University,

where he co-leads the BA in Popular Music and is convenor of the Blockchain
for Creative Industries research cluster. He is the author of Different Every Time,
an authorized biography of Robert Wyatt. He has also released three acclaimed
albums and toured Europe as one half of Grasscut.

Tom Parkinson is Lecturer in Higher Education at the University of Kent, where

he leads the MA in Higher Education. His research considers the values that
underpin higher education policy, pedagogy and curriculum, with a particular
focus on arts and humanities disciplines. Tom has previously taught music in
several schools and universities, and as a musician has performed throughout
Europe and Southeast Asia.

Scott Robertson is a PhD candidate in the Graduate School of Education and

Information Sciences at UCLA, and a teaching associate in Musicology at
the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. He teaches at Cypress Community
College in Cypress, California. Prior to his academic career, he was involved
in the punk scene, performing in bands: Girlband, and My Bible Company. He
continues to record and play music while injecting punk into his research and
teaching.

Tiago Teles Santos was born in Porto, Portugal, and developed an interest in
various cultural issues. With undergraduate and master’s degrees in Sociology
from the University of Porto, his research interests include social exclusion,
space and territory, education and culture. His master’s thesis “Bad Kids.
Towards an understanding of the symbolic and material universes for existence:
punk references in Porto, Portugal”, was one of the first works on Portuguese
punk. Nowadays he works in Motorsport.

Jessica A. Schwartz (Assistant Professor of Musicology, UCLA) explores sonic

histories of creative dissent and has published in journals such as Music and
Politics, Punk and Post Punk, American Quarterly and Women and Music. Her
first book, Radiation Sounds: Marshallese Music and Nuclear Silences (Duke
University Press, under contract), details Marshallese musical responses to US
nuclear weapons testing. She is developing Engaging Punk, a multimodal punk
educational project. She actively performs noise-based and punk music.

Gareth Dylan Smith is Manager of Program Effectiveness at Little Kids Rock,

USA. He edits the Journal of Popular Music Education with Bryan Powell, and
xvi • Contributors

co-wrote Sociology for Music Teachers: Practical Applications, second edition

with Hildegard C. Froehlich. Gareth is a co-author of The Music Learning
Profiles Project: Let’s Take This Outside. He plays drums with Oh Standfast,
Eruptörs and Stephen Wheel.

Laura Way is a PhD candidate at the University of Leicester. Her research

explores older women punks’ articulation and maintenance of punk identities,
through qualitative interviewing and participant-created zine pages. Laura’s
research interests also include alternative (specifically, punk) pedagogies and
creative research methods. She is a steering group member of the Punk Scholars
Network, advisory board member of Punk & Post Punk and currently a visiting
tutor at Bishop Grosseteste University.
 1
Presenting Punk Pedagogies in Practice
GARETH DYLAN SMITH, MIKE DINES AND TOM PARKINSON

Introduction: Towards Punk Pedagogies in Practice

Punk has emphasized two political philosophies—libertarianism and anarchism—
which, while adherents share some common beliefs, diverge to occupy opposing
poles on the political-ideological spectrum (Sofianos, Ryde, and Waterhouse 2015,
23). Punk has often tended to lean more heavily to the left than to the right of
that spectrum. As a nation whose founding philosophies emerged from radical
European movements during the English Civil War (Hill 1975) such as the Level-
lers (Foxley 2013), and the French Revolution, the United States of America has
long favoured and mythologized the “self-made man”, painting itself as a land of
opportunity and entrepreneurial spirit. As such, the nation’s identity is built on the
decidedly punk philosophical premise of “elevat[ing] above most other aspirations
the importance of freedom, self-determinism and the removal of rules” (Sofianos,
Ryde, and Waterhouse. 2013, 23).
In a New York Post article on the morning following the US presidential
election in 2016, Kyle Smith suggested that Donald Trump was the “punk
rock” president-elect (Smith 2016), epitomizing that American ideal for
many. Trump built a property empire from scratch; he was a “reality” televi-
sion star; he rose to be a presidential candidate and eventually the President
of the United States of America by presenting himself as against the machine
(despite pandering to big business and being a walking, talking advertisement
for self-serving, late capitalist, neoliberal ideology). The aspects of punk that
the author seemed, therefore, to be invoking were primarily those of DIY and
anti-establishment rhetoric, while ignoring and thereby challenging the prev-
alent (although by no means exclusively) anarchist and socialist ideologies
that inform much of punk narrative and activism. One of the most notable
features of Trump’s brief political career has been the man’s lack of clear orien-
tation towards any points of an ideological compass (Chomsky 2016). Trump
thus could be seen to embody punk’s contradictions and its inherent discom-
fort in articulating (or inability to articulate) what it is that it stands for. As
Sofianos et al. (2015, 26) note, “punk seeks to avoid the limiting qualities of,
and subsequent laziness associated with, ideology. This attitude of constant

1
2 • Gareth Dylan Smith et al.

challenge and determination to disrupt” is typical of that which is character-

ized as punk.
Punk has, however, more often than not channeled its disruptive tenden-
cies in tandem with emancipatory aspirations for marginalized or silenced
voices, towards a social justice agenda. In this vein, Ivan Illich in the 1970s
pointed to the need to change fundamentally the ways in which systemized
compulsory education—schooling—operates, because of fundamental flaws
in the assumptions that it makes, and how inequality is thus inscribed in
the system. He urges that, “rather than calling equal schooling temporarily
unfeasible, we must recognize that it is, in principle, economically absurd,
and that to attempt it is intellectually emasculating, socially polarizing, and
destructive of the credibility of the political system that promotes it”. He
asserts, moreover, that:

equal opportunity is, indeed, both a desirable and a feasible goal, but
to equate this with obligatory schooling is to confuse salvation with the
church. School has become the worldwide religion of a modernized pro-
letariat, and makes futile promises of salvation to the poor of the tech-
nological age.
(Illich 1970, 10)

Authors in this volume mostly work in higher education, and as such have
vested interests in perpetuating existing systems of education, compulsory
and otherwise. We are perhaps thus reticent to embrace so (self-)destructive
an agenda as to seek the total dismantlement of education systems. Through
the frame of punk pedagogies, however, we seek to explore possibilities to effect
change.
Our intention in curating this volume is not to say what punk pedagogy is or
should be. Our aim is, even less, to attempt to define punk, a notoriously evasive
and multifaceted beast. Contributing authors grapple with punk’s historicity, its
pervasiveness, its (dis)functionality, its evasiveness and its messiness. Punk is
dynamic and responsive, like the best of pedagogical practice. For this reason,
we do not attempt to delimit, contain or constrain pedagogies in, of, for or
about punk. In the context of music education, David Lines asks:

How can music teachers ensure that they do not succumb to the dis-
abling discourses of neoliberalism, mastery, and narrow conceptions
of learning? How can music students move from situations where
they are treated as docile bodies in music learning production lines
or mastery contexts to places of creative freedom, expression, and
meaning?
(Lines 2016, 126–127)
 Presenting Punk Pedagogies in Practice • 3

In response to his own question, Lines suggests that:

pedagogical action can . . . be taken in music education to ensure that stu-
dents have opportunities to work with the subjective positions in music
and, if necessary, exercise resistance to schooling discourses that nega-
tively impact on open and creative subject positions.
(Lines 2016, 127)

This book resonates with Lines’s perspective—which he did not explicitly artic-
ulate as representing a specifically punk orientation—traversing pedagogical
practice in and beyond just music, as well as in and beyond formal educational
contexts.
The focus of the book is on punk pedagogies. It is not, however, a “how to”
guide to applying punk pedagogies, nor is it a manual or guidebook on being
a punk pedagogue. The editors share music education philosopher Randall
Allsup’s (2016, 106) “long[ing] to find or create a space in which people can
connect with others across difference and ability in an ongoing and unfinished
way”. We seek to challenge “a symbol system . . . in which mere relay of infor-
mation is characterized as education” (107); we are “ultimately interested in
the subjectivities from which engagement in open encounters are formed and
reformed” (108). We propose punk pedagogies as possessing the potency and
potential to achieve these ends and more.

Punk Pedagogy: A Brief History

Punk pedagogy lies at the intersection between radical, anarchist and critical
pedagogies. It looks back to the anarchist writings of Godwin and Kropotkin in
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Ward 2011; Springer et al. 2016);
references the works of Freire, Giroux and Shor; and explores complex ten-
sions around punk in academia (Furness 2012). Indeed, as Springer et al. so
eloquently note in The Radicalization of Pedagogy: Anarchism, Geography and
the Spirit of Revolt, “in an age that is desperately in need of critical new direc-
tions anarchist geographies exist at the crossroads of possibility and desire”.
They conclude that “by breathing new life into the inertia of the old, anar-
chism intrepidly explores vital alternatives” through the practices of “mutual
aid, voluntary association, direct action, horizontality and self-management”
(Springer et al. 2016, 1). Through the malleability of the radical, punk peda-
gogy breathes new life into analysis of decades-old philosophical, cultural and
political thought (Dines 2015a; Parkinson 2016; Torrez 2012).
Punk pedagogy is not particularly “new”. Examples of its presence in
scholarship can be traced back to the 1990s, with Robert Miklitsch’s (1994)
“Punk Pedagogy or Performing Contradiction: The Risks and Rewards of
4 • Gareth Dylan Smith et al.

Anti-Transference”, questioning the political stance of the teacher (the role of

authority) in the classroom. The academy’s interest in punk as part of a cur-
riculum was explored in Geoffrey Sirc’s (1997) “Never Mind the Tagmemics,
Where’s the Sex Pistols?”, in which he uses punk as an opening and means
for composition and writing. “The academic system left the student a bored,
ignorant spectator”, writes Sirc (1997, 20), also noting that punk was a means
of “articulating a more general inchoate social reality” (1997, 22) where lived
experience comes to the fore (presaging Dines, explored further, below).
Sirc’s article was followed by Seth Kahn-Egan’s aptly titled “Pedagogy Pissed:
Punk Pedagogy in the First-Year Writing Classroom” (1998). Kahn-Egan takes
up the compositional mantle from Sirc, expanding the discussion of punk
pedagogy towards a clearer, more succinct definition. He concurs that there
are issues around “trying to define and explicate punk ideology”, noting that
“there is no Platonic ideal of ‘punkness’ from which we can extract a definition”
(Kahn-Egan 1998, 101). That said, Kahn-Egan presents five principles that, for
him, define punk:

(1) The Do-It-Yourself (DIY) ethic, which demands that we do our own
work because anybody who would do our work for us is only trying
to jerk us around;
(2) A sense of anger and passion that finally drives a writer to say what’s
really on his or her mind;
(3) A sense of destructiveness that calls for attacking institutions when
those institutions are oppressive, or even dislikable;
(4) A willingness to endure or even pursue pain to make oneself heard or
noticed;
(5) A pursuit of the “pleasure principle,” a reveling in some kind of Nietz-
chean chasm.
(Kahn-Egan 1998, 100)

The author clearly notes that he is “not advocating a full-blown, anarchistic,

self-mutilating classroom”, but instead encourages pedagogy which “teaches
students that resistance resulting from inertia is pointless, as is rebellion for its
own sake” (Kahn-Egan 1998, 101).
“Pedagogy Pissed” is useful because it begins to unpack and interrogate
what may be considered “punk pedagogy”. Kahn-Egan’s writing advocates
a curriculum that encourages students to question authority, thus planting
seeds of critical thinking and debate. Furthermore, Kahn-Egan situated his
own reflexive practice in the same framework, whereby the course challenged
him, as a teacher, “to keep from over-institutionalizing the very individuality
[he] wants to foster”, thereby exploring tensions between the author’s “desire
to teach active subversion and [his] institutional bonds” (Kahn-Egan 1998,
103). It is these tensions that are explored further in Estrella Torrez’s chapter,
 Presenting Punk Pedagogies in Practice • 5

“Punk Pedagogy: Education for Liberation and Love”, in Zack Furness’s edited
volume, Punkademics: The Basement Show in the Ivory Tower (2012). Torrez
explores the philosophy around the notion and definition of a “punk peda-
gogy”, drawing on her experience of teaching a course on youth subcultures’
linguistic cultural practices as forms of resistance. Torrez’s punk pedagogy is
positioned through the delivery of subject matter with an attempt at facilitating
and engaging with the students at a critical level, exploring individual and social
responsibility in “heal[ing] an ailing society” (Torrez 2012, 137). She asserts,
“while punk philosophy frames how we interact with outside society, it likewise
shapes our position as educators and the manner by which we construct the
classroom . . . as a learning environment”. She also explains:

It is [through] this particular pedagogical approach, influenced by our

lived realities as punks, that we are able to establish a punk pedagogy.
Punk pedagogy is a manifestation of equity, rebellion, critique, self-
examination, solidarity, community, love, anger and collaboration. It is a
space where the teacher-learner hierarchy is disavowed and the norma-
tive discourse of traditional education is dissembled.
(Torrez 2012, 135–136)

Whereas Torrez, Kahn-Egan and Sirc examine punk in formal educational

contexts, Mike Dines explores punk pedagogy outside of the classroom. In
“Learning Through Resistance: Contextualisation, Creation and Incorpora-
tion of a Punk Pedagogy” (2015a) and “Reflections on the Peripheral: Punk,
Pedagogy and the Domestication of the Radical” (2015b), Dines looks at
how subcultural membership becomes a learning environment: “Draw-
ing upon the autobiographical .  .  . punk is treated as the educator—the
facilitator—that provided a framework of enquiry, questioning and interro-
gation” (Dines 2015a, 21). He notes how, for many, “punk became a source
of expression that made more sense than those in the classroom” (Dines
2015a, 28), and thus “it meant that individuals like [himself] found subcul-
tural membership synonymous with being politically and socially aware”
(Dines 2015a, 29).
While recognizing the influence of radical pedagogies on the birth and
development of punk pedagogy, Dines also raises concerns over what he calls
“reification of the radical, a domestication of theory and practice, paradoxically
underpinned by adherence to the politics of freedom and conformity” (Dines
2015b, 134). In other words, for Dines, “punk has become domesticated by its
striving for the radical [which] encourages inclusivity, but only if that identity
adheres to the conformity of the ‘punk ethos’ ” (Dines 2015b, 134). He draws
comparison with the observation of pedagogue and academic Peter McLaren,
who found critical pedagogy to have become a haven for posturing academics,
shifting from its critical core. If punk pedagogy is to continue to develop, it
6 • Gareth Dylan Smith et al.

needs to be self-critical and not, as he notes, a “sanitized study” of subculture

(Dines 2015a, 138).
Jessica A. Schwartz (also a contributor to this volume) takes punk peda-
gogy in another direction. Her essay for the journal Punk & Post-Punk explores
the “ways in which early punks’ intellectual history and views on education
informed their musical thoughts” (Schwartz 2015, 142). Schwartz endeavours
to look less at “practitioners’ rebellion” and more at the “creation of alternative
educational spaces that are reflected in philosophically informed musical aes-
thetics” (Schwartz 2015, 142), a notion that provides depth to the examination
of ideological stance in punk, providing further insight into the complex mar-
riage between punk and pedagogy.

Structure and Content of the Book

Although in no way exhaustive, the thirteen remaining chapters in this volume
give some sense of the scope of approaches to, and current thinking about,
teaching and learning that emerges from the union of punk and pedagogy. Just
as punk runs a vast ideological and aesthetic gamut, confounding attempts to
hem it into a tidy and coherent definition, punk pedagogy resists codification
as a singular teaching strategy, toolkit or curriculum. Moreover, one punk ped-
agogical approach might be anathema to those who uphold another view, or
could be seen to enshrine values that run counter to the spirit of punk, however
the latter might be understood. Yet, as the chapters here attest, the utility and
power of any manifestation of punk pedagogy lies in the conviction of its expo-
nent and inspiration that the individual teacher or learner takes from their own
unique interactions with counterculture. For some, the ideological associations
of a particular punk scene form the basis of an ethical code that supports a
values-driven pedagogy. For others, the form and aesthetics of a punk genre
directly inform the modalities of their teaching and classroom environment,
and the question of ideology is muted by comparison. Others still find in punk
a form of provocation that brings them to interrogate their own experiences of
teaching and learning as part of critical, reflective practice. The plural, pedago-
gies, in the volume’s title is an acknowledgement, and celebration, of this scope.
In the following chapter, Russ Bestley explores the relationship between
punk and design pedagogy, examining the historical intersections of graphic
design and punk in practice. He highlights points of affinity between punk’s
ideological and aesthetic tenets, and the principles of design thinking. This
leads to a consideration of punk’s utility in today’s design classroom, as well as
some of the challenges and pitfalls that an application of punk pedagogy in a
design context might entail.
In Chapter 3, Nasim Niknafs provides an account of a Tehran music scene
which, by dint of legal and cultural restrictions on formal music education and
 Presenting Punk Pedagogies in Practice • 7

popular music, serves as many musicians’ primary music education. Synthe-

sizing ethnographic observations and interviews with insights from literature
and research in music education and ethnomusicology, Niknafs proposes an
anarcho-improvised music pedagogy that brings humans to reconnect with one
another and our values, engendering resilience and resistance in the face of
contemporary global crises.
In Chapter 4, David Vila Diéguez reflects on his experiences of graduate
school in the USA. Diéguez argues that normative expectations of graduate stu-
dents’ and early career academics’ achievement and behaviour have given rise to
a coercive and toxic scholarly environment that is detrimental to both critical
inquiry and mental health. Here, the spirit of punk provides succour and serves
as a resource and inspiration for resistance and emancipation from neoliberal
performance management and managerialism.
In Chapter 5, Warrick Harniess charts a personal moral and spiritual punk
journey, beginning in Hong Kong in the mid-1990s. Harniess sets out his belief
in the multifaceted pedagogic potential of punk, focusing on collaboration,
product creation and entrepreneurship. Turning his attention to the higher
education sector, he proposes that, despite its apparent contradiction, radi-
cal deregulation of the sector is the punk thing to do to destabilize a stagnant
pseudo-market status quo.
In Chapter 6, Marcus O’Dair and Zuleika Beaven recount how punk’s Do It
Yourself (DIY) ethos informed the design and delivery of a project undertaken
by undergraduate Music Business students. O’Dair and Beaven discuss DIY
as an aspirational ideal and a pragmatic reality requiring compromise. They
situate the project in relation to entrepreneurship education, punk pedagogy as
learning through action leading to co-created knowledge, and the uneasy ethi-
cal boundaries between dominant discourse of entrepreneurship and dominant
ideologies of punk.
In Chapter 7, John Dougan recalls the challenges and unexpected outcomes
of teaching a university course called The History of Punk Rock. Dougan’s frus-
tration at the first cohort’s collective lack of enthusiasm and engagement serves
as the catalyst for a reflective journey that considers contemporary concepts
and issues in higher education, including the student-as-customer, the neolib-
eral university, the pitfalls of didactic canonization and the value of “useless”
higher education.
In Chapter 8, Rylan Kafara recounts designing and delivering The History
of Punk, an inclusive and non-hierarchical course and learning community.
Kafara discusses how an informal, learner-led pedagogy allowed for the remit
and focus of the course to evolve organically in line with members’ personal
interests, and how an embrace of amateurism in a non-academic setting offered
a means to develop critical consciousness for learners from within and outside
the academy.
8 • Gareth Dylan Smith et al.

In Chapter 9, Jessica A. Schwartz and Scott Robertson set out what they
term a “pedagogy of comedic dissidence” via two case studies of the punk band
Dead Kennedys and the hip-hop act Public Enemy. They demonstrate how play-
ful subversion of taken-for-granted aesthetics opens up space for the discussion
of social and political issues, the confrontation of trauma and oppression, and
collective learning, suggesting acknowledgement and incorporation of such
approaches in formal educational contexts.
In Chapter 10, Laura Way provides a reflective account of two uses of zines
in the teaching of college sociology courses. Way argues that the aesthetics and
practices of zine creation offer a versatile and inclusive alternative to traditional
forms of coursework, providing a framework for students to consider their per-
sonal experiences in stimulating the sociological imagination, and providing
teachers with a means to gather rich, qualitative and context-specific feedback
from students.
In Chapter 11, Alexis Anja Kallio considers the potential of punk in dem-
ocratic school music education, describing a shift from curricula dominated
by the canon of Western Art Music towards encompassing popular musics.
Interrogating and recalibrating the deviantization of some popular music
genres as morally risky “problem musics”, Kallio proposes that punk—as
a music, but also as a pedagogic conceit—might offer a means to mediate
value conflict and multi-directional power dynamics within a democratic
education.
In Chapter 12, Tom Parkinson explores the ambiguous relationship between
university education, punk and other subcultures, identifying across a num-
ber of existing accounts anxiety relating to perceived risk of co-optation and
corruption, but also a number of rhetorical strategies used by educators to rec-
oncile these two aspects of their lives and achieve a working, ethical balance.
Parkinson includes analysis of interviews with five academics self-identifying
as punks, and who draw upon punk in their work.
In Chapter 13, Gareth Dylan Smith offers an account of his personal aca-
demic, professional and musical journeys. Through the conceptual frame of
eudaimonism, Smith describes how he reconciled an impulse to pursue his pas-
sions and interests with a commitment to a broader good, leading to a teaching
approach that he has since identified as pedagogically punk. He calls for adop-
tion of punk pedagogical action in higher education, for working towards a
more socially just world.
In the final chapter, Tiago Santos and Paula Guerra discuss punk’s opposi-
tion to the status quo and counter-hegemonic stance, arguing that these imbue
it with a critical power that is of immense potential value to educators. Through
a theoretical discussion that takes in the work of philosophers and sociologists
Freire, Foucault, Bourdieu and Apple, they propose reasons that, and ways in
which, punk might be drawn upon in curricula and pedagogy to help overcome
crises in late modernity.
 Presenting Punk Pedagogies in Practice • 9

In Conclusion
This book was not construed explicitly to praise punk pedagogies. There are,
however, no chapters in the volume that explicitly decry, abhor or warn against
them. As such, it is appropriate that the editors confess we are all supportive of
punk pedagogies, in principle and in practice. We all identify with aspects of
punk, and are each affiliated with the Punk Scholars Network, of which Mike is
a founder member. Mike’s PhD thesis was on anarcho-punk, and he has edited
numerous books about elements and topics of punk. Tom and Gareth both are
both members of bands that incorporate punk in outlook, ethos and aesthetic.
Once again invoking Randall Allsup (2016), and looking far beyond specifi-
cally music education, we hope that this book serves as an opening for readers,
that it creates space for discourse and action. It is in the nurturing of liminal
spaces (Tuan 1977), in a wide range of contexts and places, that we see the
potential for punk pedagogies.

References
Allsup, Randall E. 2016. Remixing the Music Classroom: Toward an Open Philosophy of Music Education.
Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 2016. Noam Chomsky on the New Trump Era: UpFront Special. Al Jazeera.
Accessed March 31, 2017. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB54XxbgI0E.
Dines, Mike. 2015a. “Learning Through Resistance: Contextualisation, Creation and Incorporation
of a ‘Punk Pedagogy’.” Journal of Pedagogic Development 5, 3: 20–31.
Dines, Mike. 2015b. “Reflections on the Peripheral: Punk, Pedagogy and the Domestication of the
Radical.” Punk & Post-Punk 4, 2&3: 129–140.
Foxley, Rachel. 2013. The Levellers: Radical Political Thought in the English Revolution. Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
Furness, Zack (Ed.). 2012. Punkademics: The Basement Show in the Ivory Tower. Wivenhoe: Minor
Compositions.
Hill, Christopher. 1975. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolu-
tion. London: Penguin.
Illich, Ivan. 1970. Deschooling Society. London: Marion Boyars.
Kahn-Egan, Seth. 1998. “Pedagogy Pissed: Punk Pedagogy in the First-Year Writing Classroom.”
College Composition and Communication 49, 1: 99–104.
Lines, David. 2016. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps: Music Education and Guitar as Leisure.” In
The Oxford Handbook of Music Making and Leisure, edited by Roger Mantie and Gareth D.
Smith, 115–130. New York: Oxford University Press.
Miklitsch, Robert. 1994. “Punk Pedagogy or Performing Contradiction: The Risks and Rewards of
Anti-Transference.” The Review of Education/Pedagogy/Cultural Studies 16, 1: 57–67.
Niknafs, Nasim, and Liz Przybylski. 2017. “Popular Music and (R)evolution of the Classroom
Space: Occupy Wall Street in the Music School.” In The Routledge Research Companion to
Popular Music Education, edited by Gareth D. Smith, Zack Moir, Matt Brennan, Shara Ram-
barran, and Phil Kirkman, 412–424. Abingdon: Routledge.
Schwartz, Jessica A. 2015. “Listening in Circles: Punk Pedagogy and the Decline of Western Music
Education.” Punk & Post-Punk 4, 2&3: 141–158.
Sirc, Geoffrey. 1997. “Never Mind the Tagmemics, Where’s the Sex Pistols?” College Composition
and Communication 48, 1: 9–29.
Smith, Gareth D., and Atar Shafighian. 2013. “Creative Space and the ‘Silent Power of Traditions’ in
Popular Music Performance Education.” In Developing Creativities in Higher Music Education:
International Perspectives and Practices, edited by Pamela Burnard, 256–267. London: Routledge.
Smith, Kyle. 2016. “Donald Trump Is the Punk-Rock President America Deserves.” New York Post.
Accessed November 9, 2016. http://nypost.com/2016/11/09/donald-trump-is-the-punk-
rock-president-america-deserves/.
10 • Gareth Dylan Smith et al.

Sofianos, Lisa, Robin Ryde, and Charlie Waterhouse. 2015. The Truth of Revolution, Brother: An
Exploration of Punk Philosophy. London: Situation Press.
Springer, Simon, Marcelo Lopez De Souza, and Richard J. White. 2016. The Radicalization of Peda-
gogy: Anarchism Geography and the Spirit of Revolt. London: Rowman & Littlefield.
Tuan, Yi-Fu. 1977. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Min-
nesota Press.
Ward, Colin. 2011. “The Anarchists and Schools.” In Autonomy, Solidarity, Possibility: The Colin
Ward Reader, edited by Chris Wilbert and Damian F. White, 231–238. Edinburgh: AK Press.
 Part I
Punk Learning and Learning from Punk
 2
Art Attacks: Punk Methods
and Design Education
RUSS BESTLEY

Introduction
The relationship between punk and design pedagogy can be explored in two
broadly distinct areas. These centre on what might be described as conceptual
approaches—the nature of design thinking in comparison with punk doctrines;
and practical strategies for the creation of designed artefacts or objects—the
tools, processes and practices of design making in relation to common punk
design tropes. In short, the twin themes of thinking and making. As someone
who has self-identified with punk since my initial participation in the sub-
culture during the late 1970s, and as a graphic design practitioner, researcher,
writer and educator, I am in a rather unique position to be able to reflect on the
ways in which punk visual strategies drew upon or adapted long-standing art
and design traditions, and how those resulting revisions may have subsequently
impacted upon graphic design and visual communication practice and, conse-
quently, design education.
Punk can be viewed as an approach—a way of relating to the world, and a
practice—the production of certain things (music, in the form of performances
or records, visual arts and fashion, for instance). By comparison, the word design
is both a noun and a verb, and graphic design is an activity of creative reason-
ing (the act of designing) and a craft-based practice that involves the making of
objects and artefacts (designs):

The verb to design literally means to plan something for a specific role,
purpose, or effect. As a noun, design can be defined as an act of creative
reasoning—a process whereby the designer balances lateral, original
thinking with pragmatic, logical, solution-driven methods.
(Noble and Bestley 2016, 10)

Since the advent of computer-based tools for design in the late 1980s and early
1990s, graphic designers have been increasingly concerned with all stages
of the design process—from conceptualizing and planning to the practical

13
14 • Russ Bestley

construction of the work itself, often employing digital technologies and/or

working with specialist technical producers and manufacturers (printers, pro-
grammers, etc.). Whereas the process of graphic design traditionally involved
a team of specialists at each stage of development, with the designer taking a
planning and specifying role akin to an architect or product designer (Cherry
1976; Hollis 1994), contemporary professionals often cover most of these roles
in-house. Graphic design education has followed suit, with design schools
struggling to bridge the divide between traditional craft-based skills teach-
ing and theory-led approaches to creative thinking and design methodologies,
with often rather muddled results. Punk often seeks to embrace a number of
conventions in relation to autonomy, self-determination and ownership of the
full range of processes in the creation of artistic work (music, fashion, art and
design), yet is also seen to espouse values of collectivism and networked co-
operation. It may therefore be a useful model for comparison with this more
recent shift in the design profession, moving from the group to the individual
while at the same time retaining a strong relationship to what could be described
as a collective endeavour. A reflection on punk, as a conceptual approach and
practice, a process and a product, may therefore be helpful in navigating a way
forward for design education.

Researching Design
The academic study of design, notably graphic design, can broadly be defined
in three models of design research:

Research about Design: The study of design histories, styles, influences,

models and approaches. The main objective is to understand a context or
history from different perspectives, such as design criticism and histori-
cal research. The goal is related to the deduction of new knowledge and
understanding of design as a subject.
Research into Design: The exploration of design methods and prac-
tices, including visual testing and experimentation. This research is
centred on both understanding the process of design and developing new
design actions, artefacts, or methods.
Research through Design: The use of graphic design as an instrument
for investigating and articulating a particular subject area that lies out-
side of the field of design—as such, this model of design research would
include mapping, information design, and editorial approaches to visual-
izing and categorizing data.
(Noble and Bestley 2016, 10)

Graphic design is, then, an object of study, a creative practice and discipline
in its own right, and a tool or method—a visual language—through which
 Art Attacks • 15

to research, analyze, compare and display findings in the academic study of

another subject. To an extent, punk occupies similar territory—as a subculture,
a way of thinking about things, a way of doing things and the products created,
and as a vehicle through which to comment on or engage with social, cultural
or political themes. It needs to be stated, though, that these areas are fraught
with potential pitfalls and need to be carefully addressed. A critical analysis
of punk’s influence within the field of graphic design and visual communica-
tion might then be viewed in relation to three key areas: attitude or approach
(punk principles and philosophies), methods (working strategies) and practice
or performance (aesthetic and stylistic outcomes). These areas then relate to
the separate phases of design production, from concept and critical position
(theoretical) to research methods (theoretical and practical) and design arte-
facts or outcomes (physical).

Punk Studies: A Philosophy of Punk

In his acclaimed text, Higher Education: A Critical Business, Ronald Barnett
extends the notion of critical thinking (a key underlying principle of Western
academic tradition) into a framework for “critical being”—including thinking,
self-reflection and action, suggesting “critical persons are more than just critical
thinkers. They are able critically to engage with the world and with themselves
as well as with knowledge” (Barnett 1997, 1). Punk’s oft-cited skepticism and
aversion to convention could be seen to resonate with this model of academic
practice, and at least some punk principles may be better understood in terms
of method, rather than subject or practice. These might include notions of hon-
esty and authenticity, alongside a rejection of authority and the empowerment
of individuals.
Since completing my PhD in 2007 on the subject of punk record sleeve
design and the wider evolution of the subculture across the UK regions, I
have observed something of a transformation in the reception and acknowl-
edgement of punk as a field of study. The establishment of the Punk Scholars
Network in 2012 reflected this shift in perspective, along with the Punk &
Post Punk journal, now in its sixth year, and the variety of events, conferences,
symposia, books and exhibitions that touch on the subject from a wide range
of specialisms—history, cultural studies, social sciences, musicology, politics,
feminism, gender studies, art and design, media and fashion, among others.
For many of these fields and disciplines, punk is the object of research, a cul-
tural phenomenon that can be historicized, contextualized and critiqued.
Some, however, attempt to draw upon a vague notion of punk ideology and
ethics as a method for critical analysis and reflection; punk is no longer sim-
ply the object of study, but a philosophical approach (or lens) through which
to reflect upon other subjects. This is more problematic, and warrants closer
scrutiny. Punk, perhaps more than any other youth subculture, has long been
16 • Russ Bestley

subject to interference by activists from both the Left and Right, including the
Socialist Workers Party, Rock Against Racism, the National Front, the Anti-
Nazi League, the British Movement and others, its inherent radicalism often
viewed as an opportunity for recruitment and the further dissemination of
political dogma (Bestley 2008; Raposo 2011; Worley 2012, 2016). It also bears
noting, however, that even in punk’s wider, perhaps more apolitical and less
overtly ideological interpretation, notions of identity and authenticity often
lead to a form of internecine squabbling over whose definition of terms is more
valid, whose version of punk is closer to the “truth”.
Punk and academia are not natural bedfellows, and the adoption of punk
in some educational sectors as a vehicle for the promotion of ideological posi-
tions might be called into question. The relationship, at times uneasy, between a
vague and unsubstantiated “philosophy of punk” and reliance on post-Marxist
models of academic critique in contemporary higher education, within the Arts
and Humanities and the Social Sciences in particular,1 can lead to a series of
rather questionable punk canons, framed within academic discourse. Art and
design education has adopted the same philosophical approach, with degree
curricula widely drawing upon the critical theories of Theodor Adorno, Wal-
ter Benjamin, Terry Eagleton, Roland Barthes, Raymond Williams and Pierre
Bourdieu as key texts, and Cultural Studies departments (introduced to shore
up the academic credibility of practice-based courses and programmes) bring-
ing their ideological baggage into the studio with them. The corresponding
language of base and superstructure, ideology, agency and hegemony has also
seeped into academic discourse on the subject of punk. For instance, Estrella
Torrez, a professor within the Chicano/Latino Studies Program in the Faculty
of Arts and Humanities, Michigan State University, argues for a model of “anar-
chist agency” in her definition of punk pedagogy as what she describes as an
“education for liberation and love”:

While dominant education alienates youth from their individual life-

worlds, punk pedagogy requires that individuals take on personal
responsibility (anarchist agency in the face of capitalist structuralism) by
rejecting their privileged places in society and working in solidarity with
those forced on the fringes. By doing so, we strike to undo hegemonic
macrostructures.
(Torrez 2012, 135)

When university lecturers and college professors introduce progressive politics

and lifestyle choices under the banner of punk, students may be encouraged
to adopt a range of prescribed models of punk activism, loosely centred on a
wider set of moral or ethical principles such as anti-racism, gender politics,
anti-militarism or lifestyle anarchism. A narrow version of punk becomes a
vehicle for the promotion and dissemination of ideological vested interests and
 Art Attacks • 17

academic posturing, a kind of fashionable Trojan horse to disguise political

indoctrination. From classroom activities such as sharing meals2 and debating
anti-war campaigns or the notion of open borders, models of social and politi-
cal activism applied to punk pedagogy are often drawn from wider cultural
and philosophical discourse, not, strictly speaking, from punk itself. This self-
styled libertarian approach is illustrated by Dylan Miner and Estrella Torrez,
who note:

our own identities as punks are intimately intertwined with radical femi-
nism, anticapitalist self-organization, Third and Fourth World liberation,
veganism and food justice, and DIY, not even mentioning the most fun-
damental desire to produce new and liberated societies.
(Miner and Torrez 2012, 29)

Of course, there is an overlap here, a grey area where a significant proportion

of punk participants may express an affinity with, or sympathy for, certain
ideological positions. Anti-racism, direct action and an outspoken suspicion
of authority are broadly supported by a majority of punks, but such positions
should not be interpreted as a general rule and retrospectively applied back to
the entire subculture as some kind of punk code of ethics. Variations in atti-
tudes towards racism (generally very clearly proscribed by the vast majority of
punks) and sexism or homophobia (which elicit a broader range of perspec-
tives), for instance, demonstrate the fluidity of ideological opinions within a
diverse punk subculture. Those viewpoints were not born from punk itself, but
adopted from wider political discourse and activism, and punk is not defined
by them, or limited to them. This is an important point, and one that touches on
contested themes of punk philosophy, for want of a better term (O’Hara 1999;
Kristiansen 2012; Ryde et al. 2014; Bestley 2016; Ryde and Bestley 2016)—not
least because, for many punks, the notion of a guiding philosophy is itself an
oxymoron.
However, these approaches to punk attitudes and pedagogy, while flawed, do
have at least some validity; in broader terms, punk could generally be seen as
oppositional. Yet what it opposes varies across the wider culture and contexts
within which it operates. As a result, it is not always inherently progressive
and at times may be reactionary, orthodox or politically ambivalent, but it does
usually offer something of a contrast to its parent cultures. How might punk be
purposefully used, then, to provide strategic methods of critique and analysis?
Can punk be more than an object of study while at the same time avoiding
being stereotyped as a colourful subset of progressive political discourse?
Certain punk maxims are widely accepted and professed by a significant
majority of participants in the subculture, and some stereotypes exist for good
reason—punk’s association with a do-it-yourself ideal and the notion of auton-
omy, empowerment and a rejection of traditional hierarchies is a commonly
18 • Russ Bestley

accepted trope, with DIY embedded in many definitions of the subculture. Like
other punk maxims, this is not without contradictions: the celebrated first inde-
pendent punk record released in the UK, Buzzcocks’ Spiral Scratch EP (January
1977), was funded through a number of loans, including £250 from guitarist
Pete Shelley’s father, and a deal was arranged by manager Richard Boon for
the pressing of the record at Phonogram. Sleeves were printed at Delga Press
in Kent, and the batch production, manufacture and packaging of the record
was handled by professional service providers—less a case of doing-it-yourself,
perhaps, than buying-it-yourself (Bestley 2016).
This might be a helpful model for graphic design and design educators to
reflect upon, embodying an approach or rationale together with the adoption
of innovative methods in the creation of designed objects or artefacts. Punk’s
raw visual and musical aesthetic has also become a stylistic set of conven-
tions for others to follow (notwithstanding the irony inherent in the notion
of a punk canon). The problem here for educators is in relying on these ste-
reotypes within a model of punk pedagogy—such as asking art and design
students to create “punk” graphics through the production of fanzines that
simply re-hash a stereotypical visual aesthetic of early punk material, with
little or no critical understanding of the original rationale, or the technologi-
cal constraints that led to the creation of those styles in the first place. The
risk of falling into simple pastiche, without any clear intention to underpin
such a strategy, is quite high; as Ian Trowell argues in his critical reappraisal
of a collection of short-lived punk glossy magazines in the early 1980s, an
archetypal aesthetic convention of punk publishing has become standardized
and set in stone:

instead we see a fetishizing of the format of construction and a champi-

oning of the cut-and-paste aesthetic that has now ironically become part
of the mainstream onslaught of stylistic totalitarianism.
(Trowell 2017, 23)

The true value of considering punk in relation to design education falls some-
where between these two polarities—in approaches to the subject that might
follow some common punk conventions (DIY, a rejection of traditional modes
of thinking or practice, a questioning of authority, empowerment to have a
go) along with practical strategies that reflect some of punk’s original creative
methods (innovative use of materials, an embrace of experimentation and risk-
taking, the parodic or subversive adaptation of already existing visual material
to offer counterpoints and alternative readings). The twin phrases anyone can
do it and do-it-yourself were something of a punk mantra, tied to a vision of
independence from the mainstream music industry, and these principles may
be worth revisiting in respect to professional design approaches and the educa-
tion of designers.
 Art Attacks • 19

Equally, we need to consider the changing nature of design discourse and

design pedagogy. Notions of graphic design and visual communication practice
changed enormously in the second half of the twentieth century. A number of
factors had a major impact, ranging from changing technologies (especially
the advent of desktop publishing in the late 1980s, and the subsequent evolu-
tion of the internet), to the re-positioning of the discipline away from purely
trade or vocation, and its subsequent professionalization, and corresponding
academicization. In the United Kingdom, the late 1980s and early 1990s saw
many traditional art schools merged with technical colleges and polytechnics
under the banner of new universities.3 As a result, the discourse around visual
communication took on more theoretical positions, with students encouraged
to interrogate the critical context of their practice, and to see their work as more
than craft-based, carrying social, cultural and ideological value.

Graphic Design and Postmodernism

Design, meanwhile, has an emancipatory ethical agenda at its centre. The
notion of “making the world a better place” through socially responsible design
has been at the core of the profession since the modernist projects of the early
twentieth century (Howard 1994; Heller 2016). Ken Garland’s First Things
First Manifesto, originally published in 1964 as a provocative call to arms for
graphic designers to take an ethical stance in the face of the emerging consumer
boom of the 1960s, was revisited and updated in 1999 and countersigned by
33 leading figures from graphic design’s professional and educational arenas.
The manifesto was subsequently published in Adbusters, Emigre and the AIGA
Journal in North America, Eye and Blueprint in the United Kingdom, Items
in the Netherlands and Form in Germany. The notion of an ethical code for
graphic design professionals has been a key subject of debate in the academic
design press for many years. There are, of course, counterarguments: the letters
pages of Eye and Emigre witnessed a hotly contested debate from either side of
the divide between self-styled progressive professionals and career designers
who saw their job as simply reflecting the client’s wishes and receiving payment
for their services, without taking a view on the content of the message. This
argument had been neatly summarized by First Things First Manifesto 2000 sig-
natory Jeff Keedy in his keynote lecture at FUSE 98, San Francisco on May 28,
1998, where Keedy (1998, 57) asked the rhetorical question: “or is graphic
design just a lubricant that keeps everything on the info highway moving—are
we just greasing the wheels of capitalism with style and taste?”
Roland Barthes had coined the phrase “the death of the author” in his influ-
ential essay “La mort de l’auteur” in 1967 (later republished within the edited
collection Image-Music-Text in 1977), originally as a critique of literary theory
and the traditional approach that involved drilling into the identity of the author
in order to distil the underlying intention behind the text. Instead, Barthes
20 • Russ Bestley

argued that each piece of writing contains multiple layers and meanings, and
the world view and experience of the reader are, in fact, more influential to
the reading of a text than the author. In turn, the author should not be seen
as an independent agent, instead drawing upon wider social, cultural and his-
torical codes and conventions. This position was important in the development
of postmodern theories of communication, initially applied to literature and
subsequently expanded to mass media, advertising and popular culture. This
debate was at the heart of an ongoing dialogue within sectors of the graphic
design press regarding the relationship between design practice and contempo-
rary theories of postmodernism. Graphic design’s subsequent soul-searching
could be seen on reflection as perhaps a little self-indulgent, and certainly some
of the practice-based responses to the “death of the author” seemed ultimately
to head up a blind alley of meaningless complexity. Keedy again summarized
this problem rather neatly:

That is why ultimately the strategies of resistance to Modernist dogma

and the critique of the status quo, from the late 80s, only led to what is
currently referred to as the ugly, grunge, layered, chaotic, postmodern
design of the 90s. Only now there is little opposition and no resistance
to what is an empty stylistic cliché. What I had hoped would be an ideo-
logical victory over the tyranny of style mongering, devolved into a one-
style-fits-all commercial signifier for everything that is youth, alternative,
sports, and entertainment-oriented.
(Keedy 1998, 54)

Design critic Rick Poynor also attempted to engage with graphic design’s rela-
tionship with postmodernism in his critical history of the period, No More
Rules, published in 2003. Noting Wolfgang Weingart’s late 1970s radical graphic
experimentation and the evolution of what were termed “Swiss punk” styles,
Poynor suggests that the British “new wave” in graphic design differed from
its US and European counterparts, in part because of the different context of
modernism to which it was responding:

modernism had never been the dominant force in British graphic design
that it was in Europe, or that it was, in a more corporate sense, in the
United States. Much more than in the US, Britain’s new wave was identi-
fied with youth culture and popular music and these designers tended to
position themselves outside of design’s professional mainstream, a quest
for identity that could be read as a postmodern gesture in itself.
(Poynor 2003, 32)

From a graphic design perspective, then, at least some of the new aesthetic
“revolution” brought about by punk could be situated within a broader
 Art Attacks • 21

history of the modernist—and postmodernist—project. Certainly Wein-

gart’s mid-1970s work, along with that of Dan Friedman and April Greiman
later in the same decade, does not look out of place alongside much of the
graphic design produced by professional designers for major punk and new
wave groups and labels. In some respects, changes in the graphic design
profession were already pre-empting (or at least paralleling) some “punk”
design aesthetics, particularly at the more commercial end of the spectrum:
for instance the work of Barney Bubbles, Chris Morton, Malcolm Garrett,
Russell Mills, Alex McDowell and Neville Brody. Poynor describes five
key thematic approaches associated with postmodern graphic design—
deconstruction, appropriation, techno, authorship and opposition—and
attempts to gather together practical examples in each category. Five years
earlier, Jeff Keedy had suggested some slightly different themes that could be
useful in relation to design methodologies, arguing:

a few postmodern ideas like deconstruction, multiculturalism, complex-

ity, pastiche, and critical theory could be useful to graphic designers if
they could get beyond thinking about their work in terms of formal cat-
egories, technology, and media.
(Keedy 1998, 59)

Punk graphic design often employed appropriation, opposition, pastiche

and parody, closely reflecting some of the same key themes of the postmod-
ernist “project”. The fluidity of change over time also needs to be considered
here. The concept of postmodernism impacted architecture in the late 1960s
and early 1970s, and the term was applied to approaches that were eclec-
tic, hybrid, decorative or witty, a deliberate counterpoint to the form follows
function austerity of contemporary modernism. Since the 1960s, writers
including Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault had been
exploring the notion of authorship and communication, emphasizing the
importance of the reader as an individual with their own personal biases,
interests and perspectives. The argument that texts may have multiple
readings suggested a rejection of modernism’s rationality and universality,
leading to shifts in popular culture, the visual arts and literature. Dramatic
cultural and political changes were also underway, from the hippie coun-
terculture and mass protests against the Vietnam War in the US to the May
1968 Paris riots and the activities of the Situationist International in Europe
(Home 1991; Plant 1992). The first appearance of punk in the mid 1970s
needs to be viewed as part of this continuum, despite the Year Zero rhetoric
of its main players at the time.
These trends within the graphic design profession would seem to indicate
that at least some visual approaches adopted by punk designers and subse-
quently viewed as core punk aesthetics were evolving more widely in other
22 • Russ Bestley

arenas. “Professional” punk graphics—the visual identities of major punk

groups, brands, labels, reproduced on a large scale and marketed to punk
consumers—reflected, to an extent, some of the “new wave” graphic design
styles evolving contemporaneously in Europe and the US. That is not to say that
punk graphic design was not in some way unique or innovative—particularly at
the more do-it-yourself end of the spectrum, where arguments over the chang-
ing aesthetics of “postmodern” graphic design were as alien to those concerned
as informed debates surrounding the influence of the Situationist International,
Surrealism or Dada on punk.

Punk Graphic Design in Practice

While seeking to avoid the stereotype of a set of core, generic punk values,
there are a number of common punk maxims that might be useful to apply to
design thinking and strategy. The first revolves around risk-taking and hav-
ing a go—together with taking ownership of the means of production. Design
students are often encouraged to experiment, to “think through making” and
to try alternative processes in the practical development of their ideas. On the
one hand, this allows the accumulation of expertise in different styles and prac-
tices, but it also allows the practitioner to enter into a way of thinking that is
less outcome-driven and more open to chance, as Noble and Bestley observe in
their call for students to “make more mistakes”:

The making of mistakes demonstrates that risks have been taken, that the
designer has thought laterally, outside of the box, and that the range of
implied boundaries that delineate standard methods and practices have
been bypassed in the pursuit of original and unexpected results. Innova-
tive and new design needs to make such mistakes, rather than to rely on
established conventions and ways of reflecting the world.
(Noble and Bestley 2016, 95)

Second, punk’s persuasive models of rhetoric might be considered in relation

to graphic design. The concept of rhetoric is usually applied to literature and
philosophy, and it refers to the strategic use of language as a foundation for rea-
soned argument. The classical art of rhetoric involves several distinct phases,
which may be described as (a) the discovery of ideas, (b) the arrangement of
ideas, (c) the stylistic treatment of ideas and (d) the manner in which the sub-
ject matter is presented (Noble and Bestley 2016, 96).
Visual communication is closely related to the construction and presentation
of persuasive arguments, because designed messages are intended to provoke a
response or reaction in a reader or viewer. Rhetorical strategies including irony,
hyperbole, metaphor and pun can be seen in a range of punk graphic material,
and can be compared with historical examples of political and agitational visual
 Art Attacks • 23

material, from John Heartfield’s AIZ anti-Nazi magazine covers of the 1930s to
the theoretical strategies of the Situationist International in the 1960s and Peter
Kennard’s photomontages for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)
in the late 1970s and early ’80s. The graphic work produced by, for instance,
Jamie Reid, Linder Sterling and Gee Vaucher, can be directly compared with
these historical antecedents and contemporary peers, and punk visual commu-
nication should be seen in the context of a longer historical tradition. That does
not mean that punk did not bring anything new to the design table, nor obscure
the fact that a wider audience were to discover these strategies through punk:
for many who first encountered these kinds of visual approaches in the work
of punk designers, they were punk attributes, not something drawing upon a
longstanding legacy or heritage. Punk, then, enabled a re-focusing of some of
these methods for a new audience.
Like its musical heritage, punk visual communication drew upon a wide
range of precedents, adopting and adapting methods to suit. Hebdige’s model
of punk bricolage is useful here, in the aesthetic approaches adopted by punk
pioneers in music, fashion, art and design. While such ideas were far from new,
their creative re-appropriation was to give punk a diverse range of aesthetic
styles that would become closely associated with the subculture. Again, for
design education, part of the problem here is in the distinction between design
thinking or strategy and design practice—punk styles can be easily appropri-
ated and rehashed—indeed, the power and impact of some punk visual tropes
has seen them commandeered for a wide range of purposes, from branding and
advertising (especially where a suggestion of rebel chic is required) to protest
graphics and political sloganeering where punk’s implied “authenticity” is a use-
ful metaphor for down-to-earth, with-the-people communication.
The first wave of punk gave rise to some hugely influential and long-lasting
design output, but it also empowered thousands more amateur designers to
create their own interpretation of a visual language that mirrored the excite-
ment and ambition of the new scene—some of it highly innovative, some of
it awkward, ugly, cheap and nasty, but collectively comprising what could be
called a punk aesthetic. The natural limitations of simple tools and materi-
als, as well as the quick production of graphic work by untrained designers,
led to a repetition of certain graphic conventions: simple black and white
artwork, hand folding and binding techniques, and hand-rendered or type-
written text. These basic graphic elements had also been central to a number
of avant-garde art movements during the early twentieth century, and became
key conventions in the visual aesthetic of subversion or political protest.
Jamie Reid’s awareness of the work of the Situationist International and the
late hippie underground in Europe and the USA may have led him towards
more informed versions of agitprop graphic material, but many other punk
designers made no such historical allusions—the look was simple, dirty and
aggressive, and it meant “punk”.
24 • Russ Bestley

Parody, Pastiche, Détournement and Recuperation

Graphic designers at times employ nuanced references to already existing mate-
rial in order to elicit an emotional response from viewers. Parody and pastiche
form the basis of some of these strategies, particularly where the designer is
attempting to present a humorous or ironic message to the viewer:

Parody—The production of a new artifact or work created in order to

mock, pass comment on, or make fun of an original work, its subject,
author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satirical, or
ironic imitation.
Pastiche—The creation of an imitation or stylistic copy of an original ear-
lier work, though with a different underlying intention from a parody . . .
A pastiche may imply a generally light-hearted stylistic imitation, which
although humorous is usually respectful, but it may also be seen as a less
valuable copy without any clear or intended reference to the original work.
(Noble and Bestley 2016, 98)

A more powerful, political strategy can be seen in the use of détournement—

the turning around of power structures within images, through appropriation
and satirical intervention—a method devised by the Situationist International
in the mid- to late 1960s. Much of Jamie Reid’s work for the Sex Pistols was
directly related to the principles and practice of détournement, in part due to
Reid’s earlier association with late 1960s countercultural groups and his work at
the radical publication, Suburban Press, in the early 1970s.
Collage, détournement, appropriation, parody and the use of fast, hands-on
tools and techniques were staple parts of that aesthetic, in turn inspiring others
to take up the challenge themselves. This is one area that, while obviously not
unique to punk graphics, could be seen as an exemplar of the punk approach to
image making and typography. While professional designers were employing
appropriation and parody in some of their work labelled “new wave” in the late
1970s and 1980s, few were doing so with the aggressive, oppositional stance
offered by those operating within the punk subculture. Of course, over time
the radicalism of some of these approaches has been softened, recuperated to
a large extent by cultural institutions and the media, its aesthetic adopted by
advertisers and branding consultants seeking a bit of street-cred “edge”. That
does not mean, however, that the entire subculture, or its visual aesthetic, has
been—or could be—co-opted for commercial use. While the graphic styles
of early UK punk—from dayglo colour palettes to ransom note lettering and
gritty, distressed photographs—have become commonplace tropes in the mar-
keting of sportswear, clubs, magazines, fashion brands and pop music, the more
brutal, basic DIY template created by punk’s determinedly non-professionals
often evades re-appropriation.
 Art Attacks • 25

This is one subject that could form the basis of classroom discussions within
graphic design education, as it relates closely to the ways in which radical or
oppositional subcultural movements (and their associated aesthetics) can be
absorbed back within the parent culture, in direct contrast to the fringe elements
that found ways to evade this process. This mirrors a number of precedents
within art history, some of which have been tied to something of a pre-history
of punk itself. Robert Hughes’s The Shock of the New charts the evolution of
avant-garde art practices in the twentieth century and the establishment of the
term “modern art”, noting the philosophical and ideological influence of move-
ments such as Cubism, Futurism and Constructivism, along with the impact of
technological and cultural change. Later in the century, the Lettrists and Situ-
ationist International both widely acknowledged a debt to the early Surrealists,
a group initiated by André Breton in the wake of the “anti-art” Dada move-
ment in Europe and the US between 1915 and 1924. Resisting all attempts to
institutionalize their own theories as an ideological “ism”, Guy Debord and the
Situationists argued that the Surrealists’ original revolutionary intent had been
recuperated and neutralized through the term Surrealism and its subsequent
adoption within the art market. As Sadie Plant notes in her definitive history
of the Situationist International, citing Ken Knabb’s translation of Mustapha
Khayati’s Captive Words: Preface to a Situationist Dictionary in Internationale
Situationniste #10, March 1966:

the most corrosive concepts are emptied of their content and put back
into circulation in the service of maintaining alienation: dadaism in
reverse. They become advertising slogans.
(Plant 1992, 79)

As a counter-strategy, the Situationists attempted to combat recuperation by

any and all means necessary, to the extent that many of the original artists
involved in the SI actually gave up practicing art altogether, focusing instead
on “mixing theoretical development with a varety of scandals, partisan propa-
ganda, and cultural interventions” (Plant 1992, 81).
In part taking its cue from the Surrealists, Situationists and the radical avant-
garde,4 punk might be said to operate in direct confrontation with many of
the same issues and arguments, from its commercialization by the music and
fashion industries to the establishment of conventional models and practices
that become stylized and replicated through a notional punk “canon”. How-
ever, some factions within the wider punk subculture did attempt to maintain a
sense of radicalism and opposition (from a number of different ideological and
political perspectives) (Bestley 2008; Raposo 2011), their non-commerciality
becoming something of a badge of authenticity in the process. The emergence
of post-punk, hardcore punk, anarcho-punk and a number of other sub-genres
was, in part, a reaction against mainstream recuperation within the pop music
26 • Russ Bestley

industry, and much of the aesthetic (musical, lyrical and visual) associated with
these new scenes was deliberately awkward, “ugly” and unfashionable, in keep-
ing with earlier doctrines of punk.
In viewing such oppositional positioning within a subculture, rather than
purely reflecting Hebdige’s established model of subcultures as an ideological
counterpoint to the mainstream (derived in turn from the theories of the Bir-
mingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies developed during the late
1960s and early 1970s), it is worth considering the notion of subcultural capi-
tal (Thornton 1995). Extending Pierre Bourdieu’s work on high culture, Sarah
Thornton posits the theory that subcultural agents acquire status through the
acquisition of “unofficial knowledge”, commodities and objects, in turn raising
their position relative to others within the same subculture. Alastair Gordon
takes a more punk-specific view on the acquisition of status within local scenes
in what he describes as “the workings of micro-discourse in maintaining and
constructing subcultural punk authenticity” (Gordon 2014, 183).
Caution needs to be exercised here, too, however, in order to avoid impos-
ing yet another set of hierarchies within punk, in this case reflecting perceived
levels of engagement and radicalism. A significant number of punk participants
do not focus on the acquisition of status: indeed, the subculture is somewhat
unusual when compared with others that focus more keenly on “scene-leaders”
and a sense of being “cool”, in that punk, outwardly at least, celebrates the
uncool, the dysfunctional and the marginal. Opposition to mainstream culture
may, then, come not just from active engagement, but instead via a real or simu-
lated attitude of contrarian indifference.

“I Don’t Want to Go to Art School”5

Punk can be seen as a complex, and contested, set of competing communities,
rather than a monolithic bloc operating purely in contrast to mainstream hege-
mony. Punk sub-genres may then adopt radical approaches in order to avoid
recuperation—fashion styles become more outrageous, musical and visual aes-
thetics more “difficult”, words and statements more offensive or extreme. A
comparative analysis between these alternative strategies of punk opposition, and
a better understanding of the hierarchies at play, may be useful for design academ-
ics and their students. Punk’s guiding philosophies may be erratic and difficult to
pin down, but common punk traits associated with criticality, a questioning (or
rejection) of authority and established modes of thinking, empowerment and the
guiding principle of doing-it-yourself are useful concepts for discussion within
the classroom and the design studio. Such approaches were neither new nor
unique to the subculture, but that is not to deny that punk provided a focal point
for their re-evaluation, particularly among a new breed of musicians, filmmakers,
artists and designers discovering them for the first time.
Common punk visual tropes include the use of collage, détournement, par-
ody, pastiche and lo-tech tools for reproduction (including the photocopier,
 Art Attacks • 27

rubber stamps, stencils and direct printing techniques). Again, many of these
methods drew upon a much longer tradition of agitprop art and design going
back to the early twentieth century (Hollis 1994; Prince and Lowey 2014),
though punk provided a new focus and context with, in some cases, a more
powerful result. In part this was due to the wider social and cultural impact of
punk, and the ways in which prominent designers such as Jamie Reid, Malcolm
Garrett, Winston Smith, Gee Vaucher and Raymond Pettibon could employ
mass-produced objects within popular culture—record covers, magazines,
posters, flyers—as vehicles for their provocative visual work.
Equally, the resourcefulness of the amateur punk creatives can offer inspira-
tion and encouragement to design students. The lo-tech, lo-fi design methods
adopted by these makers, often driven by their conceptual and physical lim-
itations, clearly demonstrate the old maxim that “necessity is the mother of
invention”. Graphic design students who are encouraged to “make more mis-
takes” would do well to look at the strategies adopted by punk and post-punk
DIY designers, often with no formal training or experience. It is perhaps a
rather ironic suggestion that students, who by definition are undertaking a rig-
orous curriculum of study, could learn a lot from analyzing the design work of
a bunch of rank amateurs who did not so much break the rules as demonstrate
a complete lack of awareness of their existence in the first place.

Notes
1. Many Arts and Humanities departments within higher education have followed models devel-
oped by the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) in their approach
to cultural studies, and notably the study of subcultures and popular culture.
2. See, for example, Chapter 8 within this volume: “Here We Are Now, Educate Us”: The Punk
Attitude, Tenets and Lens of Student-Driven Learning by Rylan Kafara, University of Alberta,
Canada. The History of Punk course, established in 2012, that forms the basis of this reflective
essay focused on “non-hierarchical learning opportunities”, where “community and exposure
to punk tenets was emphasized—for example, students were encouraged to bring vegan food to
class to share with others”.
3. The Further and Higher Education Act 1992 was also a critical juncture for a range of new media
disciplines and the bringing of popular culture into the academy.
4. Caution should be exercised here in the stereotyping of punk as a natural extension of the
Situationist agenda. While key figures in the evolution of early UK punk, including Malcolm
McLaren, Jamie Reid and Bernie Rhodes, were well-versed in the sixties counterculture, includ-
ing the SI and King Mob, a wider attribution of causality is problematic, to say the least. See
Home (1991) and Bestley (2008).
5. Leyton Buzzards, “I’m Hanging Around”/“I Don’t Want to Go to Art School”/“No Dry Ice or
Flying Pigs” (Chrysalis Records, 1979).

References
Barnett, Ronald. 1997. Higher Education: A Critical Business. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
Barthes, Roland. 1977. Image-Music-Text. London: Fontana.
Bestley, Russ. 2008. Hitsville UK: Punk and Graphic Design in the Faraway Towns, 1976–84. PhD
thesis, University of the Arts, London.
Bestley, Russ. 2015. “(I Want Some) Demystification: Deconstructing Punk.” Punk & Post-Punk 4,
2&3: 117–127.
28 • Russ Bestley

Bestley, Russ. 2016. “Design It Yourself? Punk’s Division of Labour.” Cadernos de Arte e Antropo-
logia 5, 1: 5–21.
Bestley, Russ, and Ian Noble. 2001. Document: We Interrupt the Programme. Southsea: Visual
Research.
Bestley, Russ, and Alex Ogg. 2012. The Art of Punk. London: Omnibus.
Bierut, M., W. Drenttel, S. Heller, and D. K. Holland (Eds.). 1994. Looking Closer: Critical Writings
on Graphic Design. New York: Allworth Press.
Bierut, M., W. Drenttel, S. Heller, and D. K. Holland (Eds.). 1997. Looking Closer 2: Critical Writings
on Graphic Design. New York: Allworth Press.
Cherry, David. 1976. Preparing Artwork for Reproduction. London: BT Batsford.
Dale, Pete. 2012. Anyone Can Do It: Empowerment, Tradition and the Punk Underground. London:
Routledge.
Furness, Zack (Ed.). 2012. Punkademics. London: Minor Compositions.
Gordon, Alastair. 2014. “Distinctions of Authenticity and the Everyday Punk Self.” Punk & Post-
Punk 3, 3: 183–202.
Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge.
Heller, Stephen. 2016. “America’s Big Design Problem.” Design Observer. http://designobserver.
com/feature/americas-big-design-problem/39439.
Hollis, Richard. 1994. Graphic Design: A Concise History. London: Thames & Hudson.
Home, Stewart. 1991. The Assault on Culture. London: AK Press.
Howard, Andrew. 1994. “There Is Such a Thing as Society.” Eye 4, 13: 72–77.
Hughes, Robert. 1991. The Shock of the New: Art and the Century of Change. London: Thames &
Hudson.
Keedy, Jeff. 1998. “Graphic Design in the Postmodern Era.” Emigre 47: 50–60.
Kristiansen, Lars J. 2012. Screaming for Change: Articulating a Unifying Philosophy of Punk Rock.
Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Latimer, Henry C. 1977. Preparing Art and Camera Copy for Printing: Contemporary Procedures and
Techniques for Mechanicals and Related Copy. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Lupton, Ellen, and J. Abbott Miller. 2006. Design Writing Research: Writing on Graphic Design.
London: Phaidon.
Miner, Dylan, and Estrella Torrez. 2012. “Turning Point: Claiming the University as a Punk Space.”
In Punkademics, edited by Zack Furness, 27–35. London: Minor Compositions.
Noble, Ian, and Russ Bestley. 2016. Visual Research: An Introduction to Research Methods in Graphic
Design. London: Fairchild Books.
O’Hara, Craig. 1999. The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise! London: AK Press.
Palmer, Jerry, and Mo Dodson. 1995. Design and Aesthetics: A Reader. London: Routledge.
Plant, Sadie. 1992. The Most Radical Gesture: The Situationist International in a Postmodern Age.
London: Routledge.
Poynor, Rick. 2001. Obey the Giant: Life in the Image World, 2nd edition. Basel, Switzerland:
Birkhäuser Verlag.
Poynor, Rick. 2003. No More Rules: Graphic Design and Postmodernism . London: Laurence
King.
Prince, Suzy, and Ian Lowey. 2014. The Graphic Art of the Underground: A Counter-Cultural History.
London: Bloomsbury.
Raposo, Ana. 2011. Never Trust a Hippie: The Representation of ‘Extreme’ Politics in Punk Music
Graphics and the Influences of Protest and Propaganda Traditions. PhD Thesis, University of
the Arts, London.
Reid, Jamie, and Jon Savage. 1987. Up They Rise—The Incomplete Works of Jamie Reid. London:
Faber and Faber.
Rose, Gillian. 2007. Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials.
London: Sage.
Ryde, Robin, and Russ Bestley. 2016. “Thinking Punk.” Punk & Post-Punk 5, 2: 97–110.
Ryde, Robin, Lucy Sofianos, and Charlie Waterhouse. 2014. The Truth of Revolution, Brother: The
Philosophies of Punk. London: Situation Press.
Sabin, Roger. 1999. Punk Rock: So What? The Cultural Legacy of Punk. London: Routledge.
Thornton, Sarah. 1995. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital . Cambridge:
Polity.
Torrez, Estrella. 2012. “Punk Pedagogy: Education for Liberation and Love.” In Punkademics, edited
by Zack Furness, 131–142. London: Minor Compositions.
 Art Attacks • 29

Trowell, Ian M. 2017. “Digging up the Dead Cities: Abandoned Streets and Past Ruins of the Future
in the Glossy Punk Magazine.” Punk & Post-Punk 6, 2: 21–40.
Worley, Matthew. 2012. “Shot By Both Sides: Punk, Politics and the End of ‘Consensus’.” Contempo-
rary British History 26, 3: 333–354.
Worley, Matthew. 2016. “Marx—Lenin—Rotten—Strummer: British Marxism and Youth Culture
in the 1970s.” Contemporary British History 30, 4: 505–521.
 3
“Khas-o-Khâshâk”1: Anarcho-Improv
in the Tehrani Music Education Scene
NASIM NIKNAFS

Here we have an aesthetics of the borderland between chaos and order,

the margin, the area of “catastrophe” where the breakdown of the sys-
tem can equal enlightenment.
—Hakim Bey (2003, 129)

The first time we ever left Iran was when we got invited to perform at
this festival in Amsterdam, in Holland, called The Iranian Intergalactic
Music Festival2 . . . it was the first time for us also performing on a proper
stage, you know, just this real rush of excitement of how cool it is to be on
an actual stage and performing freely without worrying about the cops
or anything. Because when we used to perform in Iran, we always had to
have lookouts or people watching out for us . . . but that element of danger
would add such an excitement to the show. The adrenaline of knowing
any moment the doors could just bust open and then a whole bunch of
cops would raid the place and take all your instruments. You know, when
people were dancing in that room and they were screaming and having
fun, it was all or nothing. And that sort of sense of carelessness, it was the
most rock ‘n’ roll thing ever. I mean, I’ve performed hundreds of shows
outside of Iran. Nothing has ever come as close to that for me, to sort of
be able to enjoy that kind of freedom of just letting go. Over in the West,
I was always self-conscious, “Shit! Am I good enough? Are people giving
a fuck? Or is my mic loud or whatever, you know?” Over here, in the
underground, when we were performing, it was just pure raw rock ‘n’
roll. There was nothing else. We weren’t pretending to be anything else.
That’s all that we were.

So explains Raam,3 an ex-“unofficial” and now “official”4 Iranian rock musician,

who started his musical hobby-turned-to-career in his parents’ basement in
the northern part of Tehran. Raam later left Iran, alongside so many other rock
musicians, to be able to pursue his music legitimately—beyond the supervisory

30
 “Khas-o-Khâshâk” • 31

gaze of the authorities—a genre of music that still to this day resides in a state
of liminality (Nooshin 2005) due to unpredictable regulations over its produc-
tion in the country. However, yearning for the voice of his city, neighbourhood
and community, Raam returned to Tehran as can be inferred from the opening
excerpt. The “pure raw” feelings he was seeking in his musical interactions were
not readily achievable in the many different places he had travelled to, lived in
or passed by when on tour. It seemed the “mainstream” music industry was not
his thing! Nor were the diasporic interpretations of his music by the Iranian
emigrants. Reflecting upon one of Raam’s concerts I attended in Toronto:

His music was much improved, and he was more mature on the stage,
but the adrenaline rush we all used to experience while being in those
concerts back in Tehran was missing. His concert was reduced to “yet
another rock show” within the Iranian diaspora overground, where most
people attended to see and be seen, rather than experience the dangers
and solidarity these events usually entailed.
(Niknafs 2016, 357–358)

Despite now being able to pursue his musical ambitions freely, he had encoun-
tered new, different, unexpected constraints within his new milieu, and found
that he wanted to enjoy his unique musical experience divorced from the coer-
cion and pressure of the market—even though what he sang and played was, in
his own words, “low-quality”, “bad music” and even “garbage” at times.
Raam’s story is unique in itself, but nonetheless similar to those of so many
other rock musicians in Iran after the 1979 revolution who left the country to
pursue careers in music. But why did Raam return? What was it that has per-
suaded other rock musicians (such as Behzad Omrani5) to remain? What was
so intriguing about the place and space of their music-making that, regardless
of the hardships associated with music production, encouraged them to stay?
In this chapter I investigate a music [education] scene based on Bennett and
Peterson’s (2004) understanding of “local, translocal, and virtual” scenes, in a
vibrant city like Tehran. Basing upon Gosling’s (2004) writings on Anarcho-
Punk, I argue that the most practical way to pursue (rock and alternative) music
and become engaged in one of Tehran’s music scenes seems to be through what
I call Anarcho-Improv. In doing so, I examine three politically charged periods
in the contemporary history of Iran, and engage with these mobilizing move-
ments in relation to the anarchist, improvisatory and self-governing rock music
scene. The periods I focus upon here are:

• The 1979 revolution

• The two uprisings of Kooy-e Dâneshgâh in 1999, and
• The 2009 electoral turmoil known as the Green Movement.
32 • Nasim Niknafs

I write this chapter as one of the scene members that Raam described in
the opening excerpt. I danced, screamed, played and sang songs while par-
ticipating at underground parties, concerts or what Howard Becker (1982)
termed “art worlds”. Music was only one aspect of the scene that spoke to
so many of us; beyond that, it was the sheer force of participating in artis-
tic projects through live conceptual performances, theatre, visual arts and
cultural engagements that turned us into—I realize today—anarchists, the
ultimate projection of “a self-organizing society based on voluntary coop-
eration rather than [.  .  .] coercion” (Ward 2004, 10). And all of this was
mostly through trial and error, imitation, peer-mentorship and proactive
access to a lively creative scene without the figure of authority as teacher,
although the capital “A” of Authorities as the controlling state loomed con-
stantly over us.
Similar to Raam, I have also left the country to pursue my musicianship,
but unlike Raam I have not returned to live in Iran, though I have been back
a few times to visit family and a handful of friends who have stayed in the
country. I also visited Iran to situate myself again within the streets of Tehran,
its traffic and social life, the familiar crowds and cafés, and to experience the
newly emerged locales, art galleries and newer and younger scene members.
Having experienced the life of a traveller/foreigner and various underground
musical scenes in Europe and North America, I wanted to return mentally
and emotionally to the place whence my music education began and that of
many of my colleagues. As part of an ongoing research project into the life of
“unofficial” and “official” rock musicians in Iran, this chapter illustrates some
shared characteristics among these musicians and their music education: that
of improvisatory anarchism in/as their music education that gave rise to “far
smaller utopias [that] managed to convey the same sense of knock-you-down
newness, [and] of soul-conquering significance” (Schneider 2013, xiii) and that
encompass intricate

internal dynamics (including both cooperation and competition), along

with a pronounced ability to adapt to new circumstances and conditions
[that] offer insight into the complexities of a musical production, inter-
action, and reception, with particular relevance to how we understand
improvisation.
(Borgo 2005, 61)

An Unfinished Revolution6: A Nation of “Khas-o-Khâshâk”

I acutely remember the day that Mahmood Ahmadinejad became the Iranian
president for the second time in 2009. It was my birthday when the polls drew
to a close. My eyes were fixated upon the TV in disbelief, as I sat with some
of my Iranian and non-Iranian friends in Chicago, Illinois. Before the final
 “Khas-o-Khâshâk” • 33

votes were tallied, the victory of Ahmadinejad was apparent; he “won the
ballot with 62.63 percent of the vote, while Moussavi received 33.75 percent
of the vote” (CNN 2009). Dismayed and zombied-out, it was such an out-of-
body experience that without a word we crawled back to our homes, in very
much the same way that much of the world likely experienced the election of
Donald Trump in 2016. How could it happen? It was unfathomable that after
months of campaigning, and renewed energy and hope, Ahmadinejad had
become the president again; another four years of political suffocation and
economic frenzy. A hollow night filled with disbelief, anger, confusion and
cold sweats turned into phone calls to Iran, to other friends in various parts
of the world, all staying awake and soberly following every news channel,
social media and local news in Iran. There was talk among my friends and
I, through physical and cyber communications, of returning to Iran, but our
parents would not accept it: “There is no way you are flying back. Stay where
you are. Stay! This is not happening all over again”; a plea shared by so many
parents in Iran with loved ones living outside the country, referring back
to the 1979 revolution, when they had experienced mass mobilizations and
the political aftermath of the revolution. I stayed where I was—a decision
that haunts me still to this day. I had a complex understanding of the 1979
revolution through word of mouth from parents and elderly relatives and
friends, first-hand experience of living through the Iran-Iraq war, and had
experienced the establishment of the government over the years. Along with
comprehensive research into the contemporary history of Iran post-1979
revolution, these experiences resulted in my non-participation in the 2009
post-electoral turmoil, or better said, uprising which immediately followed
the election results. Instead, I devoured the news of a developing decentral-
ized and leaderless movement, and following every move, I contacted my
friends inside and outside the country, participating in online and offline
petitions, and remote demonstrations.
On June 14, 2009, two days after the election results, Ahmadinejad gave
his victory speech and addressed the demonstrators: “the nation’s huge river
[will] not leave any opportunity for the expression of dirt and dust [Khas-o-
Khâshâk]” (Tait 2009). This statement did not go unnoticed. People took it as a
“badge of pride” (Tait 2009) rather than a mere insult, and art works, music and
chants created by the protesters emerged, taking ownership of the accolade of
“Khas-o-Khâshâk”.7 A now famous short poem, turned into a slogan in the 6/8
time signature, came out, similar to the structure and ethos of Rumi’s poetry—
with short, rhythmic and poignant verses:

You are the dirt and dust, you are the enemy of this land
I am the passion, I am the light, I am the pained lover
You are the coercion, you are the blind, you are the halo without beam
I am the courageous, I am the owner of this land.8
34 • Nasim Niknafs

Drawing from the values of anarchism, which poses the question “why bother
to confront a ‘power’ which has lost all meanings and become sheer simula-
tion[?]” (Bey 2003, 126, emphasis in original), and postanarchism as a “politics
and ethics of indifference to power” (Newman 2016, xiii), this slogan can be
seen to celebrate the Tehrani music [education] scene: passionate, bright, cou-
rageous and owning the “Khas-o-Khâshâk”, or literally, “punk” mentality. The
protestors and rock musicians alike reimagined the offensive slur of being
Khas-o-Khâshâk, and the lack of state-sanctioned music education, into a
decentralized, new and proactive Event (Žižek 2014): “in this case, the previous
trauma, [being called as Khas-o-Khâshâk], is that of the birth of subjectivity
itself ” (97), such that the “Event [is] the act of reframing, [Khas-o-Khâshâk]”
(190). Wilfully being Khas-o-Khâshâk, or “punk”, or “dirt and dust”, or “gar-
bage”, becomes an act of subversion and anarchism,

a diverse and heterodox assemblage of ideas, moral sensibilities, prac-

tices, and historical movements and struggles animated by [. . .] a desire
to critically interrogate, refuse, transform and overthrow all relations of
authority, particularly those centralized within the sovereign state.
(Newman 2016, 1–2)

Elsewhere (Niknafs 2016), I have discussed the socio-historical circum-

stances of music education after the 1979 revolution in Iran. Nooshin (2005),
Robertson (2012) and Youssefzadeh (2000) have also extensively described the
situation of music circulation in the country after the 1979 revolution, but here
I would like to provide a brief understanding of the precarious situation of rock
music in particular, post ’79, labelled by the authorities as “Westoxification”
(gharbzadehgi) through the official rhetoric. Music as an art form has gone
through convoluted waves of political messiness since the revolution alongside
the government’s establishing of itself as the head of an Islamic Republic, and the
country was enduring eight years of the last internationally known trench war.
In the early years, “Revolutionary Songs” (Soroodhaaye Enqelabi) were ubiqui-
tous on every radio and TV broadcasting channel, all under the auspices of the
government. The only musical activity that took place in schools was the sing-
ing of these revolutionary songs every morning before entering the classrooms.
Public teaching and performances of most genres of music were banned, and
any kind of music deemed to reflect inherent “Western” values, such as Western
classical music or “Western” pop and rock, was prohibited from public spaces,
in reaction to the pro-Western policies of the prior Shah era. In addition, any
kind of music such as Persian pop that might “entice” people to dance or com-
mit eccentric behaviour was also prohibited. Nonetheless, music found its way
into people’s private lives.
With time and changes in presidencies, cultural production including
music gained some public prominence. It was the presidency of Khatami in
 “Khas-o-Khâshâk” • 35

1997 that launched a new era for musicians, termed the “Cultural Thaw” by
Nooshin (2005). With less harsh regulations over the teaching, learning and
performing of music, rock musicians of all walks of life began to surface in
public. Nevertheless, their situation remained precarious, as these regulations
were unpredictable. Rehearsals, performances, teaching and learning, and dis-
semination of their music did not enjoy the kind of freedom from which most
of their counterparts in other parts of the world benefited, and the presidency
of Ahmadinejad in 2005, and later his contested victory in 2009, made mat-
ters worse. In this unstable climate, rock musicians took control of their own
learning.9 For instance, all of Behzad’s music-making and learning occurred
through collaborating with peers and other artists. Even his guitar teacher,
with whom he started his guitar playing, was considered a peer rather than a
higher-ranking music professor, as the music scene-specific tendency was that
if someone knows a craft, they teach whatever skills they have to another per-
son, fuelling the concept of DIY, collective learning and communal education.
Behzad remarked:

Electric guitar was not as common in those days. You had to find a per-
son who would even teach acoustic guitar. And they would tell you “hey,
I don’t know it either, but I’ll teach you whatever I know myself ”.

Robertson (2012, 69) argued that, “with very few outlets for official music train-
ing in the styles that unofficial musicians enjoy, these young men empower
each other and build on communal knowledge of the scene by teaching new
recruits”. Behzad was also adamant about creating the music of his band, Bom-
rani, collaboratively:

We are co-dependent on one another. And none of us is anything

without the group. When I’m not singing, I’m just Omrani, or our
[guitarist] is not Jimi Hendrix .  .  .  . The good thing is that Bomrani
has six wheels: even if one person would go missing, the car would be
crooked, meaning we don’t have a member, that is not as significant as
the rest of us.

Examining the local, rich stories of Behzad revealed that he and his bandmates
were following a do-it-yourself (DIY) ethos in their music-making and learn-
ing, like that espoused in punk culture. They created a local anarchist scene
through mutual aid, experimentation and imaginary understanding (Suissa
2006) that responded to all their musical needs. They became simultaneously
teachers and learners while representing a unique local music [education]
scene rooted in their sense of geographical and mental belonging, very much
in line with the revolutionary movement and the two uprisings that “emerge[d]
from ‘outside previously circumscribed situations’, and those movements that
36 • Nasim Niknafs

introduce ‘new arrangements’ of life outside the given possibility” (Rajchman,

cited in Ghamari-Tabrizi 2016, 184).
There were two crucial elements that were shared among the revolutionar-
ies in 1979, the 1999 and 2009 protestors and the active parties in this music
[education] scene: (1) there was no single moral rationale underpinning any
of these events, and (2) the absence of a rule of thumb in these events cre-
ated diverse and multi-layered voices and understandings through “aspiration”
and “the creative act of engaging with the restructuring of society as a whole”
(Suissa 2006, 139). For, as Ward argues in his advocacy of anarchism, “it is
diversity and not unity that creates the kind of society in which you and I
can most comfortably live”, according to a poststructural understanding of the
“accommodation of local differences” (Ward 2004, 82, emphasis in original).
These two elements formed the backbone of a music education that not only
survives the hardships but also dynamically reimagines the possibilities away
from static understandings of what, why and how its participants, or better
said, creators, should be engaged with the acts of musicianship, and towards
a dynamic interplay of motivations, actions and contingencies. According to
Suissa (2006):

It is intrinsic to the anarchist position that human society is constantly in

flux; there is no such thing as the one finite, fixed form of social organi-
zation; the principle at the heart of anarchist thought is that of constant
striving, improvement and experimentation.
(141)

Thus, the precarious situation of unofficial music in Iran might have uninten-
tionally10 helped the emergence of an ideal, or in the anarchist terminology,
utopian, music education as a “complex system” (Borgo 2005) divorced from a
centralized, standardized and state-organized music education that more often
than not is exclusive.

For a system to be truly complex, it must be an aggregation of simpler

systems that both work and can work independently; a whole made up
of wholes. Systems of this sort are able to take advantage of positive feed-
back, to cultivate increasing returns. They exploit errors or unexpected
occurrences, assess strategies in light of their consequences, and produce
self-changing rules that dynamically govern.
(Borgo 2005, 192)

Therefore, in the case of a Tehrani music [education] scene, rather than a liberal
democratic music education sanctioned by a centralized entity, a scene with a
tangible “face-to-face democracy” (Bookchin 1974) would work effectively, as
“coordination requires neither uniformity nor bureaucracy” (Ward 2004, 89).
Working on the ground, being in constant connection with other musicians,
 “Khas-o-Khâshâk” • 37

artists, thinkers, and the dynamic space of teaching and learning, would make
for a more meaningful and profound music education than one so simplisti-
cally, abstractly and deterministically oriented that takes away the subjectivities
and denotations of the parties involved.
In what follows, I discuss a complex Anarcho-Improv music [education] scene
where its source of inspiration originates from Persian traditional music, cul-
tural and political history, and years of subversion through creativity that “makes
us aware of the power of bottom-up design, of self-organization. It operates in
a network fashion, engaging all the participants while distributing responsibil-
ity and empowerment among them. Networks facilitate reciprocal interactions
between members, fostering trust and cooperation” (Borgo 2005, 193).

Anarcho-Improv: A State of Persistent Disequilibrium

In a public lecture unfolding Foucault’s understanding of the Iranian revolu-
tion, Ghamari-Tabrizi describes the 1979 revolution as unfinished, where the
following two uprisings of 1999 and 2009 were the results and the continuation
of what had already been started around half a century ago in Iran:

Understanding the Iranian Revolution requires a temporal map that

recognizes the contingencies and indeterminacies within which the
revolutionary movement unfolded . . . What attracted [Foucault] to the
revolution was precisely the same feature for which his critics ridiculed
him: its ambiguity . . . it was the inexplicability of the man [sic] in revolt
that motivated much of [Foucault’s] writing on the Iranian Revolution.
(Ghamari-Tabrizi 2016, 189)

The same ambiguity and indeterminacy discussed by Ghamari-Tabrizi contrib-

ute to the concept of Anarcho-Improv as a “  ‘non-linear dynamical systems’
theory” that happens to “model the unpredictable behaviour of systems in
which the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts” (Borgo 2005, 60).
Unpredictability is the third value in Iranian society that Nettl (1980) argues as
mirroring its traditional music, along with hierarchy, individualism and posi-
tion of power.
While I do not agree to all four values that Nettl identifies, specifically
related to the current events in the country, Persian traditional and folk music
are deeply embedded in improvisatory practices, are highly complex and tex-
tured, and follow

the idea of creative performance rooted in years of training, and specifi-

cally in knowledge of the canonic repertory or radif . . . and in particular
the expectation that musicians should be responsive to their audience
and to the performance settings.
(Blum, cited in Nooshin 2003, 260–261, emphasis in original)
38 • Nasim Niknafs

This indeterminate improvisatory practice might thus be seen to have seam-

lessly lent itself to the Iranian youth, its 1979 revolution and the following
uprisings, creating a state of momentary spatial magic, or what Bey ([1985]
2003) terms a “Temporary Autonomous Zone” (TAZ):

History says the revolution attains “permanence,” or at least duration,

while the uprising is “temporary.” In this sense, an uprising is like a “peak
experience” as opposed to the standard of “ordinary” consciousness and
experience. Like festivals, uprisings cannot happen every day—otherwise
they would not be “non-ordinary”. But such moments of intensity give
shape and meaning to the entirety of a life.
(98)

What I propose, therefore, drawing upon the Tehrani music [education] scene
described throughout this chapter, is an effective music education as a “peak
experience” devoid of any specific criterion, frame of reference or standard-
ization, rather than a state of “ordinary permanence” with its set rules and
regulations, and immaterial power hierarchies. This is a music education as a
“complex system”, without schooling or institutionalization that:

seek[s] persistent disequilibrium; [that] avoid[s] constancy but also rest-

less change. Because of this uneasy balance, complex systems are not
necessarily optimized for a specific goal; rather, they pursue multiple
goals at all times. Although they cannot be explicitly controlled, they can
respond to guiding rules of thumb and are susceptible points of inter-
vention [emphasizing] adaptation, perpetual novelty, the value of variety
and experimentation, and the potential of decentralized and overlapping
authority in ways that are increasingly being viewed as beneficial for eco-
nomic and political discourse.
(Borgo 2005, 193)

Both Raam and Behzad, now well-known rock musicians within the country,
learned their rock music from peers, intensive listening, copying sound from other
artists and having the help of other fellow musicians, fans and scene makers, very
much similar to Green’s study of British popular musicians (2002). Yet there are also
dramatic differences in the political bedrock supporting their musicianship. Unlike
Green’s participants, Raam, Behzad and so many other rock musicians in Iran were
not permitted to practise their music in terms of learning, rehearsing, performing
and disseminating their music. Their motivation was not necessarily about gain-
ing foothold in the industry, but to be able, publicly and effortlessly, to enjoy their
music. Not having a local rock model (Robertson 2012), Raam remarked:

Word started getting out. We’d throw these underground parties, and we
even had concerts . . . I remember we would like watch, you know, we’d really
 “Khas-o-Khâshâk” • 39

record everything we would see on satellite TV.11 We’d record live concerts
to see what microphones they’re using, what amplifiers, what guitars, how
they played their instruments. And we would just emulate these different
acts . . . And the shows were crazy, every time the news would spread to
other people and other people would want to come and see what the hell
is going on. And it all happened, you know, very organically. We didn’t
have proper internet even though [there] was like good internet happening
outside everywhere else. It was just really difficult for us to communicate
any other way. So, it’s just basically word of mouth. And people started
hearing about the band [Hypernova]. Then we just kept playing a couple
of underground shows in Iran and move from studio to studio because it’s
quite difficult, at that time, to even find a place to rehearse because of all
the noise that we would make. And at one point we found this basement,
underneath a parking lot, like four-stories underground. We would literally
spend all of our days and nights over there just playing non-stop. All these
little things, they seem pretty mundane, but for us it felt the most difficult
task ever . . . for us it was just trial and error.12

When Raam discusses his music education in terms such as “trial and error”,
“word of mouth”, “recording live concerts on satellite TV” and “underground par-
ties”, he is recounting a local music [education] scene that is more concerned with:

the ways in which emergent scenes use music appropriated via global
flows and networks to construct particular narratives of the local. Besides
music, such narratives of emergent local identity incorporate aspects of
other local cultural forms . . . such as local dialect, dress, and history, as
well as diverse forms of knowledge, that are often used as strategies of
resistance to local circumstances [.  .  .] whereby particular local scenes
construct shared narratives of everyday life.
(Peterson and Bennett 2004, 7)

According to Gosling (2004, 172), “in [such situations] we can see the impor-
tance of a collective DIY ethic and the authenticity of the bands. The members
of the networks worked hard, not with financial motivations but with a com-
mon belief in the integrity of the networks” and a shared resistance towards
the governmental impositions. In the case of rock musicians in Iran, “The top-
down policy-making scenario cannot operate . . . What can work, however, is
gradual minute changes, and local activism. To overcome the unpredictability
and ambiguous legalities around creating their music, anarchism seems the
most logical path” (Niknafs 2016, 8). It is precisely this mentality that makes
anarchist education different from that of liberal education: “in anarchist the-
ory, what renders a national curriculum or a body of knowledge objectionable
is the simple fact that it is determined by a central, hierarchical top-down orga-
nization” (Suissa 2006, 137). The instability of the regulations of the musical
40 • Nasim Niknafs

production in Iran somehow endowed all of the musicians to be at the mar-

gin as an inclusive act, as “we should . . . look to maximize participation from
the fringes, rather than the core. In complex systems, a healthy fringe speeds
adaptation, increases resilience, and is almost always the source of innovation”
(Borgo 2005, 193). When no musician can publicly rehearse, perform, and
learn her/his music, it would mean that all of them are in it together through a:

radical imagination, [That] is . . . necessarily a collective process, some-

thing that arises out of dialogue and encounter rather than emerging
fully formed from the mind of a gifted individual. Furthermore, while
imagination is a terrain of political struggle it is not reducible to “ideol-
ogy” in any simplistic sense of “false consciousness” or “fetishism” . . . the
radical imagination embodies a more rich, complex, agent-driven and
ongoing working-out of affinity.
(Khasnabish 2012, 228)

“Radical Imagination”: Concluding Remarks

The contemporary world we live in has witnessed 9/11, the resultant “War on
Terror”, two major wars in the Middle East (Afghanistan and Iraq), Occupy
Wall Street, the Arab Spring, indigenous movements such as Idle No More!, civil
war in Syria, Brexit, the re-emergence of populism and the acceleration of neo-
liberalism, mass mobilization in less than twenty years, and just recently, the
rise of Trumpism (Tarnoff 2016). In the current climate it seems appropriate to
rethink and re-evaluate our approaches to life, our relationships to one another
and the environment we live in, and reconsider our values, beliefs and beings in
the world. What I have posited in this chapter only scratches the surface, and
presents only one understanding based on my own past experiences as a scene
member and ongoing research. It is definitely not a solution in itself, but it offers
an alternative opportunity to re-examine our practices and principles when we
as arts educators have the luxury and responsibility to potentially impact peo-
ple’s lives. We only need to take a step back and stay humble. We should

resist choosing sides, we should embrace our critical diversity to the full-
est extent possible. This requires humility and a refusal to take oneself
too seriously. [. . .] We need to realize that there are legitimate critiques
regarding our own practices and conclusions.
(Malott 2012, 264, emphasis in original)

Considering Iranian rock music education in the way undertaken in this

chapter may prompt and assist scholars and practitioners to think differently
about music education more generally, and in particular to apply understand-
ings to school settings where access, student enrolment, teacher retention and
 “Khas-o-Khâshâk” • 41

relevancy are of increasing concerns. What might happen if we imagine a punk

classroom—punk not necessarily in the sense of a genre or style of music, but
a style of music teaching and learning—a pedagogy? What would happen if the
decision-making in the classrooms were punk, set apart from the interruptions
of the authority and away from the Orwellian surveillance?13 What kind of a
music classroom would or could that be?
When education becomes a state-owned commodity, human beings’ integ-
rity suffers in the process. However, through “radical imagination” one can
create and curate the fertile moment to change the setup into multitudes of
active and noisy voices, as “ ‘Noise’ can be ‘richer’ in ‘information’ than cer-
tain ordered codes” (Hakim Bey 2003, 141). Raam, Behzad and their peers,
the Khas-o-Khâshâk, did so. After all, “things emerge when the equilibrium
is destroyed, when something goes astray” (Žižek 2014, 55). They anarcho-
improvised and experimented with their learning, all the way from “the abrupt
reversal of ‘not-yet’ into ‘always-already’ ” (Žižek 2014, 146). And they are still
involved in the scene: humble, resilient and loud.

Notes
1. In Persian, this means “garbage”, “punk” or “polluted particles in the air”, quoting President
Mahmood Ahmadinejad discussing the nature of the 2009 electoral protestors in Iran.
2. www.festivalinfo.nl/festival/5353/Iranian_Intergalactic_Music_Festival/2006/.
3. www.kingraam.com/.
4. The terms “official” (rasmi) and “unofficial” (gheire-rasmi) are now extensively used in the
context of Iranian rock music, and refer to the degree to which musics are aligned with and sanc-
tioned by the state. Other terms such as “underground” (zirzamini) or “illegal” (gheire-ghanooni) do
not sufficiently cover the depth and breadth of such music in the country. For further detail on
the contextual meanings of these terms please refer to Nooshin (2005b) and Robertson (2012).
5. http://bomrani.com/.
6. Ghamari-Tabrizi (2016, October 28) referring to the 1979 Revolution, Book Launch, Toronto,
ON: University of Toronto.
7. The “appropriation of stigmatizing labels” is a common trope of countercultures—taking a deroga-
tory term and reappropriating it as a badge of honour. See for example Galinsky et al. (2013).
8. Translated by the author.
9. I would like to highlight that the peer learning norms of rock music flourished under these
cultural constraints, where for instance Western classical music may have suffered, for the con-
ditions of learning were conducive to rock’s learning setting.
10. Rock music is particularly conducive to this situation. For further discussion of rock’s charac-
teristics from an educational perspective, see Green (2002).
11. Satellite TV was one of the major illicit outlets for Iranians to have access to the outside world: “These
satellite TV networks offered new horizons for a population whose cultural life had been limited to
war imagery and discourse. They provided sounds and images of life lived differently in the world
outside their own borders” (Alikhah 2008, 95). For further detail please refer to Alikhah (2008).
12. The interviews with Raam were in English and transcribed verbatim. But the interviews with
Behzad occurred in Farsi, and I translated them.
13. For example, the pressure placed on teachers to meet targets, the involvement of audit culture
in educational management and also state interference and oversight in curricula are situations
in which teachers and students cannot have full agency in the discourse of their teaching and
learning situations.
42 • Nasim Niknafs

References
Alikhah, Fardin. 2008. “The Politics of Satellite Television in Iran.” In Media, Culture and Society
in Iran: Living With Globalization and the Islamic State, edited by Mehdi Semati, 94–110.
Abingdon: Routledge.
Becker, Howard Saul. 1982. Art Worlds. Berkley: University of California Press.
Bennett, Andy, and Richard A. Peterson. 2004. Music Scenes: Local, Translocal and Virtual. Nashville:
Vanderbilt University Press.
Bey, Hakim. 2003. TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism.
Brooklyn: Autonomedia.
Bookchin, Murray. 1974. Post-Scarcity Anarchism. London: Wildwood House.
Borgo, David. 2005. Sync or Swarm: Improvising Music in a Complex Age. New York: Continuum.
CNN. 2009. “Timeline: 2009 Iran Presidential Elections.” June 19, 2009. www.cnn.com/2009/
WORLD/meast/06/16/iran.elections.timeline/.
Galinsky, Adam D., Cynthia S. Wang, Jennifer A. Whitson, Eric M. Anicich, Kurt Hugenberg, and
Galen V. Bodenhausen. 2013. “The Reappropriation of Stigmatizing Labels: The Reciprocal
Relationship Between Power and Self-Labeling.” Psychological Science 24, 10: 2020–2029.
Ghamari-Tabrizi, Behrooz. 2016. Foucault in Iran: Islamic Revolution After the Enlightenment. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Gosling, Tim. 2004. “  ‘Not for Sale’: The Underground Network of Anarcho—Punk.” In Music
Scenes: Local, Translocal, and Virtual, edited by Andy Bennett and Richard A. Peterson,
168–186. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
Green, Lucy. 2002. How Popular Musicians Learn: A Way Ahead for Music Education. Aldershot:
Ashgate.
Khasnabish, Alex. 2012. “To Walk Questioning: Zapatismo, the Radical Imagination, and a Trans-
national Pedagogy of Liberation.” In Anarchist Pedagogies: Collective Actions, Theories, and
Critical Reflections on Education, edited by Robert H. Haworth, 220–241. Oakland: PM
Press.
Malott, Curry Stephenson. 2012. “Anarcho-Feminist Psychology: Contributing to Postformal
Criticality.” In Anarchist Pedagogies: Collective Actions, Theories, and Critical Reflections on
Education, edited by Robert H. Haworth, 260–282. Oakland: PM Press.
Nettl, Bruno. 1980. “Musical Values and Social Values: Symbols in Iran.” Asian Music 12, 1: 129–148.
Newman, Saul. 2016. Post Anarchism. Cambridge: Polity.
Niknafs, Nasim. 2016. “In a Box: A Narrative of a/n (Under)grounded Iranian Musician.” Music
Education Research 18, 4: 351–363.
Nooshin, Laudan. 2003. “Improvisation as ‘Other’: Creativity, Knowledge, and Power—The Case of
Iranian Classical Music.” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 128: 242–296.
Nooshin, Laudan. 2005. “Subversion and Countersubversion: Power, Control, and Meaning in the
New Iranian Pop Music.” In Music, Power and Politics, edited by A. J. Randall, 231–272. New
York: Routledge.
Robertson, Bronwen. 2012. Reverberations of Dissent: Identity and Expression in Iran’s Music Scene.
London: Continuum.
Schneider, Nathan. 2013. “Anarcho Curious? Or Anarchic Amnesia.” In On Anarchism, edited by
Noam Chomsky, vii–xvi. New York: New Press.
Tait, Robert. 2009. “The Dust Revolution—How Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Jibe Backfired.”
Guardian. June 18, 2009. www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jun/18/iran-election-protests-
mahmoud-ahmadinejad.
Tarnoff, Ben. 2016. “The Triumph of Trumpism: The New Politics That Is Here to Stay.” Guardian.
November 9, 2016. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/us-election-political-
movement-trumpism.
Ward, Colin. 1996. Anarchy in Action. London: Freedom Press.
Ward, Colin. 2004. Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Youssefzadeh, Ameneh. 2000. “The Situation of Music in Iran Since the Revolution: The Role of
Official Organizations.” British Journal of Ethnomusicology 9, 2: 35–61.
Žižek, Slavoj. 2014. Event. London: Penguin Books.
 4
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
A Survival Guide for Punk
Graduate Students
DAVID VILA DIÉGUEZ

Introduction
During my five years of graduate school in the US I have crossed paths with
many peers who are having a really hard time finishing their PhDs. Although
most are dedicated students and scholars, many feel that graduate school is
sucking all their life out, as well as completely neutralizing them as academics.
Having to adapt to specific discourses, being required to focus on “market-
able” topics, competing with other students over research grants, and other
pressures to toe an expected line, are turning their graduate school years into
a stressful and dehumanizing experience. According to a study carried out by
the University of California, Berkeley, in 2014, 47 percent of their PhD stu-
dents and 37 percent of their MA students met the criteria to be diagnosed
with depression (Graduate Assembly 2014, 7). In addition to this, a study car-
ried out at an anonymous large US university in 2006 showed that 44.7 percent
of graduate students reported “having an emotional or stress related problem
over the previous year”, and 57.7 percent said that they knew a colleague who
had experienced “an emotional or stress related problem over the last twelve
months” (Hyun et al. 2006, 255). This prevalence of emotional and psycho-
logical instability in graduate school is, I would argue, closely related to the
current neoliberalization of higher education culture. Integral to capitalism is
the commodification of the everyday, and graduate students are going through
a process of becoming competing commodities themselves. However, in spite
of it all, many graduate students are turning their distress into active resistance.
In the summer of 2016 I attended KISMIF (Keep It Simple, Make It Fast),
an international conference on punk and underground cultures held in Porto,
Portugal. There I met over 200 graduate students and scholars from all around
the world who presented on niche topics such as feminist punk in Australia,
Romanian underground music under socialism, and resistance patterns of
tattooed bodies. Many did so in very personal and non-traditional ways. To
cite just a couple of examples, some speakers played instruments and sang

43
44 • David Vila Diéguez

during their presentations and one student made the audience dance. It was
refreshing to see so many scholars giving such original presentations while
still being profoundly analytical and “academic”. For a PhD student like me,
it was mind-opening to realize that punk and underground cultures were not
only the subject matter of most of the presentations but also influenced the
way the organizers and presenters approached the event as a whole. In fact,
the conference could be considered an underground event within academia
due to the heterodox and irreverent character of both the form and content
of the scholarship.
Prior to attending the conference, I had read Punkademics (Furness 2012)
and had also been in touch with various members of the Punk Scholars Network.
In my development as a young scholar, KISMIF represented a peak moment in
my initiation to date into the field of “punk studies”. Following the conference,
two things became clear to me: first, that there are indeed many scholars who
question and challenge the model of traditional academia; and second, that,
following a punk DIY (Do It Yourself) ethos, they are organizing and creating
very interesting alternatives.

Punk Pedagogy as Self-Empowerment in Graduate School

As I learned about how organized punk and underground scholars are, I dis-
covered punk being incorporated as a subject matter, as an ethos and as a set of
practices that can be applied across disciplines. There are studies on punk and
philosophy (e.g. The Philosophy of Punk by Craig O’Hara), punk and sociol-
ogy (e.g. Punk Sociology by David Beer), punk and religion (e.g. Hardcore Zen
by Brad Warner), punk and biology (e.g. Biopunk by Marcus Wohlsen), punk
and business management (e.g. Punk Rock Entrepreneur by Caroline Moore)
and even punk pedagogy. Such a broad understanding of “punk” multiplies
the research possibilities and opens innumerable new avenues for future punk
scholars. In my particular case, due to my concern with the apparent psycho-
logical and emotional pressure felt among graduate student peers in the US,
and determined to envision alternative ways of approaching graduate school,
I find the relationship between punk and pedagogy especially productive to
explore.
Most literature focused on punk pedagogy looks at punk in one of two ways:
as a subject of study in the classroom or as a set of practices that can inform
the way professors proceed pedagogically in their classes. As part of this sec-
ond perspective, Torrez (2012, 136) establishes a connection between critical
pedagogy and punk philosophy when she states that “punk pedagogy is a mani-
festation of equity, rebellion, critique, self-examination, solidarity, community,
love, anger, and collaboration”. By doing so, she combines the rebellious energy
of punk culture with the emancipatory objective of critical pedagogues such as
Paulo Freire (2005) or Henry Giroux (2011). For his part, Mike Dines (2015,
 Should I Stay or Should I Go? • 45

22–23) acknowledges the connection between critical pedagogy and punk

philosophy while also stressing the importance of including ideas drawn from
anarchist pedagogies. Thus, he introduces other perspectives such as that of the
Spanish anarchist Francisco Ferrer and the “free schools” developed in Spain
at the beginning of the twentieth century. Meanwhile, other scholars such as
Seth Khan-Egan explore the practical applicability of punk pedagogies in the
classroom using “punk ideology and energy in a composition course” (1998, 99)
as an example. From these three cases, one can easily see that punk pedagogy
is a fairly broad concept that is still in the process of being defined—hence the
inclusive plural, pedagogies, in the title of this volume.
Yet, despite this broad spectrum, there is something that most texts on punk
pedagogy share: they focus on professors’ perspectives, limiting punk’s pedagog-
ical possibilities to something teachers apply in their classes. Overemphasizing
these perspectives risks denying students agency in their own learning, suggest-
ing that an occurrence of punk pedagogy is dependent on a teacher wanting to
apply a punk pedagogical approach—whichever or whatever this might mean.
In this chapter I will discuss punk as a culture and set of practices, from which
graduate students can learn a different way of approaching university to achieve
a more meaningful and satisfying experience, despite the professors they might
have. To this end, I interpret punk pedagogy as a self-empowering strategy for
graduate students.

Punk Students and Punk Graduate Students

“Punk” is quite an ambiguous word in current scholarship. Many interpret
punk as an aesthetic statement, others as an ideology closely related to anar-
chism, and others as a general attitude towards life.1 In my understanding, a
“punk student” is not just someone who wears a Sex Pistols t-shirt or has a pink
mohawk while attending school. Neither is she/he just a student who plays in a
punk band or enjoys listening to punk music. A “punk student” is one who, as
Craig O’Hara puts it, “question[s] conformity not only by looking and sound-
ing different (which has debatable importance), but questioning the prevailing
modes of thought” (1993, 28). In addition to this, and resonating with the
fundamentals of critical pedagogy, punk students’ “questioning of conformity
involves the questioning of authority as well” (1993, 28). In short, punk stu-
dents would be those who adopt and display a critical punk attitude towards the
reality surrounding them at school even if they have never been involved with
punk culture. Most teachers tend to interpret this rebellious punk attitude sim-
ply as deviant, turning students into “discipline problems, hard-core cases, or
simply bad kids” (Kanpol 1999, 37). However, while that interpretation might
hold true in some cases, many students’ constant questioning and opposition
may also contain an act of resistance to “the assignment of social roles [that] are
melted into schooling” (Illich 1970, n.p.).
46 • David Vila Diéguez

Zack Furness defines punk as a movement of

interwoven subcultures, and a broader “Do it Yourself ” (DIY) counter-

culture in which people put ethical and political ideas into practice by
using music and other modes of cultural production/expression to high-
light 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.
(2015, 10)

At the same time, he uses the term “punkademics” in the context of higher
education to refer to “professors, graduate students, and other PhDs who,
in some meaningful or substantial way, either once straddled or continue
to bridge the worlds of punk and academia through their own personal
experiences, their scholarship, or some combination thereof ” (2015, 8). In
hopes of helping to avoid—or, at least, attenuate—graduate school–related
psychological conditions caused by the neoliberalization of higher educa-
tion culture, in this chapter I would like to introduce a new sub-category
that I call “punk graduate students”: graduate students who question the
prevailing modes of thought and the authority within graduate school
and academia while trying to foster solidarity and collaboration to resist
the spread of neoliberal individualism. Taking this definition as a starting
point, I propose that one way to help improve the graduate school experi-
ence is by more graduate students becoming punk graduate students. The
rest of this chapter will point to a few ideas for my peers to achieve such
transformation—and not die trying!

Be Critical But Take Full Advantage of Graduate School

While punk graduate students would question graduate school and aca-
demia, they would not do so just for the sake of it, without any specific
criteria. Coinciding with the fundamentals of critical pedagogy, a punk
graduate student would question graduate school and academia “as part of
a broader project that attempts to address the growing authoritarian threats
posed by the current regime of market fundamentalism against youth, criti-
cal modes of education and the ethos of democracy itself ” (Giroux 2011, 8).
This approach to graduate school resembles the way Greil Marcus (1989)
frames punk within the Frankfurt School’s broader concept of “negative dia-
lectics”. Interpreting punk as “a voice that denied all social facts, and in that
denial affirmed that everything was possible” (1989, 2), Marcus agrees with
Theodor Adorno, who says that “to proceed dialectically means to think
in contradictions, for the sake of the contradiction already experienced in
 Should I Stay or Should I Go? • 47

the object, and against that contradiction. A contradiction in reality, is a

contradiction against reality” (2004, 145). Following this idea, punk gradu-
ate students would expose graduate schools’ and academia’s contradictions
too because, since those contradictions exist in reality, they act against the
general perception of universities as unquestionably democratic and critical
institutions. In other words, since there may be a fairly significant miscon-
nection between the abstract concept of university as a democratic and
critical institution and what many universities are in reality, by making the
contradictions explicit, punk students would be able to expose how distorted
those universities’ reality is and act on it. Only by doing so could one think
of another possible reality and challenge the taken-for-grantedness of all
universities as democratic and critical institutions.
It is one of these contradictions that Miner and Torrez (2012, 30) acknowl-
edge when they say that “while the university may have the façade of radicalism,
it is all too frequently a ‘free trade area’ where the capitalist model of ‘intellectual
entrepreneurship’ supersedes any organic means of knowledge dissemination”.
A classic example of this is students writing grant proposals. They always have
to sell their research/product to a university/financial backer adapting their dis-
course to that favoured by the institution or those reading the proposal so that
it can be successful—hence the increasing frequency of classes and workshops
on topics such as “grant proposal writing”. This is not to say that every pro-
posal should receive a grant or that there should not be any “quality checks” for
those projects being financially supported. Neither would I suggest that there
is a conscious and organized conspiracy to keep specific students from suc-
ceeding at graduate school. The problem arises when those “quality checks” are
influenced by the neoliberal hegemonic ideology, and turn the grant into an
economic investment in which the efficiency of the results is the only deter-
minant aspect.
While Terry Eagleton states that “the word ‘ideology’ has a whole range
of useful meanings” (1991, 1), John B. Thompson says that to study ide-
ology “is to study the ways in which meaning (or signification) serves to
sustain relations of domination” (1984, 198). Following this last definition,
when I discuss “neoliberal hegemonic ideology” I refer to the way in which
citizens in current capitalist societies, without necessarily being aware of it,
subject themselves (and are simultaneously subjected) to a system of prac-
tices and meanings that tend to favour already socially advantaged people.
This way, when a grant is given only on the basis of “meritocracy”—as it is
normally the case at most universities influenced by neoliberal ideology—
those people in charge of choosing the recipient of the grant rely excessively
on a utilitarian analysis of the proposal and turn the grant and its recipient
into merely investments. Efficiency becomes the most important aspect of
the proposal—which candidate would provide the institution with better and
48 • David Vila Diéguez

faster outcomes and, at the same time, require fewer university resources?
In such circumstances, students become merely the means to the results of
the research, and their specific realities are completely ignored. Using the
US as an example, while a middle-class white American male who is eco-
nomically supported by his parents might have written the most convincing
proposal, the committee evaluating the proposal might be ignoring that he
is competing with a foreign female student of colour who is supporting her
whole family with her graduate stipend while taking care of two children.
Submerged in neoliberal ideology, universities would only pay attention to
the “quality” and potential results of the project proposal, perpetuating the
inequality with the already socially advantaged people: the foreign student
will keep struggling to finish her PhD while the American student who had
no financial problems will just have some extra money.
Punk graduate students should normally acknowledge these contradictions
since, due to their constant challenging of the norm, they would often be part of
the group of students that is most vulnerable to such structural discrimination.
According to Pierre Bourdieu,

taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. Social subjects, classified by

their classifications, distinguish themselves by the distinctions they make,
between the beautiful and the ugly, the distinguished and the vulgar, in
which their position in the objective classifications is expressed or betrayed.
(1984, 6)

Choosing a topic that exceeds the limits of what is normally considered to be

worth studying, adopting a perspective that clashes with the viewpoints of
their committee members, or simply not dressing in any special way to attend
a meeting, punk graduate students would question the prevailing taste of many
departments, and would distinguish themselves as scholars in ways that could
often hinder them from receiving the necessary support to push their projects
forward or achieve validation. Universities need to “produce” students who are
competitive in academia, and it is the neoliberal academic (job) market that
will decide which topics or approaches will be more valuable. The “pressure to
research something ‘marketable’, a topic that won’t ruffle too many feathers or
be perceived as too ‘political’ ” (Haenfler 2012, 41) is ever-present. As a student
trying to move forward in one’s PhD, this experience can be infuriating, but it
is important to resist and be wise about it.
A helpful understanding of resistance is provided by Antonio Gramsci, who
asserts that power cannot be held for very long by a single group in society
without the consent of the rest of the citizens (Jones 2006, 45). While other phi-
losophers such as Louis Althusser believe that an individual can never escape
the dominant ideology because he or she “is always-already a subject, even
 Should I Stay or Should I Go? • 49

before he [or she] is born” (2001, 1505), Gramsci thought that power is some-
thing dynamic and that the dominant ideology is mutable and can therefore be
subverted. In order to do so, Gramsci asserted that progressive forces have to
pay attention to popular culture and the already existing concepts in it, to try
and contest hegemonic power.2 In order to explain this, he gives the example of
Italian folklore during the first half of the twentieth century; while it was very
conservative, it was also the most influential culture in Italy. Gramsci thought
that it was a huge mistake not to use Italian folklore as a tool for subverting the
meanings construed by the hegemonic forces of the time (Jones 2006, 37). In
this way, he observed that folklore and popular culture should also be used to
separate old concepts from those “which are in the process of developing and
which are in contradiction to or simply different from the morality of the gov-
erning strata” (Gramsci 1985, 190).
I believe that this is an attitude from which punk graduate students could
learn a good lesson for their everyday life at university. When it comes to tak-
ing advantage of resources that help students develop their PhD research, punk
graduate students should find a balance between staying dogmatically true to
their principles and temporarily playing by the rules of neo-liberal academia.
Otherwise, they would only be hindering their own development as well as
leaving greater space for other students to continue to perpetuate traditional
practices within the university. Punk graduate students need to question the pre-
vailing modes of thought within graduate school and academia, but they would
also need to negotiate with the established concepts and practices in order to
move forward, act upon them, and then change them. In other words, drawing
a parallel with Mallott’s (2012) suggestion, it is crucial for punk graduate stu-
dents to learn “to identify where power resides, understanding how it operates,
and then devis[e] methods of challenging it” (2012, 65). Therefore, one should
be perfectly fine with shaping grant proposals, papers or event comments to
appeal to those in charge of choosing the grant recipients or grading her/his
classwork if needed. These are things that will not have any real repercussion
on students’ future contribution as academics, but that can tremendously limit
their development at graduate school when it comes to, for instance, financial
support or recommendation letters, among other things.
Meanwhile, punk graduate students should also keep looking for other DIY
spaces in which they can be more radical in their questioning and keep trying to
subvert the current hegemonic ideology through those other means too. Just like
punks created their own fanzines, had their own radio stations and created their
own record labels to publish their music, punk graduate students should cre-
ate alternative blogs and websites, publish magazines and organize workshops,
round tables, discussion groups, conferences and more, to keep contesting hege-
mony without having necessarily to miss out on the opportunities that graduate
school offers—just like the students who took part in KISMIF did.
50 • David Vila Diéguez

Leave the Library and Engage With the Outside

World at Least Once a Week
Another problem with the rampant neoliberalization of teaching institutions
is the resultant commodification of knowledge and students. As Jean-François
Lyotard points out:

The relationship of the suppliers and users of knowledge to the knowl-

edge they supply and use is now tending, and will increasingly tend, to
assume the form already taken by the relationship of commodity produc-
ers and consumers to the commodities they produce and consume—that
is, the form of value. Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be
sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valorized in a new produc-
tion: in both cases, the goal is exchange. Knowledge ceases to be an end
in itself, it loses its “use value”.
(1984, 5)

At university, knowledge becomes a commodity one can buy and sell in even
more commodified forms such as diplomas, certifications or publications. As
these things become the signs of knowledge, the student who owns them also
becomes a commodity as a knowledge-containing object that is little more than
an instructional book or video. In other words, the student turns into a thing
that a teaching institution can buy on the back of the amount of knowledge she/
he is supposed to have, given the diplomas or certifications she/he holds.
Through this process, the commodity form “stamps its imprint upon the
whole consciousness of man [and woman]; his [or her] qualities and abilities are
no longer an organic part of his [or her] personality, they are things which he
[or she] can ‘own’ or ‘dispose of ’ like the various objects of the external world”
(Lukács 1971, 100). At university, the commodifying process permeates the
whole institution, imposing its fragmented logic upon everything including stu-
dents’ consciousness. It is not only the job market that sees students as things,
but even the students struggle to feel like an organic part of their job. This way,
students—but also professors, lecturers, secretaries, etc.—become fragmented
as human beings, and their abilities become completely disconnected from an
organic and complete experience of life. Put differently, the student in graduate
school becomes a specialist in specific topics through the purchase of commodi-
fied knowledge on those specific topics with the sole purpose of being competitive
in the job market. By doing so, she or he becomes a profoundly fragmented “ ‘free’
worker who is freely able to take his [or her] labour-power to market and offer it
for sale as a commodity ‘belonging to him [or her], a thing that he [or she] ‘pos-
sesses’ ” (Lukács 1971, 91)—hence, not something he or she is.
This way of experiencing the learning process at university can result in an
obsessive search for commodity-abilities and commodity-knowledge in order to
become more competitive in the job market. There is always that other discipline
 Should I Stay or Should I Go? • 51

you can learn, that other perspective you can also apply, all those other works you
can also read, all those theories and authors you can cite, and so on. In such cases,
the acquisition of commodified knowledge for the purposes of participating in a
knowledge economy and positioning oneself as an attractive proposition within
the academic marketplace can generate much stress, anxiety and even depression.
In order to confront these added difficulties, punk graduate students need to stay
focused on their own goals and work hard to achieve those, not the ones imposed
by any kind of institutional or macroeconomic pressure. Otherwise, one can enter
a circle in which, as Marx noted when talking about workers’ alienation from the
“rest of workers” and “from their species-essence” (2009, n.p.), separates herself
or himself from the rest of the people and the important things in life as human
beings—alimentation, sleeping or exercising, to name a few things about which
graduate students might tend to forget.
It is also important to notice that in spite of rhetoric advocating critical
thinking, students attending graduate school will in many cases not be trained
in autonomous critical thinking as much as in rehearsing and adopting already
existing discourses within academia. As Terry Eagleton points out when talking
about literary studies, “becoming certificated by the state as proficient in literary
studies is a matter of being able to talk and write in certain ways. It is this which
is being taught, examined and certificated, not what you personally think or
believe” (1996, 175). One can extend this to the rest of the academic fields too,
especially in the humanities. Students will learn whom they need to quote as
well as how to reproduce many of the already institutionalized concepts in their
fields. As a result, they will be partially deskilled as critical thinkers to learn how
to shape their thoughts in an academically recognizable trend, which can result
in students’ loss of agency by having to change their thoughts to succeed.
In order to avoid the alienation caused by the commodification of knowl-
edge and students as well as the loss of agency, it is extremely important for
punk graduate students to explore other spaces of education outside the uni-
versity. Giroux (2011, 13) asserts that

critical pedagogy within schools [but also] critical public pedagogy

produced in broader cultural apparatuses are modes of intervention
dedicated to creating those democratic public spheres where individuals
can think critically, relate sympathetically to the problems of others, and
intervene in the world in order to address major social problems.

Through the concept of “critical public pedagogy”, Giroux opens the learning
experience to the public sphere, breaking the limits of the university. Following
this perspective, I agree with Dines (2015, 28) when he says that

the relationship between punk and pedagogy remains complex and

intricate, not least because a discussion of punk’s involvement in the
52 • David Vila Diéguez

classroom—both as a practice and as a subject matter—excludes an

analysis of a punk pedagogy that lies beyond the school and university.

Punk has always been a culture that has been involved with innumerable
social movements: antimilitarism, squatting, feminism, queer movements
and anti-racist movements, among many others. In the same way that punk
has, for many people, been the “the educator—the facilitator—that provided
a framework of enquiry, questioning and interrogation” (Dines, 2015, 21),
one can also seek out other scenes or social movements that provide similar
learning environments. Leave the library and go engage with people who are
not part of academia wherever you live. As Paulo Freire (2005, 72) points
out, “we all know something; we are all ignorant of something”, and that
includes people outside the university too.3 Wherever you attend university,
there are likely high schools, libraries, theatres and other spaces you can
use to explore different cultural activities through which to engage with the
community.
There are hundreds of social projects with which one can get involved:
enrichment programs in high-risk and low-income communities; projects deal-
ing with matters of race, gender, homelessness, immigration and asylum; fair
food, housing and eviction-related projects and so forth. As part of my everyday
life at graduate school, I have been part of different music groups with which I
have participated in political conventions celebrating Hispanic and other less
represented cultures in Nashville, Tennessee. In addition, alongside a diverse
group of students, I have organized literary recitals and an online magazine
open for anyone who wants to participate (www.furman217.com). These are
just a couple of examples [of] things that punk graduate students can do in their
community to expand the learning experience beyond the library walls.

Organize, Stay Together, and Support Each Other as Students

Apart from learning where power resides in order to taking full advantage of
graduate school and going beyond the university walls to avoid alienation and
loss of agency, there is something else the punk graduate student should beware
of: becoming the neoliberal student who imposes external pressure on herself or
himself because she/he believes it is her/his own desire and, as a result, ends up
detaching herself/himself from the rest of the students. This neoliberal student
is that student who has assimilated the neoliberal ways of current education and
inflicts upon herself/himself all the alienating demands of university, believ-
ing they are her/his own. This student is often able to suppress the feeling of
alienation mentioned in the previous section, because in this case, “following
one’s desire and obeying the Other who speaks softly within the self are one and
the same thing” (Dardot and Laval 2013, 332). In my experience at graduate
 Should I Stay or Should I Go? • 53

school in the US I have come to identify the first symptoms of turning into this
neoliberal student when one starts to feel guilty any time she/he is not studying,
or when enjoying leisure time begins to feel like procrastinating or being a lazy
graduate student.4
Many graduate departments contribute to nurturing this neoliberalized
student, encouraging students to compete with one another through vari-
ous grants, awards and distinctions that only consider students’ work as
individuals—best paper, best presentation, best teaching assistant (TA) and
so on. By doing so, they isolate students from each other and manufacture
a “high performance ego, [that] always demands more of the self ” (Dardot
and Laval 2013, 274). These individualistic rewarding methods can be very
damaging for the student body because they perpetuate the classification
of students in groups of winners and losers, often turning students against
one other. Under such circumstances, graduate students might adopt a very
strict and unnecessary discipline, hoping to achieve some sort of valida-
tion, and could end up overestimating the importance of cultivating the
individual over the collective, fuelling the drive for competition and hin-
dering cooperation with their cohorts. In addition to this, students might
also feel extremely disappointed when, despite their hard work, they are
not rewarded, which can also damage their self-esteem tremendously and
contribute to general discomfort among students. Instead of exclusively
rewarding the successes of students as individuals, it would be interesting
and valuable to explore different ways of celebrating or acknowledging every
student’s work and making all students part of everyone’s success. In order
to do this, punk graduate students could foster a culture of joint research
projects, presentations and publications, instead of focusing on their own
projects individually. The same can be said about fostering collaborative
grant proposals and sharing funds between students—something normal
in most scientific disciplines but less so in the humanities.
In addition to the foregoing, it would be crucial for punk graduate students
to organize and stay together; it is extremely important to develop a student
community that goes beyond the self-entrepreneurial competition. One of the
most important ideas would be that of creating a non-hierarchical group of
students whose voice is heard within the department decisions and which func-
tions as a support group for all students. This could take the shape of a union or
just a student organization. In my years as a graduate student, we have started
a more or less organized committee, have a representative who goes to meet-
ings with professors, and have held creative writing workshops, open mics and
literary recitals. Along with this, we founded the magazine, mentioned ear-
lier, in which many of us are involved (www.furman217.com). Punk graduate
students can create student associations; try to procure resources from their
departments or universities to bring their own speakers; organize workshops or
54 • David Vila Diéguez

film clubs; create online platforms, Facebook groups, shared clouds and folders;
create a common archive with materials for exams or other information they
think incoming students might benefit from; share syllabi and materials for
those who work as TAs; distribute surveys to inform the department if there
are any issues regarding students; or even just get together to have dinner, chat
and listen to each other. Students, as a community, have the power to keep
the individual from becoming this self-absorbed, alienated, neoliberalized stu-
dent. Only by making these practices part of students’ daily lives can alternative
approaches to graduate school be explored and, thus, a culture of collectivism
and resistance to the current individualistic practices of neoliberal university
be created.

Fuck This Shit! (Conclusion)

Attending graduate school can, as discussed in this chapter, be a very stressful
and dehumanizing experience but this is precisely why graduate students need
to turn into punk graduate students by organizing, showing resistance and
challenging those aspects with which they do not agree and which do not agree
with them. Symptoms of emotional and psychological conditions seem to keep
increasing among graduate students, and it is common to feel that one does not
want to be part of an apparently neoliberal and often profoundly hypocritical
academia. However, it is extremely important for punk graduate students to
stay and fight to change the very nature of university itself. Creating an alter-
native, underground movement towards social change outside academia is
extremely important, but punk graduate students need also to claim a space
within the university so that they can occupy the centrality of the education
system once they become professors. This is one way to fuel a future academic
culture in which solidarity, mutual support and the interaction with non-aca-
demic people becomes an important part of scholars’ work.
Punk graduate students need to organize their own academic journals and
associations, and create networks among students in their institutions and at
other universities. There needs to be an active graduate movement that can
nourish the creation of future punkademics and critical pedagogues. This is
the only way in which graduate students can resist the neoliberalization of uni-
versity and encourage a revitalizing democratization of teaching institutions
that could help create a more democratic and egalitarian world. Punk graduate
students need to take advantage of their critical attitude, and through differ-
ent strategies work to create a more meaningful experience of graduate school.
This chapter presented some strategies that I believe are key to a satisfying and
meaningful graduate experience, and connects them with punk culture ele-
ments. However, it is up to each punk graduate student to develop the ones that
best apply in their own circumstances. There is a lot of work to do, and it is time
for action. Punk graduate students of the world, unite!
 Should I Stay or Should I Go? • 55

Notes
1. In this sense, and following Paula Guerra’s example, it might be useful to think of “punk” as a
“hyperword”: a polysemic word with meanings that are constantly changing depending on vari-
ous factors (2010, 131).
2. My interpretation of “popular culture” here coincides with that of John Storey when he says that
“popular culture in [Gramci’s] usage is not the imposed culture of the mass culture theorists, nor
is it an emerging from below, spontaneously oppositional culture of ‘the people’—it is a terrain of
exchange and negotiation between the two: [. . .] marked by resistance and incorporation” (2015,
10).
3. The idea of learning from people that are not necessarily certified scholars or experts in a spe-
cific field is also brilliantly exposed in Cultures of Anyone (2015) by Luis Moreno-Caballud. In
his work, the Spanish scholar/activist uses social movements in Spain as an example of a collec-
tive thinking/learning process that can teach individuals involved in them more than any of the
ideas developed in most academic papers.
4. Riyad A. Shahjahan offers a provocative interpretation of “being lazy in the academy” by defin-
ing it as “being at peace with ‘not doing’ or ‘not being productive,’ living in the present, and
deprivileging the need for a result with the passage of time” (2015, 489).

References
Adorno, Theodor W. 2004. Negative Dialectics. London: Routledge.
Althusser, Louis. 2001. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” In Norton Anthology of Theory
and Criticism, edited by Vincent B. Leitch, 1476–1508. New York: W. W. Norton.
Beer, David. 2014. Punk Sociology. London: Palgrave Pivot.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge: Harvard
Press.
Dardot, Pierre, and Christian Laval. 2013. The New Way of the World: On Neo-liberal Society.
London: Verso.
Dines, Mike. 2015. “Learning Through Resistance: Contextualisation, Creation and Incorporation
of a ‘Punk Pedagogy’.” Journal of Pedagogical Development 5, 3: 20–31.
Eagleton, Terry. 1996. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Cornwall: Blackwell.
Freire, Paulo. 2005. Teachers as Cultural Workers. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Giroux, Henry A. 2011. On Critical Pedagogy. New York: Continuum.
The Graduate Assembly. 2014. Graduate Student Happiness & Wellbeing Report. Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California.
Gramsci, A. 1985. Selections From Cultural Writings. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Guerra, Paula. 2010. A instável leveza do rock: Génese, dinâmica e consolidação do rock alternativo
em Portugal. PhD dissertation, Universidade do Porto.
Haenfler, Ross. 2012. “Punk Ethics and the Mega-University.” In Punkademics: The Basement Show
in the Ivory Tower, edited by Zack Furness, 37–48. Brooklyn, NY: Minor Compositions.
Hyun, Jenni Q., Brian C. Quinn, Temina Madon, and Steve Lustig. 2006. “Graduate Student Mental
Health: Needs Assessment and Utilization of Counseling Services.” Journal of College Student
Development 47, 3: 247–266.
Illich, Ivan. 1970. Deschooling Society. London: Marion Boyars.
Jones, Steve. 2006. Antonio Gramsci. London: Routledge.
Kanpol, Barry. 1999. Critical Pedagogy: An Introduction. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
Khan-Egan, Sathan. 1998. “Pedagogy of the Pissed: Punk Pedagogy in the First-Year Writing Class-
room.” College Composition and Communication 49, 1: 99–104.
Lukács, Georg. 1971. History and Class Consciousness. London: Merlin Press.
Lyotard, Jean François. 1984. The Postmodern Condition. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Mallot, Curry. 2012. “Finding Balance in the Academy.” In Punkademics: The Basement Show in the
Ivory Tower, edited by Zack Furness, 65–67. Brooklyn, NY: Minor Compositions.
Marcus, Greil. 1989. Lipstick Traces. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Marx, Karl. “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.” Marxists.org. Accessed August 22,
2016. www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Economic-Philosophic-
Manuscripts-1844.pdf.
56 • David Vila Diéguez

Miner, Dylan, and Estrella Torrez. 2012. “Turning Point: Claiming the University as a Punk Space.”
In Punkademics: The Basement Show in the Ivory Tower, edited by Zack Furness, 27–35.
Brooklyn, NY: Minor Compositions.
Moore, Caroline. 2016. Punk Rock Entrepreneur: Running a Business Without Losing Your Values.
Portland, OR: Microcosm.
Moreno-Caballud, Luis. 2015. Cultures of Anyone. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
O’Hara, Craig. 1999. The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise. San Francisco: AK Press.
Shahjahan, Riyad A. 2015. “Being ‘Lazy’ and Slowing Down: Toward Decolonizing Time, Our Body,
and Pedagogy.” Educational Philosophy and Theory 47, 5: 488–501.
Storey, John. 2015. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. New York: Routledge.
Thompson, John B. 1984. Studies in the Theory of Ideology. Los Angeles: University of California
Press.
Torrez, Estrella. 2012. “Punk Pedagogy: Education for Liberation and Love.” In Punkademics: The
Basement Show in the Ivory Tower, edited by Zack Furness, 131–142. Brooklyn, NY: Minor
Compositions.
Warner, Brad. 2005. Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock Monster Movies & the Truth About Reality. Somer-
ville, MA: Wisdom.
Wohlsen, Marcus. 2011. Biopunk. New York: Penguin Group.
 5
Punk Entrepreneurship: Overcoming
Obstacles to Employability in the UK’s
Higher Education Pseudo-market
WARRICK HARNIESS

Neutral Territory
Start a band, throw a brick, you lazy fuckers make me sick.
—Lifetime, “The Gym is Neutral Territory”

When I was 15 I did a bad thing.

In Hong Kong on Sundays, then as now, domestic maids, predominantly
women and predominantly Filipino, gather in downtown parks and skyscraper
plazas on the north side of the island, and on public beaches near luxury apart-
ment complexes on the south side, to socialize on their weekly day off. The
amahs, as they are known, cook, read, watch TV, play games, do their hair and
manicure their nails. The kinds of things that everyone does, everywhere, but
unlike other socio-economic groups they do not have their own private or
commercial spaces in which to do them. Though the mood and atmosphere is
generally sociable and peaceful, the people gathered are most certainly margin-
alized, whether by employers who forbid them to stay at “home” on their day
off, or by the government “hawker control teams” who patrol in order to pre-
vent, or at least limit, the amahs from “hawking home cooking or other goods
from home” (Law 2002, 1637). In some groups there will often be someone
with an acoustic guitar, who plays while the others sing in chorus. Typically
they will sing Christian songs of faith; certainly not protest songs, and certainly
not punk songs.
On a hot and busy Saturday afternoon sometime in 1995, I stole a pirated
copy of the Titanic soundtrack from a Chinese street hawker, casually brush-
ing it from his flatbed cart and hiding it by my side as I shuffled past on the
crowded pavement. It wasn’t a CD I wanted, and I have no idea why I did it, only
that I could and so I did. Perhaps it was a way of testing the limits of my own
deviousness, seeing if I could get away with it. Back at home I hid it in a drawer
in my bedroom. I needed a way to profitably pass it on, but who could I pos-
sibly know that would enjoy Celine Dion’s sentimental, middlebrow schmaltz?
57
58 • Warrick Harniess

(Wilson 2014). I went into the kitchen. “Aida, do you want to buy the Titanic
soundtrack from me?” While my parents were out, I sold it to my family’s amah
for HK$100 of her limited disposable income, so she could listen to it on her day
off with friends. It was an entrepreneurial act of rent-seeking that befitted my
privileged place in Hong Kong’s classist culture of vulture capitalism. However
unsure of myself I may have felt as an awkward teenager, I was unconsciously
asserting my status as a young man who knew his place in society.
Getting into punk as a teenager in the mid-1990s was easy for me. Punk
was cooler than it had ever been before, conferring “status—symbolic power . . .
both cultural and social capital, and  .  .  . a clear potential route to economic
capital” for its leading lights (Wilson 2014, 93). The politics of art and taste have
much to teach us about prejudice, and in the same way that double standards
exist to favour in-groups and ostracize out-groups, so too are they prevalent in
our attitudes towards pop-culture fads and fashions. Sentimental schmaltz a la
Celine Dion is very often the throwaway music of the globally disenfranchised,
while punk—“anger’s schmaltz” (Wilson 2014, 125)—is subversive, “nearly
always a term of approval” (Wilson 2014, 126), the perfect subcultural testing
ground on which the young and relatively fortunate can learn the boundaries
of their intellect, social aptitude, and relational desires for control, affection and
self-determination (Schutz 1958). Perhaps it’s that I’ve been watching too much
of The Wire, but I see it that this is how punk came to save me from becoming
just another careless young capitalist in the same way that, say, a boxing gym in
a Baltimore project might save a young black man from an early, violent death at
the hands of a street corner drug gang. For me, punk was safe, neutral territory;
a sanctuary from which to hone what I’ve learned are crucial professional skills.
My experience is not unique. Punk is a gateway drug for many young people to
an enlightened state of mind—a belief system that favours practice over theory
and passion over qualification, and that encourages the critical questioning of
everything as a method for productively engaging with a turbulent world.

***
Punk is the personal expression of uniqueness that comes from the expe-
riences of growing up in touch with our human ability to reason and ask
questions.
—Greg Graffin, PhD, author, singer, lecturer

Steve Albini claims that “every significant life experience I have had I owe . . . to
the Ramones” (Dunn 2016, 32), and I have similarly concocted a neat memo-
rial to narrate my conversion to punk, a eureka moment from which I never
looked back. The birthplace of punk for me is the west side of Hong Kong
Island, somewhere between industrial Wong Chuk Hang and residential Aber-
deen. In the early summer months we played football during PE lessons, under
a sweetly humid cloud belched from the British American Tobacco factory that
loomed over the threadbare pitch. After one such session, at the back of the bus
 Punk Entrepreneurship • 59

returning us to our school up the road, my friend Jamie played me Green Day’s
1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours on his Walkman. I wasn’t that impressed, but I
was intrigued—it sounded like nothing I’d ever heard before. Soon after, I heard
Pennywise, Propagandhi and NOFX—roughly in that order—and pretty much
instantly rejected heavy metal and indie rock in favour of fast, melodic, American
punk. Not long after I had sold the Titanic CD to Aida, I got rid of many records
that I later did regret selling (including Iron Maiden, My Bloody Valentine and
scores of death metal albums), but such is the price of seeing the light.
The epicentre of our new punk world was the Warehouse youth club, a for-
mer police station built in the mid-nineteenth century at the beginning of the
British colonial era, located at the top of an impossibly steep hill above Aber-
deen. The windowless holding jail block was converted into a band rehearsal
room. It smelled, not unpleasantly, of mild damp and ancient floor polish and
it is one of the most evocative scents of my adolescence (I went back for the
first time in 15 years in 2014, and it still smells the same). The Warehouse
had a sleepy timelessness; it was truly a refuge from the social and academic
pressures of the hustle and bustle below. Playing in bands and writing songs
took on a new urgency and meaning for me personally. I’d already been writ-
ing for two years, but I now had a template within which to practice, one that
my bandmates understood and revered; importantly, and unlike heavy metal,
it was a template that I was just about proficient enough to apply. As a 16-
to 19-year-old I gave myself, unequivocally and absolutely, an education that
blended the academic, applied and technical in a way that school never could.
I am not suggesting that school was a waste of time, but if I took A Levels in
English literature, history and economics/business studies (which I did), then
I may as well have taken an AS Level in punk rock (far more useful than AS
General Studies, a mandatory requirement).
Punk rock was my moral and spiritual awakening. Through practice, I
learned how to critically ask questions about the world around me, that appeared
ever more corrupt and hypocritical the more I read and saw. Playing and writ-
ing music with others I learned how to collaborate creatively and express my
thoughts in a structured way, with the aim of evoking an emotional response
from a target audience. We organized and promoted our own gigs, recorded and
distributed our music, and engaged in friendly but serious competition with the
other bands with whom we performed. We didn’t so much work as a team to
realize a goal set by others (for example, a manager) as much as we bonded as a
group who set forth a collective vision together. In 1998, Fugazi came to Hong
Kong and played two shows, at our school auditorium and in Kowloon Park. I
interviewed Ian MacKaye for my fanzine, and went to dinner with the band. It
was a kind of field study, an opportunity to learn, however fleetingly, from the
best. In a recent response to an interviewer’s argument that “DIY punk matters,
it empowers individuals . . . and communities, and at the global level it challenges
corporate-led globalisation”, MacKaye said, “those tenets on why punk matters
are so obvious to me that they don’t even need to be spoken. It’s like something
60 • Warrick Harniess

we breathe” (Dunn 2016, 1). But it wasn’t obvious or guaranteed when I was
younger (as I suspect it isn’t for those who are discovering punk for the first time
today), and that is part of its (trans)formative power. The process of conversion
works precisely because the knowledge and values that seem so obvious and
natural post-conversion are so alien and unknown prior to it. Fundamentally,
this punk conversion experience has the same life-changing impact as a truly
excellent learning experience that appeals to all the senses. Playing punk rock as
a teenager was my first meaningful attempt at bootstrapping entrepreneurship,
in which I learned by doing, making iterative improvements from one crudely
crafted song to the next, and building an audience gig by gig. I frequently call
upon the knowledge I gained from my A Level studies to inform my work today,
but in a somewhat detached way that seems fitting for an educational experi-
ence that was purely cognitive. In contrast, my punk rock education was truly
holistic—an active learning experience of body, mind and spirit—and I feel and
remember it, emotionally, to my core even today.
These days I hear and sing punk rock songs in the same way, I imagine,
as the amahs in downtown Hong Kong on Sundays sing religious songs of
praise—they comfort me, reassure me, affirm my identity as an individual and
a group member with specific values and world view. The songs are merely
token expressions of a deeper faith and mindset. This mindset has helped me
to interpret my career-related observations and experiences, and has influ-
enced the development of my professional interests. As an entrepreneur I am
concerned about the corporatization of capitalism, meaning what Stiglitz calls
“government munificence” towards large organizations that leads to the cre-
ation of “laws that make the marketplace less competitive” (Stiglitz 2013, 48).
As an independent consultant and freelance lecturer working in higher educa-
tion I am also actively engaged in the debate around the consumerization of
higher education, which broadly refers to the extent to which HE institutions
have become more consumer-oriented as a competitive strategy, and thus more
accountable to the market segments that most utilize their services. The corpo-
ratization of capitalism is a salient feature of the state-controlled free market,
and it exacerbates one of the greatest challenges the developed world faces—the
growing inequality of wealth distribution. I firmly believe that higher education
is a key tool for reversing this worrying trend, but that the industry’s ability to
make a more meaningful contribution in this regard is hampered by its current
state as a “pseudo-market” (Williams 2013, 13). I believe it is time for a “big
bang” of deregulation in higher education.

It’s Not a Living, It’s a Life

Laissez-faire mi amour, c’est la vie
Shall I return to shore or swim back out to sea?
—Tom Waits, “Everything Goes To Hell”
 Punk Entrepreneurship • 61

In 2004 I made the decision to make London my home.

My parents are teachers, and in 1984 took a calculated risk and left Thatcher’s
Britain to make a better living abroad, first in Germany with the British Army,
and later working for a private education provider in Hong Kong. Returning to
the UK, I had very little idea about what I would do beyond forming a band. I
spread my bets, borrowed £8,000 from NatWest to fund a Master’s in American
Studies at King’s College London, and got a part-time job with Edexcel, the
awarding body that had very recently been acquired by Pearson, the FTSE 100
company that was in the process of reorienting all its operations towards learn-
ing and education. The contrast in my experiences could not have been greater.
In class seminars we derided the “pyramid racket” of late capitalism (Pynchon
2013, 163), and during the rest of the week I made entry-level contributions
to the introduction of online marking of GCSE and A Level qualifications that
Edexcel was pioneering in the UK following an injection of corporate capital
from its new parent company. Both of these experiences showed me how little
agency the supposed beneficiaries—the students—had at two different stages
of an education system that held such sway over the immediate future direction
of their lives.
While studying for my Master’s I dimly perceived the powerful effects of
what I now recognize as a collective confirmation bias, what Kahneman calls
“what you see is all there is” (Kahneman 2011, 86)—the instinct to seek out
evidence that confirms a particular opinion while neglecting, whether wilfully
or unconsciously, information that contradicts or negates the validity of that
opinion. Regardless of the coherence of the scholarly arguments to which we
were exposed against modern capitalism, the effect was to preach the impor-
tance of critical thinking within the confines of a distinct tautology. Meanwhile,
at work I found myself in the middle of a battle between two opposing ideolo-
gies. The move to online marking would have commercial efficiency benefits for
Edexcel and Pearson, a fact that the assessment community used to inform their
main argument against this substantial change—that profit was sought at the
expense of high-quality marking. Though profit was unarguably a motive, they
were demonstrably wrong about the impact on the quality of the marking. The
process of dividing students’ scripts into question “items” and anonymously allo-
cating them to markers ensured that an individual expert never marked a script
in its entirety. This introduced a level of objectivity that was never possible when
a single marker marked a script from cover to cover: natural biases inevitably led
to a more lenient or harsher application of the marking standard depending on
how favourably a marker viewed a student’s exam question responses, or simply
their name, handwriting or turn of phrase. I toed the party line for the change
to online marking convincingly because I believed in it, but it struck me as odd
how unaccountable both the awarding body and the marking community were
to students and parents. Between my studies and my job, it began to occur to
me that large organizations operating with impunity in relatively uncompetitive
62 • Warrick Harniess

circumstances, regardless of whether they were in the public or private sector,

had very little cause to respond to the wants or needs of the individual “end
users” of their products and services.
This point was hammered home when the global financial system came
“perilously close” to failing in 2008 (Luyendijk 2015, 33). The financial crisis
did little in the immediate aftermath to affect my material wellbeing, but it had
an enormous effect on my psyche. Walking through the City of London in the
late summer sunshine on September 15, 2008, I picked up the Evening Standard
from a vendor in Broadgate Circle and pored with grim fascination over the
pictures of Lehman Brothers employees leaving the bankrupt bank’s Canary
Wharf offices, carrying their possessions in cardboard boxes. It took me years
to understand, at least vaguely, how “global trade would have ceased to func-
tion” had the financial system crashed absolutely. At the time, I simply realized
how little I knew about how the world works. The media was abuzz with talk
of the consequences of “moral hazard”, or “what happens when risk takers are
shielded from the consequences of failure” (Sorkin 2009, 33). But moral hazard
does not only describe a willingness to take excessive risks with other people’s
money; it can also describe a systemic cultural arrogance towards customers
and consumers from organizations that benefit from government munificence
in the shape of guaranteed subsidies, and regulatory policies that encourage
“status competition” (Marginson 2011, 422) between institutions and support
the pursuit of “timeless power and prestige . . . as an end in itself ” (Marginson
2011, 422). As I reflected on what I wanted from life and a career, it gradually
came into view for me that charges of “moral hazard” could be levelled at the
industry in which I had chosen to make my career—education. How was my
punk rock belief system going to deal with that?

***
We stand paralysed, the corporate godhead demands a sacrifice.
—J Church, “Picture This”

The UK’s higher education system is a £17.5 billion export industry with global
reach and impact (HM Government 2013). This valuation reflects the measure
of its transformational power not only for British people but also for those from
other countries who eschew what is likely to be a cheaper education in their home
countries in order to receive a British education. The very fact that home and
international students alike are prepared to make such a significant investment
reflects a hard truth: that the education they seek is part of a wider “customer
journey” (Brown 2009) towards improved employment prospects. This is not to
say that education is not “important in and of itself ” (Williams 2013, 18), but in a
globalized and ever more populous world facing significant resource constraints,
this purpose diminishes in importance in relation to a primary goal of prepar-
ing young people and upskilling others for employment. In other words, helping
 Punk Entrepreneurship • 63

them to become more productive contributors to society, with the self-awareness,

communication, and creative and critical problem-solving skills to innovate
and create wealth and new jobs, or manage complex tasks requiring the input
of many people, or reflect knowledgeably and thoughtfully on past and present
human achievement, the better to inspire and lead positive change. The goal of
better preparing people for employment does not imply a “paucity of intellec-
tual purpose” in higher education today (Williams 2013, 5); rather, the pursuit
of “enlightenment, knowledge and understanding” are deployed in service of a
more pragmatic purpose—generating economic activity to create wealth—than
days of yore when people were less connected to one another by communica-
tions platforms, and competition between people was less intense by virtue of a
much smaller global population and geographical distance that had not yet been
circumvented by the arrival of the internet. In terms of a vision of purpose, edu-
cation has “gone punk”; young people have it instilled in them at school that they
should be pragmatically proactive in terms of how they approach their education
as a stepping stone to employment, and there is considerable consensus about
this: “student protesters, academics, politicians and commentators all appear
to agree that HE is essential for employability and is therefore a prerequisite for
social mobility and social justice” (Williams 2013, 4). It is in the way that the sys-
tem works, however, that HE falls short of its purpose.
The importance of education in the service of improved employment pros-
pects is underscored by present-day stagnation in the UK economy and what this
bodes in terms of quality, security and stability of life for the so-called Millennial
Generation. According to a recent report by the Resolution Foundation, millen-
nials are “at risk of becoming the first ever generation to record lower lifetime
earnings than their predecessors”, spending “an average of £44,000 more on rent
in their 20s than baby boomers did”, and put at a further disadvantage by wealth
redistribution policies that “entail a £1.7 billion reduction in the incomes of mil-
lennials (who will be aged 20–39 in 2020–21) contrasted with a net £1.2 billion
increase in the incomes of baby boomers (aged 55–74 in 2020–21)” (Gardiner
2016). These statistics, while not a foregone conclusion, point to just how at risk
the youngest generation in the labour market today is of being so utterly short-
changed by the continued political and economic decisions of older generations.
In political, economic and academic corridors of power the debate continues
to rage about whether a slightly more or less privatized HE sector would best
deliver on its collective mission to contribute to the betterment of society and
the growth of local economies. The debate is never adequately resolved because
the crux of the problem is that while knowledge, that “unique claim of higher
education” (Marginson 2011, 414), is arguably “almost a pure public good”
(Marginson 2011, 416), the dissemination process is not:

Entry into education institutions . . . can be restricted to some, and others

can be excluded; and since the places of admission are generally given,
64 • Warrick Harniess

admission to or consumption by some necessarily means reduction in

the consumption levels of others.
(Tilak 2008, 452)

The logical outcome of such a dichotomous system is a quasi-market that pro-

duces “semi- or quasi-public goods” (Tilak 2008, 451). Nowhere is this paradigm
more apparent than in the UK, where “universities are neither free to charge
whatever the market will support nor to attract as many students as they feel
able” (Williams 2013, 13). Accordingly, much of the competition among insti-
tutions is focused on factors that deliver little direct benefit to individuals or,
indeed, to the public good: “institutional prestige, selection on to high-demand
programmes and research excellence” (Marginson 2014). As Marginson notes,
the “larger enemy of the public good and public sphere is not the economic
market but the status hierarchy” (Marginson 2011, 429). This well captures the
moral hazard endemic to the sector.
If the HE pseudo-market is the problem, the solution must logically be to
either reform it or abolish it. In fact, since the 1980s, the HE system has con-
stantly been in the process of being cautiously reformed towards making it
more commercial under the strict guidance of the state, beginning with the
1988 Education Act that decreed that “instead of universities and colleges
receiving unconditional direct public subsidies as had been the case since the
creation of the University Grants Committee in 1918, they were to be treated
as suppliers of services under contract to the state and other purchasers of their
services” (Williams 2016, 134). Today, this commercialization manifests most
evidently in a creeping increase of tuition fees and pressure on universities
to do more to respect students’ consumer rights in terms of customer care.
Accordingly, the Quality Assurance Code emphasizes administrative precision
in service of the awarding of a qualification over the quality of the educational
product (meaning the coherence and relevance of curricula, the passion and
energy of teaching and coaching delivery, and the clarity and appeal of materi-
als and courseware). The Quality Code insists that “Higher Education is not
a passive process” (Chapter B5, 7), but its dense, procedural language invites
its supplicants to use it as a checklist for meeting homogenous standards. Its
guidance emphasizes the overbearing responsibility of institutions in service
of students, who can be forgiven for lapsing into passivity. A senior professor
at a well-regarded London business school succinctly summarized a challenge
many academics face when teaching, saying to me in conversation that “it seems
the more a student pays for a course, the more passive their attitude is towards
their studies. They expect to be able to sit back and have you [the academic]
simply lecture at them”. The shortcomings of the system can be measured in
the regularity of the laments, from a variety of public and private bodies with a
stake in the HE system, that “young people are inadequately equipped with the
soft skills and knowledge needed to make a smooth transition from education
 Punk Entrepreneurship • 65

to the workplace” (BCC 2014) and “business-university customer relationships

are often underdeveloped, with both sides frequently citing difficulty in broker-
ing relationships with each other” (CBI 2013). Ultimately, this cautious reform
serves only the system itself, while those who should benefit from higher
education—including students, local economies and, indeed, the academy—
stand paralyzed in its midst. The answer is to do something more radical that
would encourage the same kind of “creative destruction” (Schumpeter 1942)
that punk first waged in the 1970s on a music industry that had become too self-
absorbed and self-serving. Deregulation, allowing a competitive HE market to
blossom, would enable HE institutions to build competitive advantage around
the processes that enable them to deliver on their core purpose—the creation
and effective distribution and utilization of knowledge.
Introducing a truly free market in higher education in the UK is a revolu-
tionary challenge. Proponents of the pseudo-market status quo currently in
place (including backers of incremental reform towards both more or less priva-
tization) are unlikely to ever endorse true consumerization, because to do so
would be to bite the hand that really feeds—the government munificence that
maintains the equilibrium of an uncompetitive sector in which all institutions
are effectively guaranteed custom and therefore income. True consumerization
would force institutions to create consistently excellent educational experiences
that give students what they need at this particular stage of the customer journey
or risk losing market share to competitors, or indeed going out of business alto-
gether. It would enable HE institutions to price their programmes competitively,
based on market valuations by end users, both individual (students) and collec-
tive (employers), encouraging customers to make informed decisions about the
courses they take before they take out loans or commit their hard-earned money.
True consumerization does not mean pandering to students to make it easier to
achieve a qualification under a misguided sense of providing greater pastoral
care that in reality only serves to undermine the reputation of a particular educa-
tional programme or institution; rather, it means to give students the knowledge
and skills needed to gain employment and continue to develop as individuals,
via memorable and engaging teaching and clear and illuminating materials
and courseware. Higher education should not be a mandatory slog to employ-
ment, nor should it be a rite of passage to nowhere in particular. It should be a
fundamentally life-changing experience that is priced accordingly, consciously
purchased, and that helps the individual to build a better life for oneself.
Returning to my earlier rhetorical question about how my punk belief
system should deal with a red-blooded endorsement of the marketization of
higher education, I have thought long and hard about whether I have “sold out”.
My conclusion is: not at all. Wilson states that “anti-conformist impulses are
the octane of consumerism” and “thus there is . . . a conservative vibration in
the heartbeat of rock ‘n’ roll rebellion” (Wilson 2013, 126). Punk is less a fight
against capitalism than it is, like the process of creative destruction it embodies,
66 • Warrick Harniess

an “essential fact” of it (Schumpeter 1942, 83), a struggle within perhaps but a

phenomenon of market democracy nonetheless that helps push it forward. It
is no surprise that punk scenes often emerge in locales just as they are mak-
ing the shift away from totalitarianism, from Russia and Eastern Europe, to
China and Indonesia (for specific examples, see Dunn 2016, 61–95). Punk is,
in a sense, the “underbelly narrative” of capitalism, and punks are often, to
paraphrase H. L. Mencken, the greatest agitators for change to a political and
economic system in a particular country because they are deeply committed to
the principles so closely associated with market democracy—life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness. DIY punk practices also share commonalities with
lean entrepreneurship methodologies, and many of the most recognizable punk
elder statesmen, particularly in the United States, share to some degree the same
libertarian values of self-reliance and risk-taking as the most successful Silicon
Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, from Larry Livermore of Lookout!
Records (“I knew it was idiotic to gamble what little I had on such an uncertain
venture [a record label], but what was the point of money, I kept asking myself,
if I didn’t put it to use doing something I loved?” [Livermore 2015, 18]) to Mike
Burkett of NOFX (“Punk in Drublic eventually went gold, selling . . . more than
a million worldwide without any help from radio, mainstream press, or MTV.
From there we were able to build a career where we never had to answer to
anybody” [NOFX and Alulis 2016, 244]), to Ian MacKaye of Dischord Records
(“People would say ‘that’s weird that you like this band, they’re on a major label,’
but it didn’t matter to us. What I gleaned from them was self-definition; that
you could do whatever you want to do. And so we did” [Dunn 2016, 139]).1
This is unsurprising, because people who self-identify as punk are often, like
the technology entrepreneurs who are so visibly championed today, paragons
of creative and critical thinking and action. These are the very skills that should
be at the heart of all higher education programmes.

Punk Entrepreneurship
Of course, I have an agenda here.
Why else connect punk and entrepreneurship so brazenly in service of a
policy position? Are my own experiences really so universal as to warrant this?
Broadly, I think they are. In this concluding section, I summarize my answers
to three questions:

1. Why punk? Why is punk meaningful in the context of entrepreneurship?

2. Why entrepreneurship? Why is entrepreneurship a good way to teach
young people the skills and mindset needed for gainful employment?
3. Why the free market? Why might deregulation of the UK’s higher edu-
cation pseudo-market create better conditions for the advancement of
entrepreneurship as a staple of degree programmes?
 Punk Entrepreneurship • 67

Why Punk?
No such thing as spare time
No such thing as free time
No such thing as down time
All you got is life time
Go!
—Henry Rollins, “Shine”

Punk, as a concept, has proven to be remarkably resilient and flexible. Unlike

other subcultures—the beats, hippies, mods and rockers, dance and rave—punk
has grown beyond its roots in music, fashion and specific locales to become
something with universal appeal and subtext (see the breadth of perspectives
represented in this volume, for example). When you call something “punk”,
people get it. It doesn’t matter that in chat room forums people still debate what
is or isn’t punk, nor that it has been thoroughly appropriated as a marketing
tool; if anything, this is evidence of its elasticity and power. More importantly,
for historical and deep-rooted reasons, punk is a philosophy that resonates
strongly with young people that they need not outgrow.
Why is it that punk has endured where other fads have fizzled and faded?
Punk, like many subcultural narratives, follows a well-established story trope—
”overcoming the monster” (Booker 2004, 22). It is a trope that has “profound
symbolic significance in the inner life of mankind” (Booker 2004, 22), in which
a protagonist fights, against the odds, to defeat a more powerful adversary. The
narrative mapping is straightforward—a disenfranchised group with a subcul-
tural identity kicks and screams against the dominant mainstream culture to
fight for access to resources. But it is its success in winning some of these battles
and producing tangible results that has given punk long-lasting legitimacy.
Punk’s winning strategy was to go beyond oppositional activism to co-opting
the mainstream’s means of production, in much the same way that “terrorism
derives its ideology in reaction to the raison d’etre of the dominant constitu-
tional order, at the same time negating and rejecting that form’s unique ideology
but mimicking the form’s structural characteristics” (Bobbitt 2008, 26).
As a grassroots musical phenomenon in the 1970s and ’80s, punks estab-
lished nodes of entrepreneurial activity at all stages of the supply chain, from
performance venues to booking agents, from record labels to record pressing
plants, from distribution companies to retail outlets and media. Individu-
als became successful—wealthy and influential—without seeming to have to
betray their principles or identity, perhaps because the DIY approach was (or at
least appeared to be) “more collaborative than competitive” among members of
the community (Smith and Gillet 2014, 19). They embodied the anti-adage of
“if you can’t join them, beat them”. It is a stance that has emotional resonance
and is a proven modus operandi. It might also be argued that if entrepreneur-
ship is the grassroots means of waging creative destruction against established
68 • Warrick Harniess

business models, then to be an entrepreneur is to be punk, regardless of one’s

choice of music, fashion or role models.

Why Entrepreneurship?
There wasn’t anybody that was going to do it for you. You had to make
it happen.
—Ian MacKaye, punk entrepreneur

When I reflect on my education to date there are some things that I wish I had
been explicitly taught earlier and more frequently in life. Summarily, these are
how to think radically about innovative ways to contribute to the world in a
measurably useful way; how to experiment with doing this and to learn from
practice; and how to see things more keenly from other peoples’ perspectives,
particularly with a view to understanding whether my efforts to contribute to
the world might make a difference. These are hard lessons to teach young peo-
ple, with their limited world experience and difficulty in understanding their
own feelings and behaviour, let alone those of other people. Upon reflection, I
began to learn many of these lessons from writing and playing punk rock when
I was a teenager, but I had little clue at the time and I would well have benefitted
from more sustained and varied application.
When I was 31, struggling still to understand the causes and consequences
of the financial crisis, I did an MBA and so began a journey towards being
conscious of the skills and mindset needed to contribute meaningfully to the
world. I believe that I began this conscious journey far too late in life (and I cer-
tainly do not think that an MBA is necessary). The skills and mindset needed
are a blend of “hard” and “soft” knowledge, all of which have been championed
in, among other places, academic and policy papers, the education media, and
employment-oriented conferences (see, for example, the Higher Education
Academy’s revised “Pedagogy for Employability” report, 2012). These “hard”
skills include the abilities to write a coherent and engaging presentation using
a simple narrative structure that articulates premise, rationale and desired out-
come for a practical project; design and conduct basic ethnographic research;
build a crude prototype or blueprint of an idea using preferred tools (whether
writing computer code, crafting an object or writing an outline); create a plan of
work with tasks divided among individual group members; and create a simple
financial budget. By consistently practicing and refining these technical skills,
young people begin to develop the all-important “soft” skills of empathetic
communication, assertive collaboration and bold creative and critical thinking.
Together, these skills serve to help build confidence and resilience, and the self-
awareness to recognize that one has a far greater chance of achieving success
and measurably contributing to the world if they are able to demonstrably take
ownership for their efforts.
 Punk Entrepreneurship • 69

I believe that the practice of entrepreneurship is the most holistic way of

teaching the fundamentals of critical employment skills in an engaging way that
resonates with young people, because “a startup is the largest endeavour over
which you can have definite mastery. You can have agency not just over your
own life, but over a small and important part of the world” (Thiel and Masters
2014, 81). I would go as far as to argue that Enterprise Creation should be a
core Applied GCSE and AS Level (or vocational equivalent), and a required,
disciplinary-agnostic module in all undergraduate degree programmes. Not all
students will go on to be entrepreneurs, and nor should they, but they will prag-
matically learn how to connect, at an early stage in their careers, the desire for
professional autonomy with mastery of a subject or technical skill, and harness
this understanding towards a specific purpose with personal meaning.

Why the Free Market?

Never take nothin’ don’t belong to me
Everything’s paid for, nothing’s free.
—Lucinda Williams, “I Lost It”

A free market system, if it’s good for anything, effectively uses pricing to match
supply and demand. Acceptable price points are found by virtue of a complex
psychological dance between sellers and buyers, influenced by context and
the nature of the product or service that is for sale. Assuming that buyers are
protected by consumer rights laws, prohibiting underhanded sales and mar-
keting tactics that would otherwise proliferate under the auspices of caveat
emptor—the “buyer beware” principle (Luyendijk 2015, 106)—sellers will strive
to “deliver the value promised by their value proposition” at a price at which
customers “perceive this value” (Kotler and Keller 2009, 77). There are certainly
factors that can decrease a buyer’s price sensitivity and allow for greater oppor-
tunity on the part of a seller to conceivably overcharge. These factors include
the ease with which the value of similar products or services can be compared,
and the perceived associated benefits that a product or service will deliver
beyond its immediate scope (Nagle et al. 2011), both of which are relevant in
the context of selection of higher education products. But different prices for
similar products or services give people pause for thought and invite them to
research further the reasons why one product is priced higher than another. In
the context of selection of higher education products I firmly believe that this
can be no bad thing.
The freedom to “mark to market” the prices of their learning programmes,
allowing for the opportunity to significantly grow a main revenue stream, might
encourage HE institutions to prioritize building competitive advantage around
the inputs and processes by which they develop these learning programmes
over and above research prestige. Broadly, this would involve hiring talent, at a
70 • Warrick Harniess

premium commensurate with their proven experience and capabilities, to create

and deliver programmes and resources that meet the needs and expectations of
students and employers. As the endorsement of employers and alumni would
influence the price at which learning programmes can be sold, demonstrably
proving the efficacy of these programmes would be of utmost importance, with
ramifications for both providers and consumers. Students would be expected to
engage wholeheartedly with the programme or risk expulsion; HE institutions
would likely put even greater emphasis than they currently do on staff and student
recruitment standards, and on the kinds of programmes that they develop. Given
the effectiveness of entrepreneurship as a subject through which to teach essential
employability skills and help develop a professional mindset, as articulated in the
previous section, I believe greater deregulation in the HE sector would help to
move entrepreneurship from the margins of the curriculum to centre stage.
My experience as an undergraduate was relatively cheap by today’s standards
and, like Williams, “I did not draw a connection between loans and future debt”,
“I did not see my time at university as inevitably leading to employment”, and
I chose to study American Studies “simply because it interested me” (Williams
2013, 1). Though I was, in the words of one of my A Level teachers, “academi-
cally sound”, by today’s standards of hyper-competitive labour markets, high
levels of unemployment for young people, and low levels of economic growth, I
was staggeringly naïve. It’s not that I was not “old or wise enough to make sensi-
ble decisions about where to study” (Williams 2013, 11), but I was not equipped
to make future-focused decisions about what to study or why I should study it.
We should not be shielded from the free market when we’re young, only to have
it sprung upon us when we embark upon a career. Rather, we should grapple
with it, even if we don’t want to wholeheartedly join the capitalist corps. Look-
ing back, this is what my punk entrepreneurship education has taught me, and
I believe that this is an essential lesson for all young people at a similar age and
stage of development.

Note
1. I am aware that ascribing “libertarian values” to people as diverse as Larry Livermore, Mike
Burkett and Ian MacKaye is contentious. I do not personally know them, nor have I ever had
the opportunity to discuss these ideas with them. They may well take umbrage with my views in
this regard as too, I expect, will others! But like MacKaye, I “think of punk rock as a free space”
(O’Connor 2008, 8); it is not aligned with any one ideology or political position. As I articulate
in the section titled “Punk Entrepreneurship”, I believe punk’s practical malleability is part of
its staying power. Punk means different, contradictory things to different people, and as such
defining “punk” is a wicked issue—it will never be satisfactorily resolved. I make no apologies
for my perspective that punk is a byproduct of capitalistic systems and that, therefore, the entre-
preneurial activities of its proponents can be interpreted accordingly. Inevitably, other people
will disagree and I celebrate that as democratic tradition. Coincidentally, I also acknowledge
that “entrepreneurship” is perhaps as nebulous a term as “punk”. Suffice it to say, I believe that
entrepreneurship is fundamentally about assessing and reconciling risk and reward. In some
 Punk Entrepreneurship • 71

cases, this may take the form of establishing a business venture in the pursuit of profit. In other
circumstances it may be about consciously pursuing an activity that could be loss-making from
a monetary perspective, but that is considered worthwhile because of the enjoyment, satisfaction
and/or learning opportunities it brings.

References
Boas, Taylor C., and Jordan Gans-Morse. 2009. “Neoliberalism: From New Liberal Philosophy
to Anti-Liberal Slogan.” Studies in Comparative International Development 44: 137–161.
doi:10.1007/s12116-009-9040-5.
Bobbitt, Philip. 2008. Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century. London: Allen
Lane.
Booker, Christopher. 2004. The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. London: Continuum.
British Chambers of Commerce. 2014. A Business Plan for Britain. Accessed January 25, 2017. www.
britishchambers.org.uk/2014%20BCC%20Business%20manifesto.pdf.
Brown, Tim. 2009. Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires
Innovation. New York: HarperCollins.
CBI. 2013. Tomorrow’s Growth: New Routes to Higher Skills. Accessed January 25, 2017. www.cbi.
org.uk/media/2178879/tomorrow_s_growth.pdf.
Dunn, Kevin. 2016. Global Punk: Resistance and Rebellion in Everyday Life. New York: Bloomsbury.
Gardiner, Laura. 2016. “Stagnation Generation: The Case for Renewing the Intergenerational Con-
tract.” Resolution Foundation. Accessed January 25, 2017. www.intergencommission.org/.
Graffin, Greg. 2002. A Punk Manifesto. Accessed January 25, 2017. www.allidoispunk.com/about/
greg-graffin-a-punk-manifesto/.
HM Government. 2013. International Education: Global Growth and Prosperity. Accessed January
25, 2017. www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-education-strategy-global-
growth-and-prosperity.
Kahneman, Daniel. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. London: Penguin Books.
Kotler, Philip, and Kevin L. Keller. 2009. A Framework for Marketing Management, 4th edition.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Law, Lisa. 2002. “Defying Disappearance: Cosmopolitan Public Spaces in Hong Kong.” Urban Stud-
ies 39: 1625–1645. doi:10.1080/00420980220151691.
Livermore, Larry. 2015. How to Ru(i)n a Record Label: The Story of Lookout Records. Don Giovanni
Records.
Luyendijk, Joris. 2015. Swimming With Sharks: My Journey Into the World of the Bankers. London:
Guardian Books and Faber and Faber.
Marginson, Simon. 2011. “Higher Education and Public Good.” Higher Education Quarterly 65:
411–433. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2273.2011.00496.x
Marginson, Simon. April 10, 2014. “There’s Still No Such Thing as a Higher Education Market.”
TES Online. Accessed January 25, 2017. www.timeshighereducation.com/comment/opinion/
theres-still-no-such-thing-as-a-higher-education-market/2012541.article.
Nagle, Thomas T., John E. Hogan, and Joseph Zale. 2011. The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: A Guide
to Growing More Profitably, 5th edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
NOFX, and Alulis, J. 2016. The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories. Boston: Da Capo Press.
O’Connor, Alan. 2008. Punk Record Labels and the Struggle for Autonomy. Plymouth: Lexington
Books.
Pegg, Ann, Jeff Waldock, Sonia Hendy-Isaac, and Ruth Lawton. 2012. “Pedagogy for Employability.”
Higher Education Academy. Accessed January 25, 2017. www.heacademy.ac.uk/system/files/
pedagogy_for_employability_update_2012.pdf.
Pynchon, Thomas. 2013. Bleeding Edge. London: Jonathan Cape.
QAA. 2012. The Quality Code, Part B: Assuring and Enhancing Academic Quality. Accessed January
25, 2017. www.qaa.ac.uk/assuring-standards-and-quality/the-quality-code/quality-code-
part-b.
Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1942. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 3rd edition. New York: Harper
and Brothers.
Schutz, William C. 1958. FIRO: A Three Dimensional Theory of Interpersonal Behavior. New York:
Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.
72 • Warrick Harniess

Smith, Gareth D., and Alex Gillett. 2014. “Creativities, Innovation, and Networks in Garage Punk
Rock: A Case Study of the Eruptörs.” Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts 4:
9–24.
Sorkin, Andrew R. 2009. Too Big to Fail: Inside the Battle to Save Wall Street. London: Penguin
Books.
Stiglitz, Joseph E. 2013. The Price of Inequality. London: Penguin Books.
Thiel, Peter, and Blake Masters. 2014. Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future.
London: Virgin Books.
Tilak, Janidhyala B. G. 2008. “Higher Education: A Public Good or a Commodity for Trade?” Pros-
pects 38: 449–466. doi:10.1007/s11125-009-9093-2.
Trivers, Robert. 2013. Deceit and Self-Deception: Fooling Yourself the Better to Fool Others. London:
Penguin Books.
Williams, Gareth. 2016. “Higher Education: Public Good or Private Commodity?” London Review
of Education 14: 131–142. doi:10.18546/LRE.14.1.12.
Williams, Joanna. 2013. Consuming Higher Education: Why Learning Can’t Be Bought. New York:
Bloomsbury.
Wilson, Carl. 2014. Let’s Talk About Love: Why Other People Have Such Bad Taste. New York:
Bloomsbury.
 6
Just Go and Do It: A Blockchain
Technology “Live Project” for
Nascent Music Entrepreneurs
MARCUS O’DAIR AND ZULEIKA BEAVEN

The philosophy from the beginning was you don’t have to know how
to do it, you just have to figure out what to do next. And it’s ok to make
a mistake, if you guess wrong what to do next, you step back and you
try to take the appropriate step. And it worked. To the extent that it
worked, it worked! —Jay Clem, Cryptic Corporation 76–82

The Theory of Obscurity: a film about The Residents.

—Directed by Don Hardy. 2016

Introduction: Punk as DIY

This chapter outlines a live project at Middlesex University, the institution at
which we both teach. The aim of the project is to promote entrepreneurial
learning (Pittaway and Cope 2007), with a focus on learning through action
and the co-creation of knowledge as representative of punk pedagogy (Torrez
2012). We go on to outline this project in detail, as well as to examine the paral-
lels between blockchain technology, which is central to the project, and punk.
We begin, however, by framing punk in terms of its do-it-yourself (DIY) ethos
rather than as musical genre.
While tensions between punk and the academy may at first glance seem con-
siderable, punk is now taught as a genre in many popular music programmes,
including the one at Middlesex University. Punk has also been the subject of
a great deal of academic writing, for instance by Hebdige (1988), Reddington
(2007) and Laing (2015), as well as noteworthy grey literature by, among others,
Savage (2005), Marcus (2001) and, on post-punk, Reynolds (2005). Despite its
“year zero” rhetoric, Reynolds states, punk was not particularly radical from a
musical perspective when compared to the post-punk that emerged between
1978 and 1984 (2005, xv). That debate is beyond the scope of this chapter. We
cite it here because it seems a useful point of contrast with an area in which

73
74 • Marcus O’Dair and Zuleika Beaven

punk (and, indeed, some post-punk1) was undoubtedly radical: its insistence
on independent means of production (Laing 2015).
Characteristic of punk—particularly British punk, according to Laing—was
a do-it-yourself attitude “which refused to rely on the institutions of the estab-
lished music industry, whether record company or music press” (2015, 24). This
do-it-yourself approach is typically assumed to refer primarily to playing music:
“This is a chord, this is another, this is a third. Now start a band”, as Sideburns
fanzine famously declared (1977, n.p.). Yet that same DIY ethos could apply
equally to writing about and recording and distributing that music (Smith and
Gillett 2015; Savage 2005; Laing 2015).
True, not all punks have been insistent on independence: some of the most
prominent punk bands, among them The Clash and The Sex Pistols, signed to
major labels, while even some “indie” record labels used major labels for dis-
tribution. On the other side of the Atlantic, The Ramones worked with a major
label, while Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys had periods “flirting with labels
that had links to majors” (O’Connor 2008, 3). Bestley (2014) has suggested that
punk’s do-it-yourself rhetoric was often little more than a naïve ambition, while
Furness (2012, 14) states that it is a mistake to conflate punk with “100% pure
authentic resistance to the culture industry/mainstream/system”. Even so, as
Laing suggests, an emphasis on independence can be considered fundamen-
tal to punk. Furness insists that punk is defined, as much as anything, by “a
participatory, “bottom up” view of culture . . . a broader “Do It Yourself ” coun-
terculture” (10). Gordon (2012) also regards this DIY approach as integral to
punk. Today, the “indie” act signed to a major label is so commonplace that the
obvious contradiction is often ignored. But, as Hesmondhalgh (1999) writes,
“indie” was originally characterized by a new relationship between creativity
and commerce, a means of reconciling the commercial nature of pop with the
goal of artistic autonomy for musicians. We note not only the transformations
associated with punk entrepreneurship, but its place as a mechanism for cre-
ative control.
Laing, focusing on the UK, divides punk labels into two types. First there
were the small-scale “Xerox” labels, a term Laing borrows from Desperate
Bicycles, whose Refill label could be considered to epitomize the phenomenon.
Their track “Handlebars” can be read as a manifesto for this approach, featuring
as it did the words: “It was easy, it was cheap; go and do it!” Also representative
is the Spiral Scratch EP by Buzzcocks, released on the band’s own New Hor-
mones label and financed by borrowing money from family and friends. As
Savage (2005) notes, “the implications of Spiral Scratch were enormous . . . what
was so perfect about the Buzzcocks’ EP was that its aesthetics were perfectly
combined with the means of production” (297). It was not only these two acts:
Dale (2008) argues against the tendency to “reify” Buzzcocks and Desperate
Bicycles as proponents of DIY, noting significant antecedents and continuations
of the DIY impetus, most notably the anarcho-punk group Crass.
 Just Go and Do It • 75

Second, Laing continues, there existed a number of more substantial punk

labels, including Step Forward Records, Factory and Fast Product. While
“Xerox” label records were sold by hand or via mail order, these larger labels,
hoping to make a national impact, required proper distribution. The fees taken
by distributors, however, would cut the profit margin for the bands themselves.
Some signed with major labels for manufacture and distribution. Others signed
up to alternative distributors including Pinnacle and Spartan, or with The Car-
tel, the new distribution network that emerged from the Rough Trade shop and
label. By working with other independent record stores, The Cartel allowed
small labels such as Factory and 2-Tone to sell their releases across the UK.
To set up The Cartel as an alternative network of distribution was, as Hes-
mondhalgh (1999) has suggested, a considerable achievement; the same could be
said of Crass, who sold a reported 250,000 copies of their self-released Stations of
the Crass album (Dale 2008). We suggest that both the “Xerox” labels, and distrib-
utors such as The Cartel that serviced the more substantial punk labels, can also
be considered highly entrepreneurial. That might sound like sacrilege, but only
if we make two assumptions: first, that entrepreneurs are necessarily motivated
primary by profit; and second that entrepreneurs are born rather than made.

Punk as Enterprise: Countering Dominant Discourses

What, if punk can be considered entrepreneurial, do we mean by entrepreneur-
ship? The dominant discourse of enterprise, of the over-riding profit motive
and of contribution and value measured in monetary terms, emanates from
study in the academy initiated by economists, dating back at least to the entre-
preneurship theorist and economist Joseph Schumpeter in the early twentieth
century. Within music, we see this in the dominance of the narrative around
acts like 50 Cent and Jay-Z, or the early career of figures like Richard Bran-
son; in the popular imagination, the music entrepreneur is not just wealthy but,
through some personality trait, somehow destined for wealth.
The dominant discourse of entrepreneurship has its critics. Ogbor (2000)
is among those to question the conflation of value with profit and the associ-
ated ideological agenda of much enterprise research, critiquing both a focus
on male entrepreneurs and the assumption that business growth is the key to
success. Rentschler (2002) is another to question the focus on profit, instead
defining entrepreneurship as creating value for society by bringing together
unique combinations of resources to exploit opportunities in an environment of
change (46). In fact, as Bessant and Tidd (2007) propose, there are fundamen-
tally different types of entrepreneur; and punk business approaches, allowing
for the questioning of that term as one necessarily associated with neoliberal
values, fit with the idea that the main motivation for cultural entrepreneurs
may be the pursuit of artistic practice (Ball 2003; Ellmeier 2003; Brown 2004;
Beaven 2013).
76 • Marcus O’Dair and Zuleika Beaven

Despite such shifts in the lens of entrepreneurship studies, the discourse

of the entrepreneur as motivated by profit, and of the entrepreneur’s value as
quantified in monetary terms, lingers in the media and popular imagination.
As Swedberg (2000) notes, economists still have something of an ideological
monopoly on the topic. The Schumpterian perspective, rooted in economics,
still pervades much research (Herbert and Link 2009) and underpins a neo-
liberal agenda that has become associated with entrepreneurship. And yet the
understanding and study of the entrepreneur within the academy has moved
from one in which economic function was the most important determinant,
through several decades of considering enterprise as a question of personality
and innate traits, to a behavioural perspective (Cope 2005). This significant shift
in the understanding of entrepreneurship, one that allows us to place the prac-
tice under consideration in a punk context, began with Gartner (1988) and his
landmark paper “ ‘Who Is An Entrepreneur?’ Is the Wrong Question”. A great
deal of subsequent research has been focused on entrepreneurial behaviours as
determinants of entrepreneurship, rather than a hunt for the “entrepreneurial
personality” or a fixed set of traits that are present in entrepreneurs from birth.
Entrepreneurship, Gartner argued simply, is the creation of new organizations,
rather than some special state of being. Anyone, in other words, can act entre-
preneurially, as this is a social process (Warren 2005; Anderson 2005; Katz and
Green 2007; Kim and Aldrich 2005). The behavioural perspective allows for
a sense of becoming entrepreneurial, when individuals respond to context and
create new realities. This becoming may be pragmatic, and may be driven by a
need to behave entrepreneurially in order to meet some goal other than profit,
such as creative practice (Ball 2003; Beaven 2013).
Viewed from this Gartnerian perspective, punk entrepreneurs are the cre-
ators of new realities. When Desperate Bicycles issued their DIY rallying cry,
they were not concerned about making a profit, or whether or not they had the
requisite personality traits to make a record. The whole point was that anyone
could “just go and do it”—and on a small scale from which they were unlikely
to become wealthy. The same can be said of more recent punk acts: as Drako-
poulou Dodd (2014) has pointed out in her study of Rancid, punk bands can
create independent musical and related creative enterprises from the margins
of the music industry, and can thus be considered to represent “marginal, alter-
native entrepreneurship” (165). Anarcho-punk, as epitomized by Crass, was
“fundamentally disinterested in profit, privileging the political musical mes-
sage over self-interest” (Gordon 2012, 111), and punk, more broadly, opened
up “a new popular cultural economy based on subsistence rather than profit”
(Brabazon 2012, 168). Rough Trade, meanwhile, was set up on socialist prin-
ciples inspired by time founder Geoff Travis had spent on a kibbutz (Young
2006). Staff were paid equal wages, and decisions were reached by committee,
even if the “brown rice” image of never-ending meetings is something of a cari-
cature (Young 2006, 72). The Cartel, which grew out of Rough Trade, began
 Just Go and Do It • 77

with a similar ideology; it can be considered a specific and highly politicized

attempt to forge a completely new path for the music industry (Ogg 2009, iv),
an attempt by Rough Trade to control its destiny in the marketing and distri-
bution of recorded music as well as in origination (Laing 2015, 30). From a
Gartnerian perspective, both Crass and Geoff Travis can be considered entre-
preneurial, in that they were creating new realities.
This, we suggest, is the key point about punk record labels in relation to
entrepreneurship: many labels were formed out of necessity and a desire to
make music, not by “born entrepreneurs” looking for a gap in the market and a
means of maximizing profit. Writing of the UK scene in 1976 and 1977, Savage
(2005) points out that punk was actively discouraged, if not banned—by the
music industry, the media, the politicians and the general public—with perhaps
unexpected results:

This resulted in an underground distribution and production network

which turned necessity into a virtue: it was easy and cheap, go and do it.
These ideals of access . . . have become one of Punk’s enduring legacies . . .
doing it all yourself—making, producing and releasing your own record/
fanzine/book/film . . . became the hidden positive to punk’s much-flaunted
negative, a practical decentralisation with infinite possibilities.
(Savage 2005, xv)

Focusing on American bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s, O’Connor
(2008) makes a similar point: the vast majority of bands never signed to major
labels, or even to small labels with relationships with major labels. “For them,
doing it yourself was not a choice but a necessity. The music industry was
mostly not interested” (2).
In part as a consequence of this sense of entrepreneurship born out of neces-
sity, punk blurred the line between creativity and entrepreneurship. Burnard
(2012) maintains that entrepreneurship is a form of creativity, a view supported
in the specific context of punk by Smith and Gillett (2015). While it may be
perceived that there is a potential conflict between creative and entrepreneurial
aims, Bilton argues convincingly in his 2007 text Management and Creativity
that they can co-exist: the opposition of “suits” and “creatives” is a myth. The
highest profile, and most contested, example of such co-existence is perhaps
Malcolm McLaren (Savage 2005, 314), whose self-declared “creative manage-
ment” is exemplified by ambitious schemes such as the film The Great Rock ‘n’
Roll Swindle. Rather than McLaren, the sense of enterprise as creative practice
is perhaps best epitomized by the “pop-group-posing-as-corporation strat-
egy” (Reynolds 2005, 248), as represented by Public Image Ltd—conceived,
in direct contrast to The Sex Pistols, as “an organisation free from manager’s
interference” (Dudanski 2013, 150)—and The Residents. With the intention of
achieving “complete cultural autonomy” (Reynolds 2005, 248), The Residents
78 • Marcus O’Dair and Zuleika Beaven

developed the notion of enterprise as creative practice, running their own label
and making their own artwork and films. The blurring of lines between cre-
ativity and entrepreneurship is also evident in the various punk and post-punk
musicians who ran labels: Daniel Miller at Mute, Jerry Dammers at 2-Tone,
Throbbing Gristle at Industrial, Crass at Crass Records and, slightly later, Derek
Birkett at One Little Indian. While Laing (2015) suggests that the DIY ethic was
particularly a phenomenon of UK punk, a list of equivalent American labels
would include SST and Dischord.
In defining at least some punks as entrepreneurs, then, we argue for two
significant and inter-related points: that entrepreneurship can be born out of
context and necessity to change realities; and that motivation and intent can be
drawn from a desire to support creative practice and achieve creative control,
rather than to make money. Many punk entrepreneurs exist well outside the
dominant neoliberal discourse, but they are no less entrepreneurial for that.

Enterprise Pedagogy as Punk Pedagogy

In order to support creative practice, this “just go and do it” approach requires
entrepreneurial learning, defined by Pittaway and Cope (2007) as “learning that
occurs during the new venture creation process”. While acknowledging, as they
do, that the definition is fairly narrow in certain respects, for example focusing
exclusively on new ventures, we consider it useful in that it conveys a sense of
learning through action—through “just going and doing it”. This brings us back
to our topic of punk pedagogy, and its relevance to music students. Smith and
Gillett (2015) see the value of their case study of The Eruptörs, for instance, as
lying in its potential for use in higher education: “to provide discussion points
regarding practice and conceptualisation of students’ own creative projects,
and positioning these as viable, collaborative entrepreneurial projects” (21).
Resonating with our suggestion that enterprise need not be conflated with the
pursuit of profit, it is noteworthy that The Eruptörs self-identify as entrepre-
neurial despite the fact that the band “is not a money-making project” (Smith
and Gillett 2015, 11).
Since the turn of the millennium, we can detect two shifts in entrepreneur-
ship education. First, enterprise is no longer taught only in business schools.
The subject is widely offered to students studying arts and humanities, and
seen as important in preparing students for careers in the creative industries
(DCMS 2006; Rae 2004; Carey and Naudin 2006; Penaluna and Penaluna 2009;
Beckman 2007). With this comes the understanding of a wider definition of
entrepreneurial practice and recognition of entrepreneurship in a range of
contexts. Hindle (2007) calls, from within a business school, for the subject
to be taught in other disciplines. More recently, Young (2014) calls for enter-
prise education in universities to extend to “all areas of faculty and study” (6).
Cross-campus entrepreneurship is becoming established. As entrepreneurship
 Just Go and Do It • 79

spreads across the campus, critical discussion of its place intensifies. Torrez
(2012) assumes that the tendency in universities towards generating “entrepre-
neurial scholars” is part of “the corporate university”, and that the pressure on
academics “to pursue an entrepreneurial trajectory” is opposed to “the belief
that university education should emerge from intentional forms of critical ped-
agogy” (133–4). We draw on alternative discourses of enterprise to argue that it
is not only innovative but supports critical engagement—that there is, in other
words, nothing fundamentally “unpunk” about enterprise pedagogy.
The other, related, shift is in how entrepreneurship is taught. The intention
with our own live project, which we outline in greater detail later, is to recreate
as closely as possible the “learn as you go” process of venture creation, with an
emphasis on active (Chickering and Gamson 1987), experiential (Kolb 1984),
heuristic (Depaepe et al. 2010) and entrepreneurial learning (Dalley and Ham-
ilton 2000; Rae 2000; Rae and Carswell 2000; Deakins and Freel 1998; Cope
and Watts 2000; Gibb 1997). Historically, the desire for experiential learning
in an environment as close as possible to “real world” enterprise led initially to
an emphasis on simulation: see for instance Pittaway and Cope (2007) and Tan
and Ng (2006). Yet simulation in an artificial context also had limitations (Pit-
taway and Cope 2006), and there has been a more recent trend to move “beyond
simulation” (Beaven and St George 2007). Beaven and St George argue for an
approach that promotes active learning not by simulation but by using live,
real-world projects that offer “genuine pressures and crises” (2). Live projects,
for instance, can help develop collaborative and participatory skills, enrich the
student learning experience, develop enterprise skills and significantly increase
employability in a sector with precarious employment (Sheffield School of
Architecture 2013). Enterprise teaching, then, is moving beyond preparing
business plans, a feature of the planning approach prevalent in many business
schools and MBA programmes that had transferred to some enterprise edu-
cation. Jones and Penaluna (2013) note the business plan is losing credibility
outside academia and argue it should not be central to enterprise education.

Punk to Cypherpunk: A Blockchain Technology Live

Project for Nascent Music Entrepreneurs
We move, for the final section of this chapter, to a case study in which we begin
to put some of these principles into practice: a live project with Popular Music
and Music Business & Arts Management students at Middlesex University.
While the project is only in its early stages, we believe it embodies some of the
attitudes towards punk and enterprise pedagogy outlined earlier.
The project makes use of blockchain technology. The authors have discussed
the way in which blockchain technology works, and its potential impact on the
music industries, elsewhere (O’Dair et al. 2016). For the purposes of this chapter,
it is sufficient to say only that blockchain technology—the “blocks” of confirmed
80 • Marcus O’Dair and Zuleika Beaven

transactions that form a chronologically linked “chain”—emerged as the techno-

logical foundations of bitcoin, a “peer-to-peer electronic cash system” (Nakamoto
2008) or cryptocurrency (digital currency whose security is guaranteed through
cryptography). However, multiple use cases have subsequently emerged. First,
the functionality of the bitcoin blockchain was extended by using bitcoins to rep-
resent other assets; then there emerged other cryptocurrencies that run on their
own blockchains entirely.
For those who see punk as strictly historically situated in the mid- to late
1970s—and Crass themselves declared punk dead in 1978—the leap to bitcoin,
first outlined in 2008 and launched early the following year, might seem jarring.2
Yet we have already suggested that punk can be understood as DIY ethos as
much as musical genre, and certainly the “DIY lifestyle”, embodied in, as well as
pre-dating, punk, has continued after what is usually considered punk’s heyday,
in “cultures of resistance” including New Age travellers, rave and anti-road pro-
testors (McKay 1996). Savage (2005) is among those to point out that the punk
notion of access, one of its enduring legacies, has “since been expanded by the
Internet” (xv). As regards the specific case of blockchain technology, the fact that
bitcoin mining—the “proof of work” process that powers the network—is at least
theoretically open to anyone represents a lowering of the barriers to entry that
has clear echoes of punk, even if, in reality, mining is now dominated by “mining
pools” rather than individuals. The lack of a central authority so fundamental
to bitcoin, where consensus is achieved without requiring a trusted intermedi-
ary by means of a distributed (rather than centralized) ledger, is reminiscent of
the collective decision-making process at Rough Trade. That this ledger is vis-
ible to all reflects a transparency in business dealings also evident in punk and
post-punk. One example of this phenomenon is Middlesex University’s Visiting
Professor in Music, Daniel Miller, who self-released a single—“T.V.O.D.”/“Warm
Leatherette”—in 1978 under the name The Normal. Having included his home
address on the record, Miller began receiving demos in the post, and a label—
Mute—was born. A second example of the drive towards demystification of
the process of production is “Skank Bloc Bologna”, the debut single by Scritti
Politti. Released on their own St Pancras label, with help from Rough Trade, the
single came in a sleeve that detailed the complete costs for recording, mastering,
pressing and so on, together with contact details for companies offering these
services. Third, we might think of Buzzcocks listing which take of each song they
had used, and the number of overdubs required, on the cover of Spiral Scratch.
Though the analogy is not perfect, the parallels between blockchain technology
and punk remain striking: just as punk favours “horizontal”, rather than “hierar-
chical” networks (Dunn 2016, 105), blockchain technology provides “a new way
to implement trusted transactions without trusted intermediaries” (Mougayar
2016, xxiii; our emphasis). Indeed, early users of bitcoin were actually known
as “cypherpunks”—activists who advocate the use of cryptography to achieve
privacy in an electronic age (Hughes 1993).
 Just Go and Do It • 81

Scholars including Bheemaiah (2015) and Barre (2015) have suggested that
business schools need to teach about blockchain technology because of its
disruptive potential. Like entrepreneurship, however, we believe blockchain
technology needs to be taught beyond business schools, in our case to students
studying Popular Music as well as Music Business & Arts Management (ques-
tioning the division between artist and entrepreneur, and between creativity
and management, being a key part of legacy of punk). This in part represents
our desire to ensure that the curriculum remains current; given its disrup-
tive potential, blockchain technology also provides a broader opportunity to
re-conceive—and to de-mystify—the music industries. We have suggested
elsewhere (O’Dair et al. 2016) that claims for disintermediation in the music
industries as a result of blockchain technology have been overstated, yet it
remains a useful exercise for those studying the music industries to imag-
ine the value chain stripped right back to artist and consumer, and from that
blank canvas to then work through the intermediaries that might be required
in between. Such an approach is very much indebted to punk, one contribu-
tion of which was “rendering visible through its DIY philosophy the previously
mystified mechanics of music participation, consumption and participation”
(Gordon 2012, 106).
We introduced blockchain technology into the curriculum for Popular
Music and Music Business & Arts Management students in the 2015–16 aca-
demic year: the potential impact of the technology on the music industries was
critically examined in scheduled lectures and at a symposium that took place
on campus. In that academic year, we also held four extracurricular “music on
the blockchain” workshops. It was felt that keeping the workshops optional—
and un-assessed—would help to make them a “safe space” in which to “fail”,
particularly given the risks inherent in working with nascent technology. With
the informed consent of participants, these workshops were recorded and sub-
sequently transcribed. There were four staff involved in the workshops: two
(the co-authors of this paper) came from a music or music/creative industries
enterprise background, while the other two, David Neilson and Sukhvinder
Hara, both had a background in computer science.
We attempted to adopt a punk (or cypherpunk) pedagogy in the sense
defined by Torrez (2012): a move away from viewing teachers as owners of
knowledge and students as empty receptacles into which knowledge is poured,
towards “reciprocity between teacher and learner” (133). A working definition
of punk pedagogy, Torrez states, would be “a space where the teacher-learner
hierarchy is disavowed and the normative discourse of traditional education
is dissembled” (136). Punk is wholeheartedly opposed, Torrez suggests, to the
idea of experts. Although the lecturers members involved in the workshops did
(hopefully) bring with us a certain amount of useful knowledge, we did not
present ourselves as experts, instead being open about the fact that we were
learning about this constantly developing technology, and its implications, as
82 • Marcus O’Dair and Zuleika Beaven

we went along. The two lecturers from computer science, meanwhile, were
learning about the music industries.
The following exchange demonstrates this sense of co-constructing knowl-
edge in the workshops, with students, music staff and computer science staff all
learning together about potential applications of blockchain technology:

Student: The only concern I’m having is about micropayments. So if

we wrote a song together and took 50 percent each, I wrote
the music, you wrote the lyrics, but it turned out you’d
actually stolen the lyrics from her [points to another stu-
dent in the room] or something, what would happen then?
The payments because they’re on this blockchain, can’t be
changed. So what would happen there?
Music lecturer: Interesting.
Computer science You register your lyrics first, but there have been disputes
lecturer 1: with big artist . . . ?
Computer science
lecturer 2: It’s not been tested . . .
Student: Surely PRS and all that can . . .
Computer science
lecturer 2: What’s PRS?
Music lecturer: Collection society  .  .  . those services would sit on top of
this. But I think about 13 percent goes on collection. This
could be frictionless . . .

Not all the students involved in our project share a desire to bypass established
channels; though some have shown an interest in re-appropriating the means of
production, others see an ongoing role for labels and performance rights orga-
nizations. Blockchain technology can be seen to embody punk’s move away
from centralized power towards peer production and peer-to-peer networks,
and some of our students saw the technology in such a light: as “really in the
artist’s favour . . . The label would still get a percentage of it but not so much at
all anymore. Ten percent which in the end, probably, is the way it should be”.
Others saw the technology as having the potential to help emerging artists in
the live sector:

Student 1: I think it’s interesting in relation to live music. Mainly small

venues, independent artists. I think it would really help
them.
Music lecturer 1: How would it work there? If I came to a gig, would I pay . . .
I suppose I could buy tickets on the blockchain in advance?
Student 2: The venues having to pay the artists at all, just anything,
something . . .
 Just Go and Do It • 83

Student 1: Making venues pay artists. Small venues no longer having

to pay to host live music. So even though this comes up, it
doesn’t cause small venues to pay artists.
Music lecturer 2: Maybe this is partly where the “fair trade” concept that
Imogen [Heap] has talked about comes in.3 You’re then a
fair trade venue . . .
Student: Venues might start wanting to be part of it . . .
Music lecturer 2: At the moment, if you go to a gig, you don’t know . . .
Student 3: We’ve done gigs where they don’t pay you. It doesn’t bother us
but some people it does, people trying to make money off it.
Computer science
lecturer: Would it stop people selling tickets at inflated prices?
Student 2: No.
Student 1: In the long term, increased transparency will make people
who aren’t in the music industry more aware of how little
artists are actually paid.

Other students, however, were resistant to the apparent potential of blockchain

technology for disintermediation and DIY approaches in the music industries:

Student: I think it’s important doing this to actually create a partner-

ship with the labels, so it doesn’t seem like it’s created to push
the labels out. They’re still going to be so important. There’s
going to come a time with an artist, if they grow, there’s no
way an artist can do everything himself. If they become big,
it’s too much. So the labels won’t lose their value. So it has to
be done the right way, so the labels—if the labels feel they’re
getting pushed out, they might not want to get involved with
it. It feels more an attack than an actual partnership.

One possibility we discussed was working with the Mycelia project spearheaded
by the singer, songwriter and producer Imogen Heap, one of a number of initia-
tives exploring the potential of blockchain technology for the music industries.
Mycelia aims “to empower a fair, sustainable and vibrant music industry
ecosystem involving all online music interaction services” using blockchain
technology (Mycelia for Music n.d.). Heap’s vision for Mycelia includes “mush-
rooms”, or services, that can operate for profit yet still embody the collaborative
ethos of Rough Trade or Crass:

I see the music and the database as the source and the mushrooms as the
services that live above ground . . . As in nature, that which is taxing on
the system withers and dies and that which is giving back thrives.
(Heap 2016)
84 • Marcus O’Dair and Zuleika Beaven

As our project evolved, however, we decided, at least for the initial stages,
not to restrict ourselves to developing Mycelia “mushrooms” which, at the
time of writing, remain a work in progress for Mycelia more broadly. After
four workshops, covering the fundamentals of blockchain technology and
potential applications, we decided to “get our hands dirty” by uploading a
piece of music to a blockchain. We decided, in other words, to “just go and
do it”.

Music lecturer 2: Shall we just try it? Put some whistling on the blockchain,
learn from what goes wrong? Maybe starting with a mush-
room is too complicated—I feel we need to learn from
experience [. . .] I think we have several good ideas but we
should start with something small . . . get our hands dirty
a bit.
Student 1: I’m confused exactly what a mushroom is. I understood
everything about the blockchain the other day but I don’t
understand what a mushroom is.
Student 2: So if you compare it to the moment, the mushroom is the
label?
Music lecturer 1: It could be. But it could also be the album design company.
I think you’d have many . . . Or someone doing label ser-
vices. People you cut in.
Student 1: I got it. And what are you guys wanting to do? Or you don’t
know?
Music lecturer 1: We spoke about several ideas but lots of people were saying
they were confused . . . We don’t know if we’ll develop one
or multiple ones.
Music lecturer 2: We start, have a go? See what goes right and wrong, learn
from that?

The workshops have continued in the 2016–17 academic year. In October

2016, students uploaded music—and other creative content, including a
review of the Primavera festival—on the Ascribe website, developed by Big-
chainDB, in order to create a permanent link between themselves, as artist,
and their work. As we write, the students, split into two teams, are compet-
ing to raise money—in cryptocurrency—for a music release using blockchain
technology, one group pursuing a “tip jar” model, the other new forms of
crowdfunding. With the intention of promoting cross-industry innovation
(Vullings and Heleven 2015), each team also includes postgraduate students
from the business school on the MSc Innovation programme; music students
are also shortly to pitch to Computer Science students in the hope of involving
them in the project as well.
 Just Go and Do It • 85

Conclusion
By drawing on punk notions of DIY, and changes in enterprise pedagogy since
Gartner, we hope to move away from the notion that entrepreneurs are born
rather than made, with the Romantic corollary that those without such traits
may as well concern themselves with “pure art” (as if such a thing existed).
Instead, we have outlined how we are using a live project to encourage a number
of students—studying Popular Music as well as Music Business & Arts Manage-
ment at Middlesex University—to engage with blockchain technology, as well
as broader questions ranging from securing intellectual property to identifying
new revenue streams for musicians.
Our contention is that all musicians, and thus all music students, can be
entrepreneurial—and that, given the likelihood that our graduates may be self-
employed or employed in small and medium enterprises and micro-businesses,
they may need to be so. Yet this is not to assume that they should be motivated
primarily, even at all, by profit; as with Crass and The Cartel, entrepreneur-
ship may be a means of operating commercially with an alternative ideology.
Punk shows that entrepreneurship can flourish alongside non-corporate, even
overtly anti-corporate, ideals, and that it can be a means of achieving creative
autonomy. Many punks, and punk scholars, may despise the notion of punk as
entrepreneurial. We suggest that this is because of an enduring assumption that
enterprise is fundamentally neoliberal and primarily concerned with profit—
an assumption we have challenged.
We have also shown that, far from being in conflict, entrepreneurship and
management can co-exist with creativity—indeed, they can be seen as an
extension of creative practice. Rather than recognizing a clear division between
creativity and enterprise or management, our project involved both Popular
Music and Music Business and Arts Management students, just as musicians—
Daniel Miller, Jerry Dammers, Crass and others—founded punk and post-punk
record labels. It is notable that there are artists at the forefront of the application
of blockchain technology for music, notably Imogen Heap and the cellist Zoe
Keating.
We hope that our live project will provide real-world experiential learning:
“for enterprise” rather than “about enterprise”. Although there is cause for opti-
mism in the prediction by the World Economic Forum (2015) that 10 percent
of global gross domestic product will be stored on blockchains by 2025, it is
also true that blockchain technology in general still faces significant challenges,
relating both to the technology itself and to its widespread adoption. Yet even if
blockchain technology never fulfils its promise, we believe there is considerable
value in the live project—in promoting transferable skills and encouraging stu-
dents to self-identify as entrepreneurs. Since the workshops are not assessed, we
hope they can offer a safe place in which to “fail”—and, more importantly, that
they can help students conceive of a definition of “success” in entrepreneurship
86 • Marcus O’Dair and Zuleika Beaven

that is not based on profit. Instead of standing aside for “born entrepreneurs”
with particular “traits”, and assuming that entrepreneurship is only for those
driven by financial rewards, the lesson of punk is that anyone can just go and
do it.

Notes
1. McKay (1996, 75) suggests that it was in the post-punk era that the political thrust of punk was
“more keenly developed and deeply explored”.
2. Other cryptocurrencies, such as ether, used on the Ethereum blockchain, have emerged even
more recently. Our focus here is bitcoin, since that is the currency we are using in the initial
stages of our live project, but the project as a whole is blockchain agnostic.
3. Heap (2016, 2) states her intention to create “a fair trading and bustling creative music industry
ecosystem”.

References
Anderson, A. 2005. “Enacted Metaphor: The Theatricality of the Entrepreneurial Process.” Interna-
tional Small Business Journal 23, 6: 587–603.
Anon. 1977. Sideburns. 1 January.
Ball, L. 2003. “Future Directions for Employability Research in the Creative Industries.” Working
Paper. Brighton: LTSN.
Barre, T. J. 2015. “Bitcoin: A Pedagogical Guide for the College Classroom.” Journal of Education
for Business 90, 6: 335–339.
Beaven, Z. 2013. Creative and Entrepreneurial Identity in Nascent Musician Entrepreneurs. Unpub-
lished thesis. Manchester Metropolitan University.
Beaven, Z., and St S. George. 2007. “Embedding Entrepreneurship in the Curriculum: Beyond
Simulation.” Paper presented to the EFDM 37th Annual Enterprise, Innovation and Small
Business Conference at the University of Ljubljana, September 13–14.
Beckman, G. 2007. “  ‘Adventuring’ Arts Entrepreneurship Curricula in Higher Education: An
Examination of Present Efforts, Obstacles and Best Practices.” Journal of Arts Management,
Law and Society 37, 2: 88–111.
Bessant, J., and J. Tidd. 2007. Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons.
Bestley, R. 2014. “Design It Yourself? Punk’s Division of Labour.” Paper presented to Keep It Simple,
Make It Fast! conference. Porto, Portugal. July 8–11.
Bheemaiah, K. 2015. “Why Business Schools Need to Teach About the Blockchain: An Overview
of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Technology Based Business Initiatives and Models.”
Working Paper. Accessed June 30, 2016. www.weusecoins.com/assets/pdf/library/Why%20
Business%20Schools%20need%20to%20Teach%20Blockchain.pdf.
Bilton, C. 2007. Management and Creativity: From Creative Industries to Creative Management.
Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Brabazon, Tara. 2012. Popular Music: Topics, Trends & Trajectories. London: Sage.
Brown, R. 2004. “Performing Arts Entrepreneurship.” Palatine Higher Education Academy. Accessed
June 30, 2016. www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/performing-arts-entrepreneurship.
pdf.
Burnard, Pamlea. 2012. Musical Creativities in Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Carey, C., and A. Naudin. 2006. “Enterprise Curriculum for Creative Industries Students.” Educa-
tion + Training 48, 7: 518–531.
Chickering, A. W., and Z. F. Gamson. 1987. “Is This: Seven Principles for Good Practice in Under-
graduate Education.” AAHE Bulletin, 39, 7: 3–6.
Cope, J. 2005. “Researching Entrepreneurship Through Phenomenological Enquiry.” International
Small Business Journal 23, 2: 373–397.
Cope, J., and G. Watts. 2000. “Learning by Doing: An Exploration of Experience, Critical Incidents
and Reflection in Entrepreneurial Learning.” International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behav-
iour and Research 6, 3: 104–124.
 Just Go and Do It • 87

Dale, P. 2008. “It Was Easy, It Was Cheap, So What?: Reconsidering the DIY Principle of Punk and
Indie Music.” Popular Music History 3, 2: 171–193.
Dalley, J., and B. Hamilton. 2000. “Knowledge, Context and Learning in the Small Business.” Inter-
national Small Business Journal 18, 3: 51–59.
DCMS. 2006. The Role of Higher and Further Education: Developing Entrepreneurship for the
Creative Industries. Accessed June 30, 2016. http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/7624/2/dcms_enterprise_
and_he.pdf.
Deakins, D., and M. Freel. 1998. “Entrepreneurial Learning and the Growth Process in SMEs.”
Learning Organisation 5, 3: 144–155.
Delmolino, K., M. Arnett, A. Kosba, A. Miller, and E. Shi. 2015. “Step By Step Towards Creating a
Safe Smart Contract: Lessons and Insights From a Cryptocurrency Lab.” IACR Cryptology
E-Print Archive. Accessed June 13, 2016. http://eprint.iacr.org/2015/460.pdf.
Depaepe, F., E. De Corte, and L. Verschaffel. 2010. “Teachers’ Metacognitive and Heuristic
Approaches to Word Problem Solving: Analysis and Impact on Students’ Beliefs and Perfor-
mances.” ZDM 42, 2: 205–218.
Drakopoulou Dodd, S. 2014. “Roots Radical—Place, Power and Practice in Punk Entrepreneur-
ship.” Entrepreneurship & Regional Development: An International Journal 26, 1–2: 165–205.
Dudanski, R. 2013. Squat City Rocks: Proto-Punk and Beyond.
Dunn, K. 2016. Global Punk: Resistance and Rebellion in Everyday Life. London: Bloomsbury.
Ellmeier, A. 2003. “Cultural Entrepreneurialism: On the Changing Relationship Between the Arts,
Culture and Employments’.” International Journal of Cultural Policy 9, 1: 3–16.
Furness, Zack. 2012. “Attempted Education and Righteous Accusations: An Introduction to Punka-
demics.” In Punkademics: The Basement Show in the Ivory Tower, edited by Zack Furness.
Brooklyn, NY: Minor Compositions.
Gartner, W. B. 1988. “ ‘Who Is an Entrepreneur?’ Is the Wrong Question.” American Journal of Small
Business 13, 1: 11–32.
Gibb, A. 1997. “Small Firms’ Training and Competetiveness: Building on the Small Business as
Learning Organisation.” International Small Business Journal 15, 3: 13–29.
Gordon, A. 2012. “Building Recording Studios Whilst Bradford Burned: DIY Punk Ethics in a Field
of Force.” In Punkademics: The Basement Show in the Ivory Tower, edited by Zack Furness.
Brooklyn, NY: Minor Compositions.
Heap, I. 2016. “What Blockchain Can Do for the Music Industry.” Demos Quarterly 8. http://
quarterly.demos.co.uk/article/issue-8/music-and-blockchain/. Accessed June 30, 2016.
Hebdige, D. 1988 (first published 1979). Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge.
Herbert, R., and A. Link. 2009. A History of Entrepreneurship. London: Routledge.
Hesmondhalgh, D. 1999. “Indie: The Institutional Politics and Aesthetics of a Popular Music
Genre.” Cultural Studies 13, 1: 34–61.
Hindle, K. 2007. “Teaching Entrepreneurship in University: From the Wrong Building to the Right
Philosophy.” In Handbook of Research in Entrepreneurship Education. Cheltenham: Edward
Elgar.
Hughes, E. 1993. A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto. Accessed June 13, 2016. www.activism.net/cypherpunk/
manifesto.html.
Jones, C., and A. Penaluna. 2013. “Moving Beyond the Business Plan in Enterprise Education.”
Education and Training 55, 8/9: 804–814.
Katz, J., and R. Green. 2007. Entrepreneurial Small Business. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Kim, P., and H. Aldrich. 2005. Social Capital and Entrepreneurship. Boston: Now.
Kolb, D. A. 1984. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Laing, Dave. 2015 (first published 1985). One Chord Wonders: Power and Meaning in Punk Rock.
Oakland: PM Press.
Marcus, Greil. 2001 (first published 1989). Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century.
London: Faber.
McKay, George. 1996. Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance Since the Sixties. London:
Verso.
Mougayar, W. 2016. The Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice and Applications of the Next Internet
Technology. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Mycelia for Music. No date. Accessed January 27, 2017. http://myceliaformusic.org.
Nakamoto, S. 2008. Bitcoin: A Peer-to-peer Electronic Cash System. Accessed March 21, 2016.
bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf.
88 • Marcus O’Dair and Zuleika Beaven

O’Connor, A. 2008. Punk Record Labels and the Struggle for Autonomy: The Emergence Of DIY.
Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
O’Dair, Marcus, Z. Beaven, D. Neilson, P. Pacifico, and R. Osborne. 2016. Music on the Block-
chain Report. Middlesex University. Accessed July 7, 2016. www.mdx.ac.uk/__data/assets/
pdf_file/0026/230696/Music-On-The-Blockchain.pdf.
Ogbor, J. 2000. “Mythicizing and Reification in Entrepreneurial Discourse.” Journal of Management
Studies 35, 5: 605–635.
Ogg, A. 2009. Independence Days: The Story of UK Independent Record Labels. London: Cherry Red.
Penaluna, A., and K. Penaluna. 2009. “Assessing Creativity: Drawing From the Experience of the
UK’s Creative Design Educators.” Education + Training 51, 8/9: 718–732.
Pittaway, L., and J. Cope. 2006. “Simulating Entrepreneurial Learning: Integrating Experiential
Learning and Collaborative Approaches to Learning.” HCGE Working Paper.
Pittaway, L., and J. Cope. 2007. “Simulating Entrepreneurial Learning: Integrating Experiential and
Collaborative Approaches to Learning.” Management Learning 38, 2: 211–233.
Rae, D. 2000. “Understanding Entrepreneurial Learning: A Question of How?” International Jour-
nal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research 6, 3: 145–159.
Rae, D. 2004. “Entrepreneurial Learning: A Practical Model From the Creative Industries.” Educa-
tion + Training 46, 8/9: 492–500.
Rae, D., and M. Carswell. 2000. “Using a Life-story Approach in Researching Entrepreneurial
Learning: The Development of a Conceptual Model and Its Implications in the Design of
Learning Experiences.” Education and Training 42, 4/5: 220–227.
Reddington, Helen. 2007. The Lost Women of Rock Music: Female Musicians of the Punk Era. Alder-
shot: Ashgate.
Rentschler, R. 2002. The Entrepreneurial Arts Leader: Cultural Policy, Change and Reinvention.
St Lucia: University of Queensland Press.
Reynolds, Simon. 2005. Rip It Up and Start Again: Post-Punk 1978–1984. London: Faber.
Savage, J. 2005 (first published 1991). England’s Dreaming: Sex Pistols and Punk Rock. London:
Faber and Faber.
Sheffield School of Architecture. 2013. A Handbook for Live Projects. Accessed June 24, 2016. www.
sheffield.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.304156!/file/Live_Projects_Handbook_Med_Single.pdf.
Smith, Gareth D., and Alex Gillett. 2015. “Creativities, Innovation, and Networks in Garage Punk
Rock: A Case Study of the Eruptörs.” Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts 4,
1: 9–24.
Swedberg, R. 2000. “Different Social Perspectives on Entrepreneurship.” In Entrepreneurship, edited
by R. Swedberg. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tan, S. S., and C.K.F. Ng. 2006. “A Problem-Based Learning Approach to Entrepreneurship Educa-
tion.” Education + Training 48, 6: 416–428.
The Theory of Obscurity: A Film About the Residents. Dir. Don Hardy. Film Movement LLC, 2015.
Film.
Torrez, Estrella. 2012. “Punk Pedagogy: Education for Liberation and Love.” In Punkadem-
ics: The Basement Show in the Ivory Tower, edited by Zack Furness. Brooklyn, NY: Minor
Compositions.
Vullings, R., and M. Heleven. 2015. Not Invented Here: Cross-Industry Innovation. Amsterdam: BIS.
Warren, L. 2005. “Images of Entrepreneurship: Still Searching for a Hero?” International Journal of
Entrepreneurship and Innovation 6, 4: 221–229.
World Economic Forum. 2015. Deep Shift: Technology, Tipping Points and Societal Impact Survey
Report. Accessed June 13, 2016. www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GAC15_Technological_
Tipping_Points_ report_2015.pdf.
Young, D. 2014. Enterprise for All: The Relevance of Enterprise in Education. Accessed June 30, 2016.
www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/338749/Enterprise
forAll-lowres-200614.pdf.
Young, R. 2006. Rough Trade. London: Black Dog.
 Part II
Punk Teaching and Teaching Punk
 7
“Don’t Know Much About History,
and We Don’t Care!” Teaching
Punk Rock History
JOHN DOUGAN

[Johnny Rotten] this malevolent, third generation child of rock ‘n’ roll is
the Sex Pistols’ lead singer. The band play exciting, hard, basic punk rock.
But more than that, John is the elected generalissimo of a new cultural
movement scything through the grass roots disenchantment with the
present state of mainstream rock.
—Caroline Coon 1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion (1977)

Fuck the glory days.

—Modern Life is War, “Fuck the Sex Pistols” (2007)

I was perhaps the person most surprised when my proposal for a new course
on “The History of Punk Rock” was accepted. Changes in higher education
curricula indicated that this manner of study did not fit in the “workforce
development” model of the new business-oriented, corporate university. My
impetus to create such a course originated in 2004 while teaching a somewhat
similar class for US students at King’s College London titled, “Roots, Rock, Reg-
gae: The Cultural Politics of British Punk Rock and Reggae Music”. Although
I could not prohibit anyone from taking the class, I decided that, prior to reg-
istering, I would meet with students individually to discuss why they were
taking it, what they hoped to learn, and what, if anything, they knew about
punk rock. In all of these pre-registration meetings not one student exhibited
anything less than intense enthusiasm. But, not long after the class began, some
of the enthusiasm began to evaporate. This chapter examines the terrors and
pleasures of teaching a part of rock music history that is deeply felt yet mostly
misunderstood—not just by students but instructors as well. Therein notions of
consensus history and canonicity are undone by the reality that what is defini-
tively “punk” depends on when and where you entered the discussion, and the
postmodernist impulse of valuing a multiplicity of cultural arrangements for
an understanding, albeit uneasy, of punk rock’s inherent opposition to be musi-
cally and culturally circumscribed.
91
92 • John Dougan

“Awesome”
That was the word I most often heard from students when it was announced I
would be offering an upper division elective,1 somewhat problematically titled
“The History of Punk Rock” (the use of the definite article is heavily freighted
with an implied certainty that my approach to the topic would be in some man-
ner definitive—which was not the case). I, too, was excited by the response,
tempered only by the reality that “The History of Punk Rock”, to many of
them, sounded more like fun than real academic work. My methodology was
straightforward and simple: teach a combination lecture/seminar that built its
narrative upon chronological linearity, explored the genre’s development and,
ultimately, would springboard into discussions of cultural geography, race, gen-
der, class, generational conflict, youth subcultures, the business of punk rock
and the roles authenticity plays in the creation and commodification of the
music. All of this would be done by interrogating the complex relationships
among performers, audiences (often one and the same) and the music business.
I divided the course, though not equally, into three parts. First, pre-punk
influences: mid-’60s American garage rock, teds, mods, skinheads, the Brit-
ish Invasion, Glam and Pub Rock, the etymology of the word “punk” as both
adjective and noun, and its use in rock journalism. Part two concentrated on the
so-called first wave of US and UK punk with an admittedly predictable focus
on New York and London, but also the punk diaspora and its rippling effect
in the “faraway towns” (Manchester, Leeds, Cleveland, Minneapolis, among
others). Part three emphasized post-punk and new wave as well as various sec-
ond- (and third-)wave sub-genres (e.g., hardcore, anarcho-punk, no wave, riot
grrrl), concluding with the rise of grunge, the multiplatinum pop punk bands of
the mid- to late ’90s and a rather perfunctory summation on “the state of punk
today”. Resisting an historical path of least resistance by populating this history
solely with musicians, I wanted to introduce my students to a diverse cohort
of participants: garage rock historian and guitarist Lenny Kaye, CBGB’s owner
Hilly Kristal, Rough Trade record shop and label chief Geoff Travis, photogra-
pher Roberta Bayley, Roxy nightclub owner Andy Czezowski, clothing designer
Vivienne Westwood, journalist Caroline Coon, X-Ray Spex singer Poly Styrene,
filmmaker/DJ Don Letts, graphic artist Jamie Reid, Punk magazine co-founder
John Holmstrom, Sniffin’ Glue fanzine publisher Mark Perry and BBC Radio 1
DJ John Peel (among many, many others), all of whom made valuable contri-
butions to the creation of a multivalent punk aesthetic. There was a required
listening component and, along with numerous articles and essays, two primary
texts: Gillian McCain and Legs McNeil’s Please Kill Me and John Robb’s Punk
Rock: An Oral History. Both of these, regrettably, went mostly unread.
Although I was at this time (the late ’00s) in the vernacular of punk, an “old
fart” (I was 21 the year the first Ramones album was released), I possessed the
enthusiasm and naiveté to think such a task could be accomplished over the
course of a semester. Reality, as it so often does, forcefully intruded to remind
 Teaching Punk Rock History • 93

me that this would not be the case—there was simply not enough time to
cover adequately all of the material. Worse still, for a number of students the
class was, sadly, no longer awesome. Or as one student sheepishly confided to
me midway through the term, this was simply way more than she wanted to
learn about punk rock. A less generous person might use that last statement
to bang on at length about student apathy; it is, after all, a course in punk rock,
a chance to study something a bit different, of personal interest or curiosity,
not some boring curricular requirement. And while the challenges in teach-
ing this course were, at times, significant, placing the lion’s share of the blame
on the students would be unfair. I would rather begin by admitting my own
pedagogical shortcomings, some of them the result of me assuming I would
be teaching students who were, to varying degrees, as stimulated and curious
about the subject as me. However, before I do that, some context is important.

Punk Rock History Versus the Neoliberal University

I am employed in the Department of Recording Industry, housed within the
College of Media and Entertainment (formerly Mass Communication) at a large
public university in the American South. Our department currently enrolls approxi-
mately 1,100 students in three concentrations (Music Business, Audio Production
and Commercial Songwriting). The majority of these students come from
working-class backgrounds and slightly more than a third are first-generation
university students. I refer to them as students. However, increasingly deans and
department chairs, deeply committed to economic neoliberalism and its place
in higher education (or vice versa), have embraced the semantic shift that now
classifies them as “customers”. This crass, reductive appellation is “premised upon
unsustainable growth and unsecured debt, and government abandonment of its
responsibilities, [and] is the human equivalent of strip-mining. It is a wholesale
mortgage of the future in exchange for fleeting short terms gains” (Kreuter 2014).
As faculty, we are no longer expected to “teach students” but to “train workers”,
and in doing so, reformulate curriculum at the behest of administrators who,
in consultation with marketing and branding “experts”, business leaders and,
in some instances, the customers themselves, decide what skills will best equip
graduates searching for gainful employment. However, as anyone with even a
cursory knowledge of the music industry in the post-Napster era knows, the
number of graduates in any music industry program far exceeds the number of
available jobs (Jones 2017; Morrow et al. 2017).
Although faculty are paid lip service from bureaucrats who claim that an
appreciation of history, along with developing students’ critical thinking and
writing skills, are fundamentally important to the university experience, I and
others perceive that their disdain for this manner of higher education, as well as
that of the customers is, at times, palpable. From the students’ perspective, that is
not surprising insofar as they have received little in the way of prior instruction
94 • John Dougan

and have limited, or non-existent, skills. As Jessica A. Schwartz notes, this peda-
gogical model, one that has diminished the role of the humanities and creative
arts, “reward[s] intellectual entrepreneurs, technological innovators and com-
petition, and imagines higher education as a business investment, rather than a
right in which a burgeoning adult can intellectually rebel, lost in an ‘unproduc-
tive’ train of thought” (2015, 146). The result is a widening divide between what
one of my colleagues simplistically refers to as “thinking” classes (what I teach),
and “doing” classes (what he teaches). The latter are reckoned to be more valu-
able than the former because, it is assumed, “doing” classes are mainstays of job
preparedness, whereas “thinking” classes are mere intellectual frivolity. And, as
this class was an elective, some students treated it with similar indifference. After
all, how was a class on punk rock going to help them get a job?
Defining higher education so narrowly and instrumentally places a course
on punk rock (and, by extension, popular music studies as a multi-disciplinary
field that incorporates contributions from the humanities and social sciences)
in a precarious position. No longer can it be assumed to be a necessary part of
a curriculum. It has perhaps always been a struggle encouraging young under-
graduates that an important part of their education is the privilege of intellectual
exploration, of understanding not simply how to do things, but why they do
them, and what impact it will have on the various communities in which they
work and live. Higher education is about understanding history and its rhetoric,
textual analysis, understanding the nuances of race, class, ethnicity and gender
identity—a complex, imbricated world of popular (sometimes radical) art and
commerce. This is a world that, according to Greil Marcus, gives its participants
the opportunity

to invent yourself to the point of stupidity, [to] give yourself a ridiculous

new name, [to] appear in public in absurd clothes, [to] sing songs based
on nursery rhymes or catchphrases or advertising slogans, and [to] do it
for money, renown, to lift yourself up, to escape the life you were born to,
to escape the poverty, the racism, the killing strictures of a life that you
were raised to accept as fate, to make yourself a new person not only in
the eyes of the world, but finally in your own eyes too.
(2014, 18)

My fear is that this message is getting lost and, in the future popular music
studies, as part of a comprehensive music industry education, will be marginal-
ized or vanish entirely as the champions of the new “corporate university” wield
more power, and classrooms increasingly become what Henry Giroux calls
“intellectual dead zones” (Giroux 2010, cited in Dines 2015, 134). The social
and political conservatism undergirding neo-liberalism is wary of creative,
progressive, free-thinking students who understand that any country’s popular
music history is a door that opens to a greater, more nuanced understanding
 Teaching Punk Rock History • 95

of social, cultural and political realities. At its best, popular music speaks to
the heart of democratic expression—attacking stereotypes, questioning con-
ventional wisdom and challenging authority. These attributes should, I would
argue, belong in every music industry curriculum.
My desire to teach this course, despite my personal left-leaning politics,
was not solely predicated on refuting the neoliberal agenda, nor was it to teach
punk rock history as a means of radicalizing students to take arms against a
sea of troubles—or so I thought. It was not until later that I became cognizant
my approach to the subject matter was, at the very least, implicitly influenced
by proponents of critical pedagogy such as Paulo Freire and Henry Giroux,
and while my familiarity with the former’s seminal treatise Pedagogy of the
Oppressed was hardly definitive, I, too, believed in the intellectual import of
such Freireanisms as the “correct method lies in dialogue”, and “liberating edu-
cation consists in acts of cognition, and transferals of information” (Freire 2000,
67, 79). These aphorisms, I felt, formed a particularly apt pedagogical founda-
tion for teaching punk rock history.

The History That We Make Today!

As much as I appreciated punk’s cultural prerogative, wherein “combinations
of people, places, cultural practices, social relationships, art and ideas that co-
constitute punk are rife with possibilities” (Furness 2012, 10), this was, first and
foremost, a history class. This may strike some readers as delimited and quo-
tidian, but it reflected the learning objectives of the majority of my students,
whom I will describe in more detail momentarily. My plan, however, was not to
reify a metanarrative (punk rock by its very oppositional nature, and constantly
revised canon, resists such attempts at unanimity or, as proto-punks the MC5
asserted in 1969, “Let me be who I am/And let me kick out the jams”), nor was
it to value rote memorization over context and reduce the course to a chrono-
logical assemblage of details. Calling on my background in American Studies
I chose to incorporate American literary critic Van Wyck Brooks’s notion of a
“useable past”, and combine it with historian Michael Galgano’s assertion that
establishing historical memory

requires the systematic reconstruction of human actions and events,

ordered chronologically or topically and firmly rooted in evidence . . .
[and] depends upon the acquisition of knowledge that is both broad
and deep, incorporating facts, principles, theories, ideas, practices, and
methods.
(2007)

What I neglected to take into consideration was how much a still evolving
punk rock canon would collide headlong with students’ limited knowledge
96 • John Dougan

of the subject, which often lacked a nuanced historical perspective and

reduced the idea of punk to a set of mostly media-inspired (i.e. film, tele-
vision and commercial advertising) sonic, political and sartorial clichés.
When assigned to write a brief definition of punk due at our second meeting,
before we had discussed or listened to anything in class, most described the
music’s principal sonic characteristics in Ramones-like terms: “loud guitars”,
“fast-paced”, “easy to play”, “based on three or four power chords”, “little or
no soloing” and songs that are “short, fast, and simple”. Punk recordings
were “cheaply made” and “barely produced”, in all ways sonically inferior
to “classic rock” records and unconcerned with attaining commercial suc-
cess (not necessarily true of the Ramones or many other bands associated
with nascent punk scene at New York’s CBGB). During class discussions and
in the aforementioned writing assignment the majority of students agreed
that the political ideologies embedded in punk rock, irrespective of its geo-
graphic origins, were generally described as left wing (greatly problematized
upon learning of Johnny Ramone’s strident right-wing conservatism), advo-
cating anarchy (which nearly all of them viewed as synonymous with chaos
rather than a discrete political philosophy), and defiantly working class, but
also regarded as “nihilistic”. When asked to describe a punk rocker’s general
appearance, most imagined someone resembling Exploited’s Wattie Buchan
or Rancid’s Lars Frederickson—mowhawked, tattooed, and pierced, wearing
a British punk band’s T-shirt—a look popularized on British postcards in the
1980s by so-called postcard punk, Matt Belgrano (www.Gettyimages.com).
It is not that these gestures were not to some degree “punk”; rather, it was that,
in sum, this became the students’ de facto authenticating strategy. Where I had
erred was in overlooking simple, generationally shaped perceptions: the punk
rock I had been exposed to in the mid- to late 1970s was, ostensibly, a subcul-
tural designation often angrily at odds with mainstream culture, whereas theirs
was an iteration that signaled the triumph of commodification that, first noted
by the Clash “turn[ed] rebellion into money” (Strummer and Jones 1978). Rep-
resentations of punk on American television and film in the late 1970s and early
1980s depicted it as a moral panic (not unlike Hollywood’s attempts at linking
rock ‘n’ roll with juvenile delinquency in the 1950s) that, along with posing a
serious threat to middle and upper classes’ propriety, inevitably led its easily
duped individuals into a netherworld of social dysfunction and delinquency,
culminating in either imprisonment or, in a worst case scenario, death.2 My stu-
dents, however, had grown up with punk as deeply entrenched in mainstream
popular culture. They were the children of the American shopping mall–based
retail chain Hot Topic, which specializes in punk/goth clothing and accessories,
and the punk rock/hip-hop traveling music festival Vans Warped Tour (named
after the skateboard shoe manufacturer Vans); they heard NOFX songs on
popular American teen/young adult shows like One Tree Hill, saw Sonic Youth
on the Gilmore Girls, or had bands like the Cramps, Clash, Sex Pistols and Stiff
 Teaching Punk Rock History • 97

Little Fingers name-checked on the early-aughts young adult ensemble drama

set in California’s Orange County, The O.C. Thus,

[B]y the 1990s, dissident youth subcultures were far less able to arouse
moral panics despite an accelerated pace of style innovation. In the 2000s,
subcultural style is worth less because a succession of subcultures has been
commodified in past decades. “Subculture” has become a billion-dollar
industry. Bare skin, odd piercings, and blue jeans are not a source of moral
panics these days: they often help to create new market opportunities.
(Clark 2004, 227)

This is not to cynically argue that the manner in which I was exposed to punk
rock was fundamentally purer or more authentic than the manner in which my
students encountered punk, with the false piety common among older punks
who unfairly dismiss later generations’ “first contact” punk narratives as mere
simulacra (“Oh, your first punk show was Green Day, was it? Well, mine was
the Ramones in 1977!”) (Sofianos et al. 2015, 218). Yet, as a popular music
historian, it was important to me to be mindful of how diverse “first contact”
narratives create history or, more accurately, histories. Simply put, the moment
a person is introduced to and transformed by punk rock, and the media aiding
and abetting said transformation, is where their history begins—their own, pri-
vate “year zero”. John Robb, writing in the book many of my students neglected
to read, notes that this particularization was endemic to punk from its outset:

Everyone decided what punk was for them. There were endless argu-
ments about what we were fighting for, what we should be wearing on
our feet, what we should listen to, and how we were going to change the
fucking world.
(2006, 3)

The course’s leitmotif, therefore, was to disabuse the students of such rigidly
held notions and constructs. I wanted them to not see and hear punk rock as
musically and ideologically static, but rather as capacious, complex and varie-
gated. In the end, I wanted them to be comfortable with the assertion that at
its best, and sometimes its worst, punk rock was, like the title of Don Letts’s
documentary, “an attitude” or, better still, in the words of Minutemen founder,
the late d.boon it was, truly, “whatever we made it to be”.

Canonicity and Organization

Notwithstanding such postmodern epistemology, my most pressing concern
was organizing the material into a coherent whole and, in doing so, confront-
ing the vexatious and problematic notion of a punk rock canon. Some might
98 • John Dougan

argue that a canon by its very definition needs to be expertly or institutionally

codified, whether by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, academics,
musicians or music journalists and the journals that employ them (the writers
and editors of Mojo and Rolling Stone being prime examples of this approach)
in a flexible taxonomy that “embraces value, exemplification, authority, and
a sense of temporal continuity (timelessness)” (Shuker 2016, 107).3 In my
research on blues record collectors, historians and critics as creators of dis-
course and canons, I theorized canon formation to be a discourse of power
reinforcing the values of the canonizers (Dougan 2001). Canonicity is reified
by the creation of a hierarchy of “founding fathers” (e.g., in punk rock that
grouping would doubtlessly include the Ramones, Sex Pistols, Clash and the
Damned) and the placing of other performers into a hermeneutical circle that
seeks to fit discrete elements into a complete whole. But canon formation begs
simple, crucial questions: who and what gets in? And, if canon formation has
to remain faithful to a musical tradition, what are the essential qualities needed
for one to be included in that tradition?
Although not a punk himself, T. S. Eliot argued that canons are not immune
from influence from within, that an artist and their attendant works’ meaning
and significance often changed with every addition to the canon. “No poet,
no artist of any art, has complete meaning alone”, he wrote in 1920. “You must
set [the artist] for contrast and comparison, among the dead as a principal or
aesthetic, not merely historical criticism” (Dougan 2001, 197). This process his-
toricizes (or “heroicizes”) contributions made by lesser-known punk artists who
remain stylistically faithful to the tradition (i.e., sound) of the genre’s seminal
figures. But digital era postmodernity and the ease and ubiquity of social media
allows music consumers to create hyperindividualized, micro-canons (e.g., an
iTunes library, a streaming audio playlist or, for some, a record collection) free
from the purported tyranny of consensus history and the cultural stranglehold
of other canonizers. Ann Powers, writing well over a decade ago, contends that
this has always been the case due to the fact that “would-be canonizers, and
every fan is one, can’t even agree on basic criteria” (1999).
However, my need for a structure was not meant as a mandate for the students
to genuflect at the altar of some inviolate grouping of names, dates, recordings
and song titles, but as a means of stressing the importance of the people who,
to varying degrees, helped shaped this amorphous entity known as punk rock
while at the same time wedding them and their work to salient social, political
and cultural contexts. To paraphrase Powers, I was not challenging them to a
shouting match about greatness, but was proposing a canon in order to regulate
the din. In doing so I was also attempting to use canonization to critique punk
historiography while simultaneously appraising punk narratives whose inelas-
tic structures were little more than explicitly ideological hagiographies.
Although nearly all of my students had been exposed to punk rock in
some manner prior to the course, their received knowledge varied greatly and
 Teaching Punk Rock History • 99

resided in three categories. The minority of the class fell, somewhat appro-
priately, under a designation I deemed “hardcore”, their brains crammed full
of arcane details, pledging an unwavering allegiance to a pure, yet inchoate,
purity of sound and vision that “remain[s] exclusive only for so long as [it]
remain[s] unknown or inaccessible to the majority” (Muggleton 2002, 64).
As for the others, I grouped them, somewhat uncreatively, into two types:
“sort of know” and “never heard of ”. The former might recognize a song or
two by bands putatively regarded as canonical such as the Ramones, Sex Pis-
tols and the Clash, and maybe a second- or third-generation band like Green
Day, but did not know Joe Strummer from Johnny Rotten or that, at the time,
three of the four original Ramones were dead. I should note that bands that
fell under the designation of pop-punk, like Green Day, were loathed by the
hardcore students; to them, mainstream success negatively marked such bands
as “inauthentic”, or, more commonly, “sell-outs”. As for the latter group, well,
“never heard of ” is a fairly self-evident designation. To them nearly every-
thing was brand new and, as a result, a few of them experienced sustained
epiphanies that quickly turned into intense enthusiasm—always a gratifying
experience (as a teacher I am far less interested in “preaching to the choir” and
far more interested in facilitating and witnessing inspirational discoveries).
Others, however, reacted with near palpable disdain—furrowed brows and
near-audible eye rolling; they were learning too much about punk rock. One
thing was abundantly clear—irrespective of the grouping in which the students
resided, all of them had gaps, some significant, in their knowledge of not just
punk rock but also punk rock’s connective musical and cultural tissue. There
were gaps in my knowledge too—just not as many. The gaps or blind spots in
my knowledge spoke to punk’s heterogeneous nature—that punk’s diversity,
be it sonically, sartorially or politically, was its strength and, as such, made it
virtually impossible for anyone with a knowledge base deemed authoritative to
fail to fully appreciate all of the genre’s participants and nuances.
In order to separate punk from its various influences, I chose a variation on
Nicholas Rombes’s view that

punk was the product of a specific and unique set of artistic, cultural,
and economic forces at work in the US in general and New York City
in particular (though, unlike Rombes, I included the UK in general and
London in particular) in the early to mid-1970s, and that no matter how
far back we reach to look for punk antecedents, it is only in the 1970s
that the movement became fully articulated in music, comics, and the
underground—and eventually mainstream—press.
(2005, 28–29)

With this in mind, I was convinced that, whatever approach I took, my students
needed to learn about the centrality of the Ramones to this narrative—and
100 • John Dougan

to know them by names both real and pseudonymous. In a career spanning

22 years, 15 records and 2,263 gigs (of which I attended 15), the Ramones cre-
ated the sonic grammar that, for better and for worse, became the musical
template for nearly every band even obliquely described as punk. Yet, despite
the ubiquity of “Blitzkrieg Bop” echoing throughout sports stadiums or used in
commercial advertising, they remain, at least as far as my students were con-
cerned, somewhat invisible. Equally important was that the band’s gestation be
seen in relation to the violence, crime and financial insolvency that plagued
New York City in the mid-1970s, creating the dystopian backdrop against
which their version of rock music, soon to be christened punk, could be heard
and, ultimately, flourish, along with that of the other bands who formed the
punk cohort at CBGB. And while I chose not to mythologize the Ramones as
punk’s inventors, I instead stressed how they “codified it effectively—its stance,
sound and attitude, its rebellion and rejection of popular music conventions”
(Gilmore 2016, 44).
Intriguingly, slightly more than midway through the term a majority of the
students heard the Ramones as the only “real” punk band to emerge from this
scene, whereas Patti Smith, Blondie, Talking Heads, Television, and Richard
Hell and the Voidoids were not considered punk per se, but punk by associa-
tion. As one student noted, “they were at the right place at the right time and
while they’re not punk rock, punk rock gave them the chance to be heard”—
an observation that, tantalizingly, destabilizes one canon and replaces it with
another, and sees punk as a unique approach to rock music rather than an
indurate, static subgenre. Perhaps we were getting somewhere—or was the
class simply devolving into a game of “punk/not a punk?” Similarly, the exis-
tence of the Sex Pistols, the Damned and the Clash become more sharply
drawn in relation to England’s long, hot summer of 1976 and its attendant
racial tensions, high unemployment and striking trade unionists. It was a time
when “apocalypse was in the air and the rhetoric of punk was drenched in
apocalypse: the stock imagery of crisis and sudden change” (Hebdige 1979,
27). To some of my students, situating this music and these musicians in spe-
cific sociopolitical contexts was intensely frustrating, and the looks on some
of their faces told the tale.
If the organizational and contextual choices I made were obvious, pedan-
tic even, it is a charge to which I plead nolo contendere. Any time one
approaches popular music history by employing a methodology that seems
to round up the usual suspects, skepticism and criticism are inevitable. Marc
Bayard, who taught a punk rock history class at Tufts University, claims that
he did so partly to “dispel the misrepresentation of punk to students with lit-
tle or no knowledge of what this scene really contains or has to offer” (1999,
11). He asserts that punk has suffered greatly from media-fostered stereo-
types as well as those of us in academia who are guilty of over-emphasizing
the importance of the Sex Pistols (to the exclusion of whom he never makes
 Teaching Punk Rock History • 101

clear) cluttering up the world with “dozens and dozens of lousy academic
and pop music histories . . . about them”. Roger Sabin echoes this sentiment
writing that the history of punk and its attendant canon have been organized
around too many

top-down BBC documentaries . . . [focusing on] pogoing with Malcolm

[McLaren] at some legendary Sex Pistols concert in London. [Punk rock
is] about how the movement was lived by tens of thousands of teenagers
all over the country and the bands they loved.
(2007)

This statement reiterates something Sabin wrote years earlier in the collection
Punk Rock, So What! where he notes that what problematizes the debate over
punk is that, too often, those writing and re-writing the genre’s narrative, in an
effort to reify a consensus history, use fundamentally unsound criteria:

This is not to say that outstanding analyses do not exist; they do. It is
simply that overall the consideration of punk has been hamstrung by two
things: the narrowness of the frame of reference (how many more times
must we hear the Sex Pistols story?), and the pressure to romanticize
(usually equating with seeing punk as a form of nostalgia). The aggregate
result of this has been to solidify our notions of what went on during
punk into a kind of orthodoxy—i.e. whenever we approach a new piece
of writing on the subject, we think we already know what it meant.
(Sabin 1999, 2)

This “narrowness of the frame of reference” that Sabin mentions, remains as

much a part of contemporary punk rock history as it did when he wrote those
words 18 years ago. The year-long 2016 celebration Punk London, (un)ironi-
cally backed by former London mayor, Tory MP and Brexit proponent Boris
Johnson, and subsidized by the UK’s Heritage Lottery Fund, firmly situates
punk in the capital and places the Sex Pistols and the Damned at the heart of
the story. This shop-worn metanarrative elides any significant discussion of
bands and fans in the faraway towns (and from other countries, for example,
the Saints from Brisbane, Australia) and the contributions of women to the so-
called year-zero of punk. An attempt to rectify the latter issue was made by Slits
guitarist Viv Albertine who, appearing at a Punk 1976–1978 event at the Brit-
ish Library in 2016, defaced a placard by replacing references to the Sex Pistols
with her former band’s name along with scribbling in the question “What about
the women?”
Not content with mere graffiti, lingerie entrepreneur Joe Corré, the son of the
late Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren and his partner, clothing designer
and punk-era fashionista Vivienne Westwood, publicly burned his collection of
102 • John Dougan

punk clothing and memorabilia estimated to be worth £5 million, in late 2016.

Doing so articulated

both [the] depth of his disgust at how complete punk’s commodifica-

tion by the mainstream has now become and his anger at how a genuine
moment of political and social rupture has been rendered meaningless by
the deadening hand of the heritage industry.
(O’Hagan 2016)

As noted by Guardian writer Sean O’Hagan, himself not a supporter of Punk

London,

images and ephemera proliferate on a programme of punk nostalgia that

consigns that subversive moment to the museum like dada and other
cultural outbursts before it. Punk London is conclusive proof, if needed,
of the French thinker Guy Debord’s assertion that consumer capitalism
drains authentic lived experience of meaning.
(2016)

In theory, I see the validity of both sides in this debate. It is easy, and maybe
a little lazy, to fall back on a Ramones-Pistols-Clash holy trinity approach to
punk, foregrounding their contributions instead of, say, Wire, or Crass, or
X-Ray Spex (all of whom are required listening in my class). To Bayard, Sabin
and perhaps to many reading this, the Sex Pistols story is old news, but to a
classroom of Millennials it represents an historical moment that has slipped far
below the horizon of recognition. So when I screen Julian Temple’s The Filth
and the Fury, Don Letts’s slightly sanitized Clash biography From Westway to
the World or Michael Gramaglia and Jim Fields’s fascinating Ramones docu-
mentary End of the Century, the result is overwhelmingly successful, leading to
animated discussions of youth subcultures, punk as moral panic, DIY culture,
the relationship between performer and audience, punk’s cultural intertextual-
ity and, as it relates specifically to the Clash, how the exaggerated militancy of
punk’s musical “year zero” mentality (“No Elvis/Beatles/or the Rolling Stones/
in 1977” barked Joe Strummer in the Clash song “1977”) morphed into the
“anything goes” aesthetic of albums like London Calling or Sandinista.

Studying the Past and the Present: History’s Not Bunk!

So, by constructing a punk rock Mount Rushmore I, too, had become part
of the problem. I was guilty of further calcifying an already rigid orthodoxy
of punk rock history, which begs the question: why (or how) would anyone
teaching a class such as this not, to some degree, do the same? I am sure there
are interesting arguments to the contrary but, running the risk of being glibly
 Teaching Punk Rock History • 103

dismissed as closed-minded, I remain at best skeptical, at worst unconvinced.

After all, how can the teaching of popular music history be problematized or
demythologized without demonstrating how an “accepted” version of history
was constructed in the first place? The challenge is not to treat earlier historical
constructions as inviolable (after all, punk is not) but to proceed in a manner
in which “conventions need to be questioned, accepted truths challenged, rules
bent and broken, voices raised” (Bestley 2015, 123).
Earlier I mentioned that among my goals for this course was to teach a history
of punk rock that was considerably more than merely a chronological assem-
blage of facts. I am, however, a believer in the importance of comprehending
and remembering factual information. Dismiss it as rote memorization if you
will, yet I reject such a facile, pejorative description. As with any pedagogical
tool, overuse limits it efficacy; however, in concert with contextual analysis, the
ability of students to remember important names, dates, places, song titles and
so forth becomes a valuable asset in the development of their analytical skills.
To that end, I have used exams and listening quizzes as methods of reinforcing
the importance of this ability and as ways of not-so-gently encouraging students
to keep up with the reading and required listening, as well as paying attention in
class. The unpleasant truth, as it relates to the study of popular music history, or
any manner of history for that matter, is that students frequently dislike and do
not see the value in learning and remembering such essential details, dismissing
them as boring, useless trivia.
Trivia, by definition, is information both insignificant and obscure. Know-
ing the names of each one of the Sex Pistols, the title of their only LP, and the
year it was released is hardly insignificant or obscure, but some students see it as
no different than my expecting them to know Johnny Rotten’s birthday (Janu-
ary 31, 1956) or his astrological sign (Aquarius). I will admit to walking a fine
line here because of my own obsession with this level of detail and the absurd
notion that nearly everyone shares my zeal. As one who grew up in the ana-
log era, the accumulation of data stored in the cranial hard drive otherwise
known as the limbic system of the medial temporal lobe, and the ability to recall
said data, was how I, as a rock critic and record collector, quite unfairly, sepa-
rated real fans from dilettantes and poseurs. As Matthew Bannister notes in his
insightful essay on indie guitar rock, canonism and white masculinities, men
often negotiate the terrain of popular culture in such a manner because it pro-
vides them with “a sense of belonging, while at the same time distancing them
from more direct forms of social engagement”. Using the male characters in
Nick Hornby’s novels Fever Pitch (1994) and High Fidelity (1996) as examples,
Bannister illustrates how these men find “comfort in the world of statistics”
and “safety within this numerical, mathematical world”. Such is the grammar
of homosocial bonding wherein enumeration often supplants theorization. It
is a world in which male subjectivity is foregrounded by a need for statistical
standardization, a “world of pure achievement” (Bannister 2006, 90). This is
104 • John Dougan

a strategy that I now understand as a form of “insider” discourse—mastering

a corpus of factual information that excludes outsiders and represents a mas-
culinist inclination towards systematicity and organization. This often blocks
female entrance, or values information that, for women, “[is] of little use in
navigating the terrains of social intercourse” (Straw 1997, 5).
But what once was considered an enviable skill is now regarded as a complete
waste of time. In the digital age there is no need to remember as much because
one can simply look it up and hope that the source is accurate (some of my
students do this constantly during class partly to answer questions from the
reading they did not do, and to fact-check me). These are not the misgivings of
a Luddite; I love that as my limbic system ages and occasionally crashes, I can
easily look up what I need and reboot the system. However, I become irritable
when students exhibit a conspicuous lack of interest in what I consider to be
fairly rudimentary knowledge of rock history. As a colleague of mine noted,
with tongue firmly planted in cheek: “They want to work in the music industry,
but they don’t want to learn any music history. They’ll make great major label
executives”.
In the analog era, a convincing argument could be made that such gaps in
knowledge were the result of a dearth of source materials and lack of wide-
spread availability. It was simply harder and more time consuming to acquire
information and doing so was the province of nerds such as myself who were,
for a time, employed as rock critics/journalists. But, as I tell my students from
day one, since the digital era allows for instantaneous access to information,
there is simply no excuse for not knowing. Unfamiliar with a band? Look it up!
Go to a site like Allmusic.com, where even the most obscure punk bands have
biographies and discographies (I know—I wrote dozens of them). Some stu-
dents do, yet others are far less eager to do the necessary work—it is simply not
awesome. The obvious irony here is that despite a surfeit of readily available
information and music, sometimes both are ignored as merely noise.
My charge to my students was simple: people made punk rock—musicians,
fans, graphic artists, filmmakers, writers and zine publishers, clothing design-
ers, club owners, independent record store owners and the occasional farsighted
major label record executive; and all of us are responsible for knowing, and in
some instances, celebrating, what they did, how they did it and what it means.
Nearly all of the students I have quoted in this class believed in what Greil
Marcus argues is punk rock’s irreducible essence: “a desire to change the world,
a desire that begins with the demand to live not as an object of history but as a
subject of history—to live as if something actually depended on one’s actions”
(1998, 3–4). As far as I am concerned, to this end it is worth remembering
names, dates, albums and song titles. In fact, that is the least we can do.
To reiterate something I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter—this
class is an elective, one of many upper division electives a student can take
to fulfil their graduation requirements. Because of the specificity of the title I
 Teaching Punk Rock History • 105

have to assume that everyone enrolled, irrespective of their prior knowledge

or personal motivation, really wants to be there. There are, however, moments
when their interest and desire to learn could be called into question. Case in
point: during one class, after a brief listening quiz that took all of 10 minutes,
I told the students that the remainder of the time would be spent discussing
London in 1976, the Notting Hill Carnival riot (which led to Joe Strummer
and Mick Jones penning the Clash song “White Riot”), and understanding the
difference between anarchy as a political ideology and chaos as, well, chaos! A
Thames Television report of the Notting Hill riot I had downloaded from You-
Tube (1976) was interrupted by a technical glitch. As I hunkered down behind
the lectern to fix the problem, four students in the back of the room snuck out.
Since there were only 25 students enrolled, their absence was conspicuous.
Complaining and finger-pointing is far too easy. I consider myself incred-
ibly lucky to teach this course. And despite the previous story (for the record,
I discussed the incident with the students privately and they were contrite and
apologetic), it is a lot of fun, I look forward to it. That I struggle to make it bet-
ter, more interesting, and more relevant are good problems to have. That I have
students who tell me how much they loved hearing Television, the Mekons,
Gang of Four, Crass, Throbbing Gristle or the Slits for the first time is, along
with being incredibly gratifying, confirmation that punk music and culture, in
all their myriad manifestations, retain their extraordinary value. That I can’t
make everyone as enthusiastic as I am, or appreciate the bands I love, or under-
stand the importance of historical context, or care that important names, dates,
albums and song titles need to be remembered, is exasperating, but motiva-
tional as well. What I hope my students keep with them, even the ones that
have learned more than they wanted to, is that punk rock is like a stone hurled
into a pool of still water, creating waves that, at their outermost, seem faint, but
are no less influential or worthy of consideration. With that in mind, and with
a little more skill and patience on my part, eventually, we will all find our way
back to “awesome”.

Postscript
This chapter began as a presentation to the US chapter of the International
Association for the Study of Popular Music in 2011. Since then, I have taught
“The History of Punk Rock” a total of three times—the number it takes, I think,
for one to begin getting comfortable with a course. Some things have changed
for the better; some problematic issues remain, frustratingly, the same. Over-
all, however, the course has improved, as has my ability to reach students and
impress upon them that Marcus’s claim to live as a subject rather than an object
of history is, now, more relevant and important than ever. The last time I taught
the class, a student slipped a note under my office door at the end of the semes-
ter; part of her note read: “The History of Punk Rock won’t land me a dream
106 • John Dougan

salary, but you opened my eyes to music as an art to appreciate. For that you are
worth all three years of tuition it took to get to your class”.
What this says to me is that, ultimately, the binaries born of the neoliberal
discourse in higher education (i.e., thinking vs. doing, skills-based employabil-
ity vs. learning for the sake of learning) are completely and utterly false. That the
rhetoric of the corporate university is used to reinforce such allegedly imperme-
able boundaries is further evidence of the fatuity of this discourse. Increasingly,
efforts to vocationalize degree programs are being met with resistance from
faculty and students (especially those in the fine arts and humanities) who
understand that higher education does not function exclusively as a form of
workforce development. Although the tension between “thinking and doing”
will not disappear, at least not in the short term, this tension can be managed
even as universities create more fast-track undergraduate and graduate degree
programs all the while emphasizing “value education” (Billeaux and Kahle
2015). Clearly, a course on punk rock history stands far outside the parameters
of such academic reductionism (and its attendant anti-intellectualism) but,
because of punk’s inherently oppositional nature, challenges the efforts of neo-
liberal education’s standardized, business-friendly model. As Schwartz notes,
“Moreover, [this] opposition has been a constant, and it has been in pursuit of
what many educational reformers, along the lines of John Dewey, believe is the
ultimate goal of education: democracy” (Schwartz 2015, 150).
So, when I receive such positive affirmation from a student, I can only think:
Punk’s not dead. And now I’m sure.

Notes
1. This denotes a course for third- and fourth-year undergraduate students that counts towards a
required total of upper division hours but does not fulfil any other specific degree requirements.
2. On American television the two most infamous examples of punk as moral panic were on the
popular police drama Chips (1977–1983) and the investigative medical series Quincy M.E. (1976–
1983). The former aired an episode on January 31, 1982, titled “Battle of the Bands” wherein a
punk named Pain thuggishly and violently attempts to sabotage a “battle of the bands” contest
eventually won by a “new wave” Blondie-style band called Snow Pink. A December 1, 1982, epi-
sode of Quincy M.E. titled “Next Stop, Nowhere” featured, yet again, a thuggish, violent punk rock
band called Mayhem (no relation to the Norwegian black metal band). The Internet Movie Data-
base (IMDb) description of the episode reads: “Quincy takes a look into the world of punk rock, a
music that he believes may have contributed to the death of a teenage boy”. Both of these episodes
were doubtlessly influenced by the 1982 low-budget exploitation film Class of 1984, wherein a
new teacher at an inner-city high school wages a violent battle against a gang of punks.
3. In keeping with Shuker’s appraisal of canonizers and their canons, Rolling Stone recently (issue
number 1259, 21 April 2016) contributed to the taxonomical debate with yet another “authori-
tative” list—in this instance, “The 40 Greatest Punk Albums of All Time”. The seven writers
surveyed placed, unsurprisingly, the Ramones debut first, followed by the Clash’s debut, and
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols third. Of the 40 recordings listed, 17 were from
the 1970s (although I would contend that Funhouse by the Stooges and the first New York Dolls
album should have been elided as pre-punk), 16 from the 1980s, five from the 1990s and only
two released since 2000: 2003’s Fever to Tell by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and 2014’s Deep Fantasy by
White Lung.
 Teaching Punk Rock History • 107

References
Bannister, Matthew. 2006. “ ‘Loaded’: Indie Guitar Rock, Canonism, White Masculinities.” Popular
Music 25, 1, 77–95.
Bayard, Marc. 1999. “Introduction.” In The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise! edited by Craig
O’Hara. San Francisco: AK Press.
Bestley, Russ. 2015. “(I Want Some) Demystification: Deconstructing Punk.” Punk & Post-Punk 4,
2&3, 117–127.
Billeaux, Michael, and Tricia Kahle. 2015. “Resisting the Corporate University.” Jacobin. www.
jacobinmag.com/2015/09/graduate-workers-university-missouri-mizzou-scott-walker-
wisconsin-unions-labor/.
Clark, Dylan. 2004. “The Death and Life of Punk, the Last Subculture.” In Post-Subcultures Reader,
edited by David Muggleton and Rupert Weinzierl. London: Bloomsbury Academic Press.
Dines, Mike. 2015. “Reflections on the Peripheral: Punk, Pedagogy and the Domestication of the
Radical.” Punk & Post-Punk 4, 2&3, 129–140.
Dougan, John. 2001. Two Steps From the Blues: Creating Discourse and Constructing Canons in Blues
Criticism. PhD dissertation, College of William and Mary. Print.
Dougan, John. 2006. “Objects of Desire: Canon Formation in Blues Record Collecting.” Journal of
Popular Music Studies 18, 1, 40–65.
Freire, Paulo. 2000. Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition. London: Bloomsbury Aca-
demic Press.
Furness, Zack (Ed.). 2012. “Introduction: Attempted Education and Righteous Accusations.” In
Punkademics: The Basement Show in the Ivory Tower. Brooklyn, NY, Minor Compositions.
Galgano, Michael J. 2007. “Liberal Learning and the History Major.” American Historical Association.
www.historians.org/jobs-and-professional-development/statements-standards-and-guidelines-
of-the-discipline/liberal-learning-and-the-history-major.
Gilmore, Mikal. 2016. “The Curse of the Ramones: How a Band of Misfits Launched Punk Rock.”
Rolling Stone. April 21.
Giroux, Henry. 2010. Rethinking Education as the Practice of Freedom: Paulo Freire and the Promise
of Critical Pedagogy. www.truth-out.org/archive/item/87456:rethinking-education-as-the-
practice-of-freedom-paulo-freire-and-the-promise-of-critical-pedagogy.
Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. New York: Methuen.
Jones, Michael. 2017. “Teaching Music Industry in Challenging Times: Addressing the Neoliberal
Employability Agenda in Higher Education at a Time of Music-Industrial Turbulence.” In
The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Music Education, edited by Gareth Dylan
Smith, Zack Moir, Matt Brennan, Shara Rambarran, and Phil Kirkman, 341–354. Abingdon,
Routledge.
Kreuter, Nate. 2014. “Customer Mentality.” Inside Higher Ed, www.insidehighered.com/
views/2014/02/27/essay-critiques-how-student-customer-idea-erodes-key-values-higher-
education.
Marcus, Greil. 1998. Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Marcus, Greil. 2014. The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ten Songs. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Morrow, Guy, Emily Gilfillan, Iqbal Barkat, and Phillis Sakinofsky. 2017. “Popular Music Entre-
preneurship in Higher Education: Facilitating Group Creativity and Spin-off Formation
Through Internship Programmes.” In The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Music
Education, edited by Gareth Dylan Smith, Zack Moir, Matt Brennan, Shara Rambarran, and
Phil Kirkman, 328–340. Abingdon: Routledge.
Muggleton, David. 2002. Inside Subculture: The Postmodern Meaning of Style. London: Bloomsbury
Academic Press.
O’Hagan, Sean. 2016. “Has It Really Come to This—Punk as Heritage Culture?” Guardian.
March 16.
Powers, Ann. 1999. “In Rock’s Canon, Anyone and Everyone.” New York Times. December 26.
Robb, John. 2006. Punk Rock: An Oral History. London: Ebury Press.
Rombes, Nicholas. 2005. Ramones. London and New York: Continuum.
Sabin, Roger (Ed.). 1999. “Introduction.” In Punk Rock: So What! London: Routledge.
Sabin, Roger (Ed.). 2007. “Introduction.” In Hitsville UK: Punk in the Faraway Towns, edited by Russ
Bestley, booklet published in conjunction with the exhibition Hitsville UK at the Millais Gal-
lery, Southampton, England, April 12–May 26, 2007.
Schwartz, Jessica A. 2015. “Listening in Circles: Punk Pedagogy and the Decline of Western Music
Education.” Punk & Post-Punk 4, 2&3, 141–158.
108 • John Dougan

Shuker, Roy. 2016. Understanding Popular Music Culture, 5th edition. London: Routledge.
Sofianos, Lisa, Robin Ryde, and Charlie Waterhouse. 2015. The Truth of Revolution, Brother: An
Exploration of Punk Philosophy, 2nd edition. London: Situation Press.
Straw, Will. 1997. “Sizing up Record Collections: Gender and Connoisseurship in Rock Music Cul-
ture.” In Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender, edited by Sheila Whiteley. New York:
Routledge.
Strummer, Joe, and Mick Jones. 1978. “(White Man) in Hammersmith Palais.” The Clash. Recording.
Thames Television. 1976. Notting Hill Riot. https://youtu.be/MCda7RDY9JM.
 8
“Here We Are Now, Educate Us”: The
Punk Attitude, Tenets and Lens of
Student-Driven Learning
RYLAN KAFARA

Introducing The History of Punk

In 2010, 40 years after the English translation of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the
Oppressed was published, Henry A. Giroux lamented on the website Truthout
as to the state of mainstream educational institutions in the United States.
The article, titled “Lessons to Be Learned from Paulo Freire as Education Is
Being Taken Over by the Mega Rich”, asserted that Freire’s focus on critical
thinking and engagement was more important than ever (Giroux 2010). Gir-
oux had explained the reasoning behind this assertion in his 2006 book, On
Critical Pedagogy. The work detailed how no divide existed between the univer-
sity and the corporate world, that sessional workers replaced tenured faculty,
and how the learning process was now similar to the fulfilment of a business
contract (Giroux 2006). In 2014’s Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education, Gir-
oux explicitly framed these changes as consequences of the university being
susceptible to neoliberalism as the driving ideology of our era, meaning the
“death of the university as a center of critique, vital source of civic education,
and crucial public good” (Giroux 2014, 16). Music educator Randall Allsup
concurs, arguing “market forces are rapidly reshaping relationships between
teachers, students and their forms of study” (Allsup 2015, 251). If traditional
higher education has become so intrinsically connected to the free market that
learning becomes a commodity, what avenues exist to develop critical thinking,
and resist what Freire called the banking system of education?
The History of Punk began with the aim of creating such an avenue. It is
an ongoing, free course started in May 2012 in Edmonton, Canada. The idea
to begin the course came with the realization that the networks and knowl-
edge I built during my MA in history should continue to grow and be shared.
This happened at an opportune time; an autonomous learning collective had
recently formed called the Edmonton Free School. It offered free seminars,
reading groups and events open to anyone interested on topics ranging from
Karl Marx to zombies. The Edmonton Free School’s organizers believed The

109
110 • Rylan Kafara

History of Punk was a good match for the ethos behind the collective, which was
creating an informal space to share skills, interests and knowledge. The History
of Punk launched as a course offered by the Edmonton Free School. My own
involvement with the collective was restricted largely to teaching The History of
Punk, as the free school did not thrive for long, with the main organizers moved
on to other cities and projects. The History of Punk, however, continues on as a
free and accessible learning opportunity in Edmonton.
The course provides a way for like-minded people within and outside of the
academy to examine issues such as inequality, racism and environmentalism
through punk music, culture and activism. Its aim is to create opportunities
for critical thinking, and then share this approach within Edmonton’s local
punk community and on social media. Evoking and enacting the punk atti-
tude, and through what I call the “punk lens” in teaching the course, my hope
is to circumvent or at least mitigate the tendency towards a banking system
of education, a hierarchal form of learning based on the assumption that the
teacher holds all the knowledge, which they “deposit” in the student like a bank
transaction (Freire 2000). Such a vision of education can be identified within
official, increasingly normative understandings of the university’s purpose,
which focus on its role in fulfilling the needs of employers and business, and
thus upholding a nation’s prowess in the global economy. Instead of treating
learning like financial planning, The History of Punk seeks to open people up to
inquisitiveness, different perspectives and the importance of their own ideas.
This is predicated on Freire’s view of learning. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed,
Freire outlined the role of education in reacting against conformity, and in tak-
ing thoughtful action against oppression. Aspects of the punk movement were
driven by creativity and a rejection of the status quo (Rombes 2009), and as such
this drive within punk paralleled Freire’s outlook. Indeed, the punk attitude
(and lens) and Freire’s perspectives on education share a similar framework for
thinking critically and engaging with the world. This view is the foundation for
The History of Punk.
When Freire wrote his work, there were many barriers facing those whose
interest in learning did not match societal qualifications for access to education.
This remains the case today. Cost, admission requirements, age and personal
challenges can all present barriers to participating in formal education settings.
The History of Punk offers a means of resistance to these educational barri-
ers. Crucially, it also offers opportunities for learning outside of mainstream
institutions. Neoliberal policies and concurrent societal expectations demean
the value of the humanities and social sciences while placing importance on
preparation for joining the professional workforce upon graduation (Collini
2012). Higher education becomes a vocational training school for a society that
has long viewed university as a gateway to the middle and upper classes (Geiger
2015). As such, students may be required to take courses related to profession-
alization rather than critical thinking. This results in a system where, as Giroux
 “Here We Are Now, Educate Us” • 111

asserts, “students are basically consumers and faculty providers of a saleable

commodity such as a credential or a set of workplace skills” (Giroux 2014, 17).
In this neoliberal climate, chances to excel in other academic areas are lim-
ited, especially considering the heavy workload in vocational disciplines. Once
students graduate and find sustainable employment, they may look for leisure
opportunities that align with their interests and outlook, and where they can
cultivate critical thinking. The History of Punk participants do this, and make
connections between their own academic backgrounds and expertise and the
issues engaged with on the course. For instance, a student trained in biological
science used her knowledge of divergent and convergent evolution to analyze
how punk developed since the 1970s, and to assess whether it shares traits with
earlier musical forms such as folk. This fosters an interdisciplinary learning
environment where everyone shares their own areas of expertise. Additionally,
it facilitates “a fair, just, and inclusive curricula that represents multiple and
alternative perspectives and knowledge” (Robertson et al. 2015, xx).
Creating a safe learning environment for resisting neoliberal doctrine and
supporting alternative outlooks is important, as sharing viewpoints opposi-
tional to dominant ideology within mainstream institutional settings can be
met with reprisal. This was the case for a The History of Punk student, an Iranian
electrical engineer, who was working in Alberta’s oil industry in 2013. After
an oil sands tour, he shared his opinions with colleagues. Dissenting from the
expected attitude, he expressed his dismay at the environmental destruction
that had resulted from the industry. This was met with deflective, demean-
ing and dismissive retorts from coworkers. As he related in a subsequent The
History of Punk class, the student was disappointed by the mindset, social con-
ditioning and general culture of the oilfield, where it was tacitly accepted that
unsustainable resource extraction was driving livelihoods, and was thereby
beyond reproach. The workers were talented and adept in their field, but chose
to continue to operate within a system that was plainly doing damage to the
world. As Saskia Sassen recently argued in her work Expulsions: Brutality and
Complexity in the Global Economy, for the past 30 years, a system of accumula-
tion and concentration has created “shrinking economies in much of the world,
escalating destructions of the biosphere all over the globe, and the reemergence
of extreme forms of poverty and brutalization where we thought they had been
eliminated” (Sassen 2014, 12). This “decaying” late capitalist system puts criti-
cal thinkers at odds with its structure and makes it challenging to effect change
within it (Malott and Peña 2004).
By speaking out against the destruction and its acceptance, the student was
unconsciously heeding Freire’s warning not to be trapped in “circles of cer-
tainty” (Freire 2000, 38). Freire placed this certainty within sectarianism, a
limiting view which was “an obstacle to the emancipation of mankind”. The
sectarian does not budge from their “truth”. This restrictive viewpoint lacks a
conscientização (critical consciousness), and thereby inhibits any constructive
112 • Rylan Kafara

reaction against conformity. Freire was writing for the radical, who, rather than
suffering from “an absence of doubt” like the sectarian, was someone “not afraid
to meet the people or to enter into a dialogue with them” (Freire 2000, 39). This
student was not afraid to do exactly that, and The History of Punk provided him
with an additional forum for doing so.
In Richard Shaull’s foreword to Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he
finished by outlining how

education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the

integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system
and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes the “practice of freedom”,
the way in which men and women deal critically and creatively with real-
ity and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.
(Shaull in Freire 2000, 34)

Conformity to the system creates large cohorts influenced by social and educa-
tional conditioning, which the aforementioned electrical engineer experienced
to his detriment. The History of Punk aims to do the opposite, allowing people
the opportunity to engage with issues in a group learning setting where nobody
has to agree.
This chapter explains how the pedagogical approach of a student-driven,
non-hierarchical course was developed through the tenets and the histori-
ography of, and an attitude related to, punk. It must be acknowledged that
“punk” is a nebulous term, and this piece primarily engages with punk’s North
American manifestations. Although Freire did not originally write in relation
to a North American context, his conversations with Highlander Folk School
cofounder Myles Horton demonstrated the applicability of Freire’s ideas (Bell
et al. 1990). This chapter shows that taking professional knowledge from vari-
ous disciplines and critical perspectives, and engaging with them in a risk-free
learning environment, allows for the positive exchange of ideas between stu-
dents and teachers. Additionally, this chapter discusses the use of social media
platforms and community radio in making the ideas and information of the
class as accessible as possible. Finally, it argues that utilizing a punk framework
as the foundation for this engagement creates a form of conscientizacao helping
to resist neoliberalism’s influence on education.

“I Won’t Open Letter Bombs for You:” Choosing the Attitude

for Participatory Learning
The year 1970, when Pedagogy of the Oppressed was first published in English,
marked the beginning of the decade associated with the start of the punk move-
ment (Savage 2001; McNeil and McCain 1996). In the United States, punk was,
in part, a reaction to political and cultural developments. Perhaps not surpris-
ingly, in hindsight, the end of the 1970s was the period when neoliberalism
 “Here We Are Now, Educate Us” • 113

began (Harvey 2005). The United States’ economic and industrial might weak-
ened with the rise of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC), a group of countries controlling a significant amount of the world’s oil
reserves and production. Additionally, the US auto industry declined, the coun-
try was defeated in the Vietnam War and US President Nixon resigned. This
all shook the country’s myth of exceptionalism—that it was a City on the Hill,
setting an example for the rest of the world. As Godfrey Hodgson explained,
“the balance of power was shifting, from working Americans to their corporate
masters, from ordinary Americans to the very rich, and from the center Left to
the far Right” (Hodgson 2009, xi). Concurrently, the participants of the 1960s
counterculture became major consumers of mainstream culture. Popular musi-
cians lived lifestyles far removed from the everyday, consumers embraced the
music of people who played the perfect guitar solo, flew across the world in pri-
vate planes and had legions of fans fawning at their every move. In other words,
fans were connecting to a fantasy allowing them to escape their reality. Just as
punk resisted the professionalization and “celebritization” of the music industry,
The History of Punk aims to take the same approach of amateurism in resisting
the credentialism of formal education.
By the mid-1970s, in the midst of the embrace of escapism, bands such
as Talking Heads, the Ramones, the Patti Smith Group and Television had
converged on New York City music venue, CBGB. CBGB stood for “Coun-
try, Bluegrass, Blues, and Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers” (McNeil
and McCain 1996). CBGB is where punk was nurtured initially. Richard Hell,
a member of the band Television, believed that a vital element of rock and
roll (for the term punk was yet to emerge as a definitional category) was “the
knowledge you invent yourself ” Heylin 2008, 18). It was his band that con-
vinced CBGB owner Hilly Kristal to let early punks perform there (McNeil
and McCain 1996). According to Lenny Kaye from the Patti Smith Group,
“each of the bands at CBGB was like a little idea” (Heylin 2008, 12). In response
to the excesses of mainstream culture, some musicians and artists adopted
a style of musical performance stressing passion over talent as a reactionary
counterpoint to ostentatiously virtuosic performance norms that had become
dominant (Rombes 2009). “Punk” categorized many different artists that were
diverse musically, yet were each forged in conscious opposition to the main-
stream. As such, punks were bound by the same reactionary ethos in which an
attitude of creativity and participation was established.
As for who was participating, assumptions can be made for the punk com-
munity being composed entirely of straight white men and women. Certainly,
any examination of the CBGB scene needs to include Lester Bangs’s “White
Noise Supremacists” (Bangs 1979). Thankfully, however, as the punk network
developed in North America into the 1980s and beyond, the milieu became
much more diverse. The establishment of a space for those who felt rejected
by mainstream society resulted in a mélange of races, voices, messages, out-
looks and ideas (Duncombe 1997; Duncombe and Tremblay 2011). Often, the
114 • Rylan Kafara

perspectives represented were at stark odds with societal norms, or were at

the very least unnoticed or unaccepted by the mainstream. This ranged from
not buying into the consumer culture that was embraced as the United States
moved into the Reagan era, to being a member of a marginalized group within
society, such as among racial and sexual minorities (O’Hara 1999).
Punks’ political and ideological beliefs spanned the spectrum; notable par-
ticipants were Republicans, like Johnny Ramone, and many identified with the
far right. Bands such as Washington DC’s Bad Brains performed alongside Van-
couver’s DOA, even though the former’s members were Rastafari and the latter
was fronted by Joey “Shithead” Keithley, a staunch atheist (Keithley 2011). Cer-
tainly, ideological differences divided the punk community. Yet, participating
in the punk scene meant engaging with and not avoiding these differences. Such
engagement highlighted social cleavage, as those marginalized in the commu-
nity fought for freedom of expression and an equal voice. Reflecting on the
tensions within the community, Bad Brains member Darryl Jenifer stated:

Here we were black homeboys checking out Rock & Roll and vice versa.
It’s all just music now, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be, all about
open-mindness. There was a lot of separatism back in the day. By check-
ing each other’s cultures out, barriers and stereotypes are broken down.
And that’s what we need.
(Blush 2001, 117)

That inquisitiveness and inclusiveness neither came easily then, nor today. It is
an ongoing process that requires constant critical thinking and self-awareness.
It also needs input from others, especially those who do not share your views,
or are willing to question them. Historically, not everyone in the punk commu-
nity got along. Not everyone had the same opportunities, or was treated fairly.
While women often participated, it was not until the Riot Grrrl scene formed
in the 1990s that women achieved a somewhat equal footing to men, or at
least carved out a scene of their own. Even then, the shift only applied to a few
women, with the majority still excluded (for struggles of women in the UK, see
Reddington 2012; for California female punks, see Gonzales 2016). However,
it is important to maintain a critical consciousness in engaging with society’s
contradictions, both in the mainstream and the underground. Maintaining this
is key to how The History of Punk tries to address the banking system of educa-
tion, social issues and the narrowing of accessibility to information and ideas in
media. This resistance was guided by punk tenets, as outlined by Craig O’Hara
(1999). He traced the development of punk philosophy and how it extends out-
side of music. He highlighted:

To those “involved” in the scene, (more than going to gigs and purchasing
records) punk becomes something else and something more. It becomes
 “Here We Are Now, Educate Us” • 115

a community and a real avenue for shaping ideas and making changes
both personal and in the world.
(O’Hara 1999, 12)

Towards a Punk Community

If The History of Punk was going to be such a community, other punk traits
would be instrumental in its framework. These traits included ignoring hier-
archy, everyone participating in the best way that suited them, encouraging
the do-it-yourself (DIY) ethic and ensuring the course was accessible to all.
Ideally, in the classroom instructors and students would be indistinguishable
from each other. Everyone there could learn from everyone else, and develop
their own critical consciousness through participation. Ruth Wright explained
how a more informal but critical approach “to music education could be seen
as furthering inclusion and social justice” (2010, 276). This aligns with the lack
of hierarchy fundamental to many punk shows, with performers going into the
audience, and audience members jumping on stage (O’Hara 1999). The notion
of performances, and education, negotiating formality and hierarchy is nothing
new, and was even behind the founding of musical gatherings like the Winni-
peg Folk Festival. This extends through time and place, and stresses continuity
rather than divisions. For instance, the first The History of Punk class focused
on tracing the origin of punk and considering if punk could be defined. We
explored how many punk tenets were not limited to one geographical area, or
a single time period.
Participation, as opposed to passive consumption of information, was also
fundamental in the formation of The History of Punk course. From its incep-
tion, its goal was to encourage discussion of ideas. The desire to learn, exchange
knowledge and participate in a like-minded community was important; a stu-
dent’s background, station in life and academic standing were not (Wright
2010; McPherson and Welch 2012). The joke about learning three chords and
starting a band was not just humour, but indicative of the idea that a little ini-
tial knowledge could be developed, through a willingness to participate and
collaborate, into something much greater. The spirit of that idea underpinned
the open, participatory pedagogy of The History of Punk, and if someone did
not know much about a topic, they were encouraged to take an approach that
applied their existing knowledge, however limited, or an interest that they were
already confident discussing and exploring, and pursue and develop a greater
understanding from there with the support of the group. Perhaps they did not
have experience of writing essays, but instead wrote poetry, drew pictures or
published fanzines. Encouraging these alternative outlets grounded students’
interest in the course and gave them a starting point to approach various top-
ics. This aligns with the Scandinavian folk school, or folkbildning tradition, of
empowerment through voluntary or self-education, through which learners
116 • Rylan Kafara

engage through their own cultural and local lens (Söderman 2011). As such,
The History of Punk participants designed their own learning activities. One
student created a video on environmental protest and punk. Another student
responded to a discussion on the relationship between folk and punk musics by
drawing on her scientific knowledge of divergent and convergent evolution. In
both cases, by using other skills, interests and knowledge, The History of Punk
community as a whole broadened its understanding of myriad issues and ideas.
Reaching out to people who were interested in learning and sharing their
own knowledge was essential in widening participation. Advertising was done
through word of mouth, email and social media. When it came to planning
classes, input from students was vital. The course was designed to be collabora-
tive in both content and form, and non-hierarchical. For instance, the flow of
each class depended on the class’s knowledge of the issue under discussion. For
example, a lesson might commence with an introductory background lecture
to ensure a shared level of knowledge. In addition, the location of each class
was discussed. Again, depending on the topic, a classroom was often ideal for
a lecture or sessions requiring the use of technology. Alternatively, many fully
seminar-based classes were held as a learning circle outside.
While collaboration was essential from the beginning, the first several
classes were grounded in my research areas. This meant the classes explored
issues and music communities from North America and secondarily from
Eastern Europe during the Cold War. After the first semester, however, the
course became much more student-driven. The class itself, then, was also ama-
teur, but that was part of the point. Indeed, it was a work in progress, based on
shared interest, which itself was a process of learning. This idea of amateur-
ism, of course, is very much in the spirit of the folkbildning tradition and the
Highlander Folk School.
Central to the formation of the course was punk’s do-it-yourself (DIY) ethic
(Dale 2012), as mentioned earlier, which sought to overcome barriers to activity
and participation in culture through the creation of alternative spaces and chan-
nels. Since mainstream music institutions, such as successful venues, record
labels, magazines and radio stations, excluded punk, participants created their
own, developing a network that built a translocal milieu. It was centered on
the music originating in each local area, and when linked together, created a
medium for alternative voices that better embodied their grievances, identities
and lifestyles. Shows were held at community halls, or venues desperate for
business. Bands started their own labels, and fanzines highlighted local scenes
(see Azerrad 2001). Radio shows like Maximum Rocknroll hit the airwaves as
well. It was transmitted throughout the punk network, including being broad-
cast on Edmonton’s community and University of Alberta campus FM radio
station, CJSR 88.5, in the early 1980s. In the DIY spirit, on September 22, 2014,
The History of Punk became a weekly program on CJSR (an independent radio
station based in Edmonton), which widened participation and accessibility.
 “Here We Are Now, Educate Us” • 117

Some segments mirrored specific classes, while others included course par-
ticipants and local bands as guest hosts, giving them the opportunity to curate
radio lectures on topics of interest. Not only did participants create lectures,
they gained first-hand experience in community radio and broadcasting. The
reasoning behind this is simple: if the DIY ethic could resonate throughout so
many facets of the music industry, why could it not do the same in education?
Not restricting participation based upon age was important too. All-age
venues increased access for youth in punk communities. Adopting this in The
History of Punk meant anyone could attend class, regardless of age. For stu-
dents familiar with the traditional classroom setting (students all the same
age, one teacher in a role of authority), this offered an alternative learning
environment. This “horizontal” approach towards age also extended to socio-
economic status. Making The History of Punk completely free meant anyone
could attend. Not only did students of all ages participate, but so did mar-
ginalized members of the community (unemployed, homeless, transgender
and people with mental wellness challenges). Each student came to class with
knowledge, but by engaging with different ideas, being open to questioning
beliefs or even listening to bands they had earlier dismissed, everyone devel-
oped their critical consciousness. Thus, each time participants engaged with
someone of a different age, opinion or value system, and questioned their
own beliefs in connection, they were doing what Freire argued was essential
to “transform concrete, objective reality” (Freire 2000, 39). In other words,
participants used learning as subversion against oppression, and as an aid in
people’s freedom. Furthermore, by creating a punk framework as an approach
to this learning, and utilizing ethics such as making The History of Punk all-
ages and all-welcome, the course was inherently in opposition to the learning
structure that brings the next generation of society into conformity with and
through the traditional system.
In The Philosophy of Punk, O’Hara channeled Freire in his explanation of
punk’s resistance to hegemony. As he outlined,

punk questions authority, not only looking and sounding different, but
by questioning prevailing modes of thought. The nonconformist does
not rely on others to determine his or her own reality. The questioning of
conformity involves the questioning of authority as well.
(O’Hara 1999, 28)

As mentioned earlier, open-mindedness and inclusiveness were fundamental

to The History of Punk. This was because the course always tried to reflect the
punk attitude. Creating a local template for learning, capacity building and
skill development in a risk-free environment is a long-term process, but can be
reproduced anywhere there is a group of people that shares an interest in learn-
ing and an attitude of openness and inclusiveness.
118 • Rylan Kafara

Figure 8.1 Paula Guerra lecturing at The History of Punk class on 8 February 2017
in Edmonton

“Punk Is Whatever We Made It to Be”: Learning

About Punk, Learning Through Punk
The History of Punk uses both punk as a topic and as a learning method. The
course examines music from the past, and experiences it first-hand. It engages
with primary sources such as interviews and fanzines while also conducting
interviews and publishing its own fanzines. It reflects back on punk history,
and connects to contemporary issues. Finally, it takes lessons from the commu-
nication network before the internet and updates them for punk education in
a digital world. As this layered process plays out, participants learn from punk,
and through punk.
Music is a source of learning. For example, songs written during the US Civil
Rights Era, or, more recently, the Idle No More movement in Canada, give the
listener access to their own interpretations of perceived thoughts and feelings
 “Here We Are Now, Educate Us” • 119

of the time.1 For example, Phil Ochs’s “Here’s to the State of Mississippi” and
Rellik’s “Idle No More” both allow listeners to create meaning and learn about
past and contemporary issues. This is not done by only reflecting meaning from
lyrics, or by stopping analysis at what was explicitly sung. Instead, as Stuart Hall
argued when he explained the “constructionist approach”, “it is not the material
world which conveys meaning: it is the language system or whatever system we
are using to represent our concepts” (Hall 1997, 25). For instance, Rellik’s “Idle
No More” enables the listener to hear an Edmonton musician singing about
an Indigenous protest movement, from the perspective of one participant in a
particular place.
Listening creates an opportunity to construct meaning of the social, cul-
tural and political contexts of the music. Engaging with music this way further
exposes listeners to alternative history narratives, and wrestle with perspectives
outside mainstream curricula. While not the only example, punk is a perfect
example of this. It can be a point of engagement with different issues, places
and eras. This engagement shapes punk pedagogy, and highlights how lyrics
address important issues (Robertson et al. 2015). Punk songs can do this, for
example the Clash’s “Career Opportunities” from its 1977 self-titled album
highlighted the economic prospects and feelings of youth in England at the
time. The band then changed the lyrics “I don’t wanna go fighting in the tropical
heat” to “I don’t wanna die fighting in the Falklands strait” when performing the
song in 1982 during the Falklands conflict. Again, this emphasizes a concern
of the time. In this case, it was about going to fight and die in a war with which
the Clash disagreed.
Though the course utilizes music from the past to examine issues, it also
engages with contemporary music first-hand. For example, on the August 8,
2016, edition of the radio show, Josh Gibson from Edmonton punk band A
New Rhetoric performed “The Origin Spirit and Intent”, a song that highlights
Indigenous issues in Canada. Listeners heard the song, as well as thoughts from
its writer on what it meant and why the concerns it raised were important.
Then, on September 28, 2016, Gibson, a The History of Punk course partici-
pant, performed the song again in class and discussed why he wrote it, and why
Indigenous history and culture needed to be a stronger part of the Canadian
education system. Gibson was joined by an Indigenous member of the Edmon-
ton punk band Paroxysm, who also spoke on the same issue. Before the class
was held, links to readings and music were posted online so participants were
prepared to discuss the topic (see class description, readings and playlist in the
appendix).
Reading lists for many of the classes included primary sources, such as
the Berkeley, California–based fanzine Maximum Rocknroll, which encour-
aged punks from different local scenes to write reports for the fanzine. In the
November 1986 edition of Maximum Rocknroll, for instance, the “Czechoslova-
kian Scene Report” revealed challenges facing the punk community in Prague.
120 • Rylan Kafara

It was written by Lük Haas, who was visiting Prague from France (Haas gave an
address in France for correspondence with Maximum Rocknroll readers, as well
as contact information for punks he met in Prague). The narrative Haas gave
was a bleak one; those in the Prague punk community faced a divided scene
declining in membership, to an estimate of roughly 200. Haas also highlighted
police brutality, mandatory military service and the inability of Czech punks to
leave the country:

There are a lot of problems with the YB (General Security Police), who
systematically control the punks, prohibiting concerts, and acting bru-
tal (knocking them down, tearing out earrings, shaving hair, etc.) Punks
are driven to the police station, beaten, photographed, card indexed, and
sometimes even sent to psychiatric hospitals. Czech punks are very pes-
simistic and have nothing to hope for in this country.
(Haas 1986)

For people studying the scene report 30 years later, Haas’s scene report offers
a glimpse into a specific community at a certain time and from a particular
perspective. For a nuanced understanding of topics such as the Prague punk
community in the mid-1980s, wider subjects such as punk in Eastern Europe
during the Cold War, or youth culture in general, such glimpses have been
an essential part of The History of Punk since its inception. It is also useful to
examine academic punk sources from particular periods. Alastair Gordon’s
recent monograph, Crass Reflections (2016), is a perfect example. It reveals
what punk-related research was like before the internet, when information
was not as accessible. Such a source is useful for comparisons to research argu-
ments and methodology today, and for adding another historiographical layer
to the understanding of how punk developed over time (Gordon 2016).
Alongside studying earlier punk music and engaging with contemporary
songs first-hand, The History of Punk created its own sources as well. Three
fanzines have been published to date. The first two mirrored specific class top-
ics, and the third, published in June 2016, was an exercise in collaboration.
The May 2016 edition of the class was organized as a fanzine workshop, with
participants working together to create the fanzine. Locally focused, it included
articles, interviews, art and a script from an edition of the radio show. In this
respect, The History of Punk not only draws from the historiography of global
punk, but participates in its writing.
Punk songs and sources are used to examine wider issues. For instance, the
second The History of Punk class, held on May 19, 2012, examined the Van-
couver punk scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The characteristics of the
Canadian city’s music community were discussed, from local bands, venues
and fanzines to record labels, stores and distribution networks. From there, we
looked at how these elements helped develop the regional scene and benefitted
 “Here We Are Now, Educate Us” • 121

participants. Indeed, Vancouver had a community supported by alternative

institutions. Focusing on the Vancouver scene gave the class the opportunity to
discuss how these participants and institutions reacted to community member,
musician and activist Gerald Hannah being arrested and tried for crimes while
a member of Direct Action. This group carried out a series of attacks against
property in 1982, before being captured by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
on January 20, 1983. Hannah was a member of the Subhumans, a band with
poignant songs expressing political and social concerns, including the power
of the mainstream media (“Death to the Sickoids”), misogyny (“Slave to My
Dick”) and extremism (“Firing Squad”).
The class on Vancouver punk used the Subhumans’ music and Hannah’s later
acts with Direct Action as a gateway into the concerns of the early 1980s coun-
terculture. This gave students, just like it did for me when I originally undertook
the research, examples of how issues like environmentalism, feminism and
militarism were important points of activism in Canada at the time, as they
are today. This topic provided students with an opportunity to engage with the
history of the translocal punk scene and wider historical themes.
As the instructor, this course gives me the chance to learn about teaching.
Before, I was familiar with basic teaching principles, but I had never taught a
course. I began engaging with the content in a new way. From the beginning
of The History of Punk until now, I have needed to be aware of how the other
participants react to topics, and what insights they have on issues. At first, I had
notions of encouraging the tenets of punk in the classroom, but was unsure
of how that would actually play out. Would it really be a horizontal, student-
driven learning environment where everyone feels welcome, and their interests
and skills are valued? Would learning about punk and learning through punk
both happen concurrently? I quickly learned that this is a process, and that
“student” and “teacher” become interchangeable terms as the community devel-
ops the course together. Through this process, the course allows me to move
from theory into practice, and work within an ethical framework based on an
approach that blends punk and critical pedagogy. As I continue to develop my
teaching practice, I remain in line with my beliefs and understanding of punk
responsibility.
The History of Punk’s approach to social media is focused on accessibility and
inclusion. First, ahead of each class, a blog post is published with course material,
including readings and a playlist of music related to the topic (see Appendix).
This adds another layer of engagement to the learning process. By posting the
syllabus online, people facing barriers such as schedule conflicts or not living in
Edmonton still have the opportunity to engage with the material. Blog posts also
create an archive of the course. Since people have a range of social media prefer-
ences, The History of Punk is on numerous platforms, mirroring the blog. Posts
share information on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr. This creates
another horizontal layer of participation, with (now) famous bands reminiscing
122 • Rylan Kafara

Figure 8.2 Two members of Jr. Gone Wild, Dove Brown (left) and Mike McDonald

about their first show or record review in a fanzine posted on The History of
Punk Twitter page. After posting Los Angeles fanzine Flipside’s review of the Off-
spring’s debut single, a member of the band, Kevin “Noodles” Wasserman, shared
the post, relating, “that’s one of the only reviews we can quote almost verbatim.
Thanks for posting that.—N”. By posting such material, an online archive of old
fanzines, photos and other information is now digital. For the people who access
it, they may be seeing it for the first time in decades, or for the very first time. For
example, an Edmonton scene report from November 1985 written by SNFU’s
Kendall “Mr. Chi Pig” Chinn was scanned and posted online. One comment on
Facebook read, “thanks for letting me re-read this from 30 years ago. I still listen
to [1980s Edmonton punk band] Down Syndrome’s 7”.

The Punk Lens: A Summary of The History of Punk

The History of Punk provides a critical lens through which to examine contem-
porary issues. For example, the class on September 30, 2012, covered the plight
of Pussy Riot in Russia, the “re-education” of punks by authorities in Indonesia,
repression of Goths in Uzbekistan and the murder of Emos in Iraq. Thank-
fully, no one participating in class that day faced re-education in Indonesia,
a process inflicted on youth by the state reminiscent of what Michel Foucault
referred to as panoptic discipline (Foucault 1977). Examining Indonesia’s effort
to reintegrate punks back into conventional society, however, meant we could
connect our understanding of Edmonton issues and place them in a wider con-
text examining power, authority, surveillance and violence.
 “Here We Are Now, Educate Us” • 123

Additionally, The History of Punk often has a local focus compared and
contrasted to other geographical locations, times, issues and events. This, as
Giroux pointed out in “Lessons to be Learned”, was also vital for Freire’s form
of pedagogy (Giroux 2010). A more contemporary and local pedagogical
example is Chris Anderson’s article on changes he made to course assign-
ments. A professor in the Native Studies faculty at the University of Alberta,
Anderson argues that engaging students in discourse analysis by including
local and primary sources in research essays gives them stronger critical
thinking skills. By researching local examples of issues, students have a bet-
ter understanding of concepts such as white privilege and racism (Anderson
2012). The History of Punk addressed wider issues through the local as well.
For instance, we held a class on Idle No More during the height of the move-
ment. Along with several students who consistently attend, the topic drew
new participants who were interested in engaging with the movement in an
educational context. The class was organized as a sharing circle, and everyone
took turns talking about Idle No More from their respective perspectives. It
was placed in the wider lineage of protest movements and activism in other
grassroots communities.
The class also helped participants frame contemporary events in their historical
context. On the eve of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s visit to Edmon-
ton in March 2014, a class was held to give students the opportunity to engage with
the legacy of Canada’s Indian Residential School System. Not only did it expose
students to the country’s dark colonial past, it prepared them to participate in an
event addressing the consequences of that history. This was another goal of the
course: to utilize punk as an approach or strategy for learning about other events,
issues and ideas. Punk offers a critical pedagogical lens to examine issues. If you
can find platforms offering points of engagement, it may lead people to pursue
further learning in topics related to punk. It is important to take these local
contexts—whether Alberta or Indonesia—and think about how they relate to
forms of power and systems of oppression.
With the ability to access more information than ever before, it is also argu-
ably easier to limit sources through which people make sense of the world.
Rapid technological development, coupled with a concentration of media out-
lets, is redefining conventional journalism. Bias in the news, on blogs and on
social media makes closing one’s mind off to dissenting opinion easier. People
can have their existing beliefs and assumptions reinforced by others who per-
ceive things in the same way. Critical thinking, challenging viewpoints and
knowledge production are replaced by “alternative facts” in our post-truth era
(Frankfurt 2005; Graham 2017). In response, The History of Punk aims to raise
critical consciousness and to challenge steadfast beliefs. It is important for peo-
ple to move out of their educational comfort zone and enable themselves to
think about issues differently. This may mean a topic falls outside of the status
quo or the conventional narrative, but the punk attitude, at its foundation,
exists to react to exactly that.
124 • Rylan Kafara

Figure 8.3 Poster by The History of Punk participant Paul “Spyder” Yardley Jones
 “Here We Are Now, Educate Us” • 125

The Process of Punk Pedagogy in Practice

The History of Punk is an example of punk pedagogy in practice. It utilizes the
tenets of punk in its structure and application. Participation is more impor-
tant than skill, social standing or academic accomplishment. The classes are
free, everyone gets an A+ and any other potential barriers to learning are miti-
gated as much as possible. Everyone is welcome in class, and to contribute to
their own and other people’s learning. The course has run for five years now
(as of spring 2017), and has grown from a series of lectures to a community
of people learning together in classrooms, on the radio and on social media.
While The History of Punk represents my own pedagogical learning and par-
ticipation in Edmonton’s local punk community, it has developed to the point
where classes, radio shows and digital posts can happen without me. Just as
punk was a reaction to social, cultural and political issues of the mid-1970s, the
class reacts to problems in our education system and in wider society. It serves
as an example of education not designed to position people into compliance
with late capitalism, but instead to help them learn how to address its impact
and work towards social change. The notion that an amateur learner can con-
tribute ideas, just as an inexperienced musician can perform songs, is key. The
History of Punk focuses on punk topics, examines punk music and uses punk
sources so class participants are learning about punk, through punk. It is also
a way of approaching external topics through a “punk lens” to situate learning.
Ultimately, it is a potential framework for engagement with the world, and an
opportunity to develop an attitude of critical consciousness, for teacher and
learner alike.

Note
1. Idle No More is a resurgence of Indigenous culture and activism. Started in December 2012,
it is a grassroots movement addressing ongoing colonialism in Canada and around the world
(Klein 2013).

References
Allsup, Randall. 2015. “The Eclipse of a Higher Education or Problems Preparing Artists in a Mer-
chantile World.” Music Education Research 17, 3: 251–261.
Anderson, Chris. 2012. “Critical Studies in the Classroom: Exploring ‘The Local’ Using Primary
Evidence.” International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies 4, 1: 67–78.
Azerrad, Michael. 2001. Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From the Indie Underground 1981–
1991. New York: Little, Brown.
Bangs, Lester. 1979. “The White Noise Supremacists.” Village Voice. April 30.
Bell, Brenda, John Gaventa, and John Peters (Eds.). 1990. We Make the Road by Walking: Conversa-
tions on Education and Social Change. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Bennett, Andy, and Richard A. Peterson (Eds.). 2004. Music Scenes: Local, Translocal, and Virtual.
Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
Blush, Steven. 2001. American Hardcore: A Tribal History. Los Angeles: Feral House.
Collini, Stefan. 2012. What Are Universities For? London: Penguin Books.
126 • Rylan Kafara

Dale, Pete. 2012. Anyone Can Do It: Empowerment, Tradition and the Punk Underground. Farnham:
Ashgate.
Duncombe, Stephen. 1997. Notes From the Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Cul-
ture. London: Verso.
Duncombe, Stephen, and Maxwell Tremblay (Eds.). 2011. White Riot: Punk Rock and the Politics
of Race. London: Verso.
Foucault, Michel. 1977. Disipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage.
Frankfurt, Henry G. 2005. On Bullshit. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Freire, Paulo. 2000. Pedagogy of the Oppressed 30th Anniversary Edition, Trans. Myra Bergman
Ramos. New York City: Bloomsbury.
Geiger, Roger L. 2015. The History of American Higher Education: Learning and Culture From the
Founding to World War II. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Giroux, Henry A. 2006. On Critical Pedagogy. London: Bloomsbury.
Giroux, Henry A. 2010. “Lessons to Be Learned From Paulo Freire as Education Is Being Taken
Over by the Mega Rich.” Truthout.org.
Giroux, Henry A. 2014. Neo-Liberalism’s War on Higher Education. Toronto: Between the Lines.
Gonzales, Michelle Cruz. 2016. The Spitboy Rule: Tales of an Xicana in a Female Punk Band. Oak-
land: PM Press.
Gordon, Alastair. 2016. Crass Reflections. Portsmouth: Itchy Monkey Press.
Graham, David A. 2017. “Trump’s Baseless Claim That the Media Covers Up Terror Attacks.” Atlan-
tic. February 6, 2017.
Hall, Stuart (Ed.). 1997. Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London:
Sage.
Harvey, David. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Haas, Lük. 1986. “Czechoslovakia Scene Report.” Maximum Rocknroll #42, Berkeley.
Heylin, Clinton. 2008. Babylon’s Burning: From Punk to Grunge. New York: Penguin.
Hodgson, Godfrey. 2009. The Myth of American Exceptionalism. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press.
Keithley, Joe. 2011. Telephone Interview.
Klein, Naomi. 2013. “Dancing the World Into Being: A Conversation With Idle No More’s Leanne
Simpson.” YES! Magazine. March 5.
Malott, Curry, and Milagros Peña. 2004. Punk Rockers’ Revolution: A Pedagogy of Race, Class, and
Gender. New York: Peter Lang.
Marcus, Greil. 1989. Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
McNeil, Legs, and Gillian McCain. 1996. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk. New
York: Groove Press.
McPherson, Gary E., and Graham F. Welch (Eds.). 2012. The Oxford Handbook of Music Education.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
O’Hara, Craig. 1999. The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise. San Francisco: AK Press.
Reddington, Helen. 2012. The Lost Women of Rock Music: Female Musicians of the Punk Era. Shef-
field: Equinox.
Robertson, Scott, Martha Diaz, Priya Parmar, and Anthony J. Nocella. 2015. Rebel Music: Resistance
Through Hip Hop and Punk. Charlotte: Information Age.
Rombes, Nicholas. 2009. A Cultural Dictionary of Punk, 1974–1982. New York: Continuum Inter-
national.
Sassen, Saskia. 2014. Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy. Cambridge, MA:
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Savage, Jon. 2001. England’s Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond. New York:
St. Martin’s Griffin.
Webb, Peter. 2007. Exploring the Networked Worlds of Popular Music: Milieu Cultures. New York:
Routledge.
Wright, Ruth (Ed.). 2010. Sociology and Music Education. Farnham: Ashgate.
 “Here We Are Now, Educate Us” • 127

Appendix
The History of Punk Wednesday September 28, 2016 7:30 PM, FREE
Humanities 2–12, The University of Alberta, All-Ages, All-Welcome, Vegan
snacks

“Punk and Indigenous Issues”

In this class, we are kicking off the fall term with a look at important con-
temporary Indigenous issues. Since 2012, the Idle No More movement has led
a resurgence of Indigenous culture and activism. Taken with the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action and voices like Gord Downie’s,
Canadians are finally confronting the country’s legacy of oppression, and con-
tinued mistreatment of Indigenous peoples.
Using punk as our starting point, or “lens,” we will examine this history, and
today’s challenges. We will also discuss how education can help address both
the past and its current consequences. Two guest speakers, Chris from Parox-
ysm, and Josh from A New Rhetoric, will share their perspectives on punk and
Indigenous issues, and so can everyone else who attends.

Readings
“The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action”
“Dancing the World into Being: A Conversation with Idle No More’s Leanne
Simpson”
“Gord Downie to play Secret Path shows to honour Chanie Wenjack”
“Dakota Access Pipeline Company Attacks Native American Protesters with
Dogs & Pepper Spray”

Playlist
Paroxysm—“Open Wounds Demo”
A New Rhetoric—“Decolonize Now” (Live on CJSR)
A New Rhetoric—“The Origin Spirit and Intent”
A Tribe Called Red—“Woodcarver”
Neil Young—“Indian Giver”
 9
Laughing All the Way to the Stage:
Pedagogies of Comedic Dissidence
in Punk and Hip-Hop
JESSICA A. SCHWARTZ AND SCOTT ROBERTSON

Cultivating Punk Pedagogies

Punk and hip-hop both began in New York City in the late 1970s within a milieu
of deindustrialization and urban blight. Punk also has roots in literature pro-
ductions. Punk pioneers Patti Smith and Richard Hell were both poets who
participated in the DIY printing community of 1970s New York City. The surre-
alist and symbolist traditions that inspired Hell and other early punks challenged
and defied logic, which can be heard in their musically rendered poetry and read
in zines like Hell’s Genesis: Grasp (Kane 2011). The nebulous crowd that gravi-
tated towards music at CBGB music club in the Bowery, NYC, became “punk”
through the establishment of Punk magazine, which often included instructional
material on, for example, “writing your own DIY songs” (Holmstrom and Hurd
2012). Punk learning took the form of a collective pursuit of enjoyment and
pleasure, which became increasingly subversive. Some of the first punk bands
to be recognized in this tradition used double entendre, satire and irony to write
songs that referenced both teenage pop culture and totalitarian regimes such
as that of Nazi Germany. In doing so, bands and artists including the Dictators
and the Ramones, and to a degree Richard Hell, inscribed their Jewish heritage
alongside teenage frivolity as an expression of two forms of being infrequently
discussed in schools or mainstream culture.
The need to confront the horrors of World War II, together with the longing
expressed through rock ‘n’ roll to move on from them, formed a dialectical pub-
lic secret that found a voice in humorous songs like the Dictators’ “Master Race”
(1975) and the Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” (1976). Comedic dissidence is found
in these songs’ album covers that depict young Jewish men posing as teen idols—
a celebration of postwar social mobility. The Dictators and the Ramones played
at CBGB and were part of a scene in which discussions about art, music and
culture were commonplace (Thompson 2004). Punks experimented with cre-
ativity among an audience of their peers, where the collective learned together
through each other’s involvement. In this chapter, we show how such learning

128
 Laughing All the Way to the Stage • 129

occurred through humour, as an invitation into the means of production of

knowledge that resists codification—the laughter as a break, the collective sing-
along on stage and the freedom to ask questions rather than passively accept
information from a TV screen, schoolmaster or lecturer. Punk shows and tours
offered alternative ways of learning and laughing about identity as malleable and
disposable, which is crucial when dealing with the seriousness of, for instance,
discrimination and hate, like anti-Semitism, and traumas of war.
In her study of hip-hop, Tricia Rose explains how critiques of power are
often framed in the playful, noting that “oppressed people use language, dance,
and music to mock those in power, express rage, and produce fantasies of sub-
version” (Rose 1994, 99). She continues to describe how these musical practices
help to build and foster community resistance. Hip-hop and punk participants,
as famously documented with the collaboration between Debby Harry of
Blondie and Fab Five Freddy in “Rapture”, shared music and other subcultural
productions and points of cultural reference (Blondie 1980).
This chapter analyzes ways in which punk and hip-hop cultivate pedagogies
of comedic dissidence as means to encourage collective discussions of political
and social issues.1 We argue that humour is used in subversive ways to highlight
the political implications in taken-for-granted aesthetics through a redistribu-
tion of the “sensible” where what is non-sense (humour) becomes “sensible”
(felt in sensorial participation) but not necessarily sensical (making sense intel-
lectually) (Rancière 2005). To demonstrate how teaching about possibilities in
everyday life through expressive subcultures is necessitated because of social
practices that prevent upward mobility in and from some sectors of society,
we analyze the humour and messages of two bands representing “hardcore”
styles of their respective genres—Dead Kennedys, a punk band formed in 1978
in San Francisco, California, and Public Enemy, a hip-hop group from Long
Island, New York, that formed in 1982. These groups both use artful forms of
comedic dissidence to deal with the challenges of an increasingly individual-
ized, market-driven society in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and waning
popularity of the 1960s counterculture. In considering how humour manifests
and operates pedagogically in the music of these two groups that started as
small-scale collectives within larger movements, we think through issues of
expressive resistance to racism, classism, gendered violence and institutional-
ized injustices often normalized by an expanding media of pop disposability.
Dead Kennedys released their first album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables,
in 1979. Often noted for being a crossover hardcore band propelled by sardonic
lyrics that offered a biting critique of mainstream (and specifically conserva-
tive) political platforms, Dead Kennedys inspired young punks through what
we term a “pedagogy of comedic dissidence”. We draw here on Paulo Freire’s
Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000) and Jacques Rancière’s Ignorant Schoolmas-
ter (1991), both of which speak to power inequalities between students and
teachers. We define “pedagogy of comedic dissidence” in terms of multiple
130 • Jessica A. Schwartz and Scott Robertson

disruptions of discourses of power through humour and critique. Artful use

of humour helps expose ironies in everyday life that might otherwise be more
oppressive. Pedagogy of comical dissidence exposes power structures through
which systemic inequalities are maintained, by unsettling normalized and dom-
inating pedagogical modes. Dead Kennedys’ front man Jello Biafra’s musicality
was characterized by disparate binaries of aggression and care, irreverence and
concern, and wildness and contemplation through snotty vocals and polemi-
cal lyrics. Through live performance and the album as artwork in which songs
founded in hardcore took on other styles, Dead Kennedys sounded a number
of possibilities: for debate, for critical thinking and for personal growth. The
cultural commentary as humorous critique invited a wide range of youth to
listen, and to participate in alternative modes of education.
In this chapter we contend that the cores of punk and rap transmissions are
place-based (at least in the formative stages) and collective. We situate this argu-
ment within extant literature addressing humour and punk, such as Bestley’s
(2013, 2014) two-part series in Punk & Post Punk, which works through the
“satirical core” of punk culture. We endeavour to understand how punk and hip-
hop, as collective-based movements, circulate educational materials. One main
argument is that, in punk and hip-hop, part of the humour comes from a taboo
approach to revealing what anthropologist Michael Taussig (1999) has called
the “public secret”, or that which everyone knows but that cannot be articulated.
Without words to address, for example, racism or teachers’ domination over or
belittlement of students’ creative capacities, young members of society learn from
other modes of expression. Jokes, quips, sarcasm and comedic narrative allow
them to push back, “debunking [the loftiness] of humanity” and its mediated
ideals (Orwell 1945/2017). We explore particular comedic interventions into the
larger sound-worlds of punk and hip-hop—such as Tom Astley’s (2016) explora-
tion of the “ ‘dual face’ of laughter and its role in delineating both exclusionary
and inclusionary identity spaces” as a symptom of humour in punk—and con-
sider how their circulation might have afforded opportunities for further debate,
social critique and activism. Moreover, as two punks inspired by both rap and
punk music, we contend that engagement with particular albums can animate
other subjects and make school-based lessons more engaging for students and
teachers (Postman and Weingartner 1969; Snell and Söderman 2014).2 These
artists play with, rather than assert, historical and categorical “facts”. Such play
affords participation and critical intervention by lifting the veil on the conditions
of societal normalization within structures of power (Barthes 1993).

American Education and the Power of the Collective

And so if our schools won’t teach us, we’ll have to teach ourselves to
analyze and understand the systems of thought control. And share it
with each other, never swayed by brass rings or the thought of penalty.
—Chris Hannah, Propagandhi, “A People’s History
of the World” (1996) from Less Talk More Rock
 Laughing All the Way to the Stage • 131

As John Dewey (1951) and others have noted, the political rationale for state-
funded public education is precisely to achieve and perpetuate the normative
ideology and power structures of society by instilling in youth a commitment
to civil participation and responsible social mores (Allsup 2016; Giroux 1989;
Illich 1978). However, the US education system (among others) maintains sys-
temic and structural inequalities with the continued use of biased measures
such as standardized testing and increased privatization (Allsup 2015; Au 2009).
Moreover, school spaces have become increasingly militarized and securitized,
with metal detectors greeting students before teachers, and are often spaces of
surveillance (Giroux 2012, 2016; Hebert 2015; Nocella 2014). Although poli-
cies vary between US states, science and mathematics are privileged over the
arts and humanities nationwide. Coupled by increasing fears that education
no longer leads to better jobs, individual teachers and students face demands
to make subject material matter. The disparate approach to lesson content that
makes some students feel distant from their education has been a long-stand-
ing problem. Education scholar Neil Postman noted this crisis in education
emerging in the 1960s, which he addressed in Teaching as a Subversive Activity
(1969). Two years later in 1971, he co-wrote with Charles Weingartner A Soft
Revolution; in this follow-up volume, he aimed to empower youth to take con-
trol of their education in the classroom. However, broader systemic failures, in
which educational institutions participate as component parts of a society that
continues to privilege the average (white, straight, able-bodied, 35-year-old)
male, have created the conditions, sustained by neoliberal policies, in which
students find their voices outside the classroom. Punk and hip-hop collectives
offer critical, artistic approaches to the material of everyday life that can seem
cordoned off by the schooling grammar of discrete subject matter (Niknafs and
Przybylski 2017).
Dewar MacLeod (2010) notes the importance of situating the emergence of
punk amid the growth of neoliberalism. Neoliberal policies loosen restrictions
on government interventions and social welfare programs. Individuals, rather
than societies, are tasked with their own mobility, which creates more diffi-
culties for non-wealthy, non-privileged or “normal” persons. We utilize quotes
around “normal” because students during the neoliberalization of Ameri-
can education in the 1970s and 1980s produced specific notions of “normal”
(normative) behavior and their corollaries in disruptive behaviours that were
deemed to require remedial and disciplinary measures (Adams 2008). Many
students often did not have alternative outlets, since after-school programs
were increasingly privatized and thus out of reach for many. MacLeod discusses
the trend under Reagan of increasing two-parent incomes and the crisis of mas-
culinity that emerged around the “ideal” authority figure of President Ronald
Reagan, that many youth rejected because they did not identify with the presi-
dent’s presentation of patriarchal masculinity. With family units and schools
shifting in composition and ideological orientation, students who felt isolated
gravitated towards each other and began to collectivize, forming scenes and
132 • Jessica A. Schwartz and Scott Robertson

bands wherein disenfranchised youth could work through their energy, artistic
capacities and critical insight, unheard by those in authority.
Hip-hop developed out of a need to be heard amid deindustrialization
and neoliberal polices that upheld racialized spaces of impoverishment (Rose
1994). To counter police brutality, poverty and unequal life chances in a US
capitalist democracy that promised otherwise, African American communi-
ties were forced to create their own spaces in which mobility was possible.
Tricia Rose (1994), Adam Krims (2000) and Murray Forman (2002) explain
the importance of place, identity and expressive dissent in hip-hop, which,
like punk, became collectivized at parties and on the streets. Music, fashion,
dancing and street art (graffiti) were the outer signifiers of cultural participa-
tion along with a DIY ethos (similar to that found in punk) that resisted the
constraints of an increasingly specialized, racist society (Shaiken 1977; Bha-
gat 1990). DIY demands an alternative to specialization that favours collective
discussion and sharing rather than formal education and schooling. Here, stu-
dents of the streets examine and understand social problems, struggles and
the beauty of life, and render their perceptions in art. Humour became a tool,
a filter to challenge social constructs by making those rules and regulations
more fluid, as seen with Flavor Flav’s clock necklace (discussed further, below).
Flav presents an artful challenge to temporal control, and acquisition of the
tools of the “ignorant master”—the schoolyard bell, the clock in front of the
classroom and the grammar of 45-minute subject-matter delivery. Flav speaks
to this irreverent approach to authoritative temporal divisions—“I always say,
I’m clockin’, I’m clockin’. “That means I’m paying attention, so you can’t get fast
on me because I know what time it is” (Johnson 2013).
While examples of humour in music abound, we emphasize how, through
collectivization in opposition to neoliberal inculcation at educational insti-
tutions in the 1970s and 1980s, in particular in major deindustrialized urban
centers, punk and hip-hop wielded comedy as a defiant learning tool, to
which young people accorded pedagogic authority (Bourdieu and Passe-
ron 1977). Unlike top-down, mass media–orientated humour—for instance
Weird Al Yankovic and the movie This Is Spinal Tap (Ellis 2009)—punk
and hip-hop culture members were connected to the production and con-
sumption of their art. Younger and newer participants in the scenes could
learn directly and indirectly from more established community members, in
contrast to the factory-manufactured, disposable pop culture seen today in
hyper-commercialized pop star “reality” shows like American Idol and The
X-Factor. These shows’ relative success is contrasted by sustained reverence
for punk and hip-hop legends such as Afrika Bambaataa and Alice Bag who
continue to play shows and parties and to volunteer. There is a collective giv-
ing back to the communities whence these performers came, and in which
communities these artists felt transformed and helped others to transform
themselves. The collective nature of punk and hip-hop enables younger
 Laughing All the Way to the Stage • 133

enthusiasts to see the local engagements and feel connected to movements,

for instance challenging a community policy or creating a space for a party
that, like in the Bronx in the 1980s, blacks could attend without being denied
entrance, unlike at the clubs elsewhere in the city.
Neoliberal economies often reduce people to marketized, commoditized
individuals with an assumed agency that transcends society (Bourdieu 2003;
Giroux 2016). A pedagogy of comedic dissidence reminds us of the entangled
networks that engender and threaten to ensnare neoliberal subjects. Humour
and resistance, along with other expressive modes that play with dispersals
and accumulations of power, can interrupt the assumptions of the lone ranger
individual (the “Reagan cowboy”3) through responding to societal pressures
conditioned by intersectional gendered, racialized, classed and age-specific
hierarchies on which infrastructure that produces individuated bodies and
beings continues to operate. Alan Watts (2004) distinguishes the role of a king’s
court jester from that of a genuine fool, the former being one whose function
was not to simply make jokes, but to remind the monarch of his humanity.
Similarly, a pedagogy of comedic dissidence functions to teach society about
humanity and humility, sorely needed when everyone and everything becomes
valuated in market terms.
Understanding the historical and socio-cultural milieus of musicians
offers insight into the comedic dissidence they created and which the authors
have critiqued in our pedagogical practices. We cannot know the educational
experiences of members of Dead Kennedys or Public Enemy; however, both
bands’ music is often robustly masculine and all members are cis-gender
males. Their heteronormative positions reflect, in a way, the Reagan era’s
patriarchal dominion as well as the durative crisis of masculinity since the
1960s and, since at least the Cold War, the increasingly domestic and interna-
tional masculinist militarization of everyday life (Abrams 1989; Regan 1994;
Staples 2000).
Educational material is often written and shared in language favouring male
students. Multiple-choice tests, for example, are skewed to risk-taking, to which
boys are enculturated to feel more comfortable (Booher-Jennings 2008). In US
society, there remains the notion that boys are naturally more loud and outspo-
ken than women. When men speak up, it is viewed positively. Male entitlement
to a voice means men feel comfortable interrupting women and dominating
dialogue, a trait also evidenced in school classrooms (Younger 1999). In the
authors’ experiences as students and teachers we have seen that girls can be
perceived as “know-it-alls” for speaking up. We therefore see democratizing
potential in teaching how media representation of Dead Kennedys and Pub-
lic Enemy reproduces gendered spaces of expressive engagement and learning,
and how the bands’ uses of humour reorient audiences to the many types of
people who participated in their productions. Importantly, these media-based
performative recreations of male-oriented participatory learning occurred in
134 • Jessica A. Schwartz and Scott Robertson

the mid-1980s when hardcore punk and politically nuanced rap became codi-
fied, entering into the mainstream.
In addition to trends in popular culture that reflect mainstream objectifica-
tion of females, music outside the classroom often reinforces male-centered
educational norms and plays into pedagogical biases of what it means to “have a
voice” and “be expressive” (Bannister 2006; Gilman 1898; Green 1997; McClary
1991; Smith 2015). Most crucially for our argument, the bands’ male-centered
notions of humour and resistance are reproduced societally, and as such, nor-
malize the intersections of race, gender and class that lead to the formation of
judgments around how comedic dissidence sounds. In other words, when tak-
ing into account timbre, tone, associations with sex/race/age, and other markers
of othering (Bradley 2012, 2015), what does a joke sound like? Ultimately, we
argue for a robust critical engagement with punk and rap’s pedagogies of come-
dic dissidence, that asks not only about the joke and the reveal, but also which
bodies and lives become unintentional objects of jokes. How are the men and
women showcasing comedic relief in terms of exploitations and resistances?
These questions demand that educators should be inclusive of men, women,
and cis- and non-cis-gendered musicians and students.

Learning Through Laughter, Literacy and Liveness

The pedagogy of comedic dissidence is important in the circulation of material
within collectives, as humour helps people to collaborate without resorting to
norms of domination. Challenges and tensions in complex situations remain,
but interaction in artistic productions can benefit from humour and laugh-
ter that can destabilize the hierarchical fixity of information-based pedagogy.
Mass media, like educational programmes, can feel alienating, and rock stars or
teachers unapproachable, yet the importance of literacy and self-expression in
all levels of society can hardly be overstated. Specific skills are learned in places
where laughter can be inclusive and exclusionary in punk and hip-hop. The zine,
the album and the live show all feature pedagogical moments that teach verbal
and non-verbal literacies, such as public speaking, debate and creative writing,
that in school settings are often transmitted via an approach that betrays a nar-
row, hierarchical conceptualization of the student-teacher relationship, or the
location of “pedagogic authority” (Bourdieu and Passeron 1977, 19).

Dead Kennedys: Lessons in Stylistic Satire

Throughout Dead Kennedys’ career, their pedagogy of comedic dissidence
critiqued institutional power structures that perpetrated sustained, systemic
violence in the US and abroad. Often their critical narrative would last the
duration of a song, over a foundation of hardcore punk—the driving guitar,
drums and bass—incorporating influences from surf music, spaghetti western,
 Laughing All the Way to the Stage • 135

psychedelic rock, garage rock and rockabilly. Jello Biafra’s biting lyrics tackled
sociopolitical concerns of the late 1970s and 1980s with a distinct sense of mor-
bid humour and satire. As noted on the Dead Kennedys website:

Underpinned by an acute sense of humor, early songs such as “Let’s

Lynch the Landlord”, “I Kill Children” and “Chemical Warfare” satirized
the twin elements of extreme violence and conservatism that character-
ize much of American life. Dead Kennedys’ inflammatory name and
provocative behavior attracted the attention of a number of far-right
politico-religious groups.
(Deadkennedys.com)

The satirical style of dissidence harkens back to the 1960s and 1970s protest
songs and grassroots political activism from groups such as the Fugs. Dead
Kennedys’ live performances were efforts to build collectivity and commu-
nity, welcoming participant proximity such as when audience members would
dance on stage with Biafra. The band was strongly opposed to Reagan’s ide-
ology and policies, and played in the 1983 Rock Against Reagan Festival in
Washington, DC. Biafra ran for mayor of San Francisco in 1979 on a manifesto
including rent control, public works programs, elected police and the sugges-
tion that businessmen on Market Street wear clown suits nine to five. He came
in fourth. Dead Kennedys’ mode of musical protest showcases desire for punks
to enter into history through means of economics and spectacle, rather than
through political force.
Dead Kennedys played their first show on July 19, 1978, at Mabuhay Gar-
dens in San Francisco. From the outset their name drew controversy. Biafra has
said (1991) that the band’s name was never meant to be an insult (invoking one
of the country’s best-known political families), but rather a statement on the
loss of the “American Dream”. The satirical stances taken by Jello often drew
in young listeners desperate for provocative engagement that students rarely
found in high school courses.
Dead Kennedys formed their own record label, Alternative Tentacles, in
1979. Their Frankenchrist album made free-speech history when, on April 15,
1986, Biafra’s apartment was raided by police officers. The singer and others
associated with Alternative Tentacles were charged in a Los Angeles courtroom
with distributing pornography (“harmful matter”) to minors under the nation’s
revised obscenity laws; the album included the H. R. Giger painting, Landscape
#XX, which features genitalia and sex acts in a surreal, assembly-line setting.
The case ended in a hung jury and was dismissed. Former L.A. deputy city
attorney Michael Guarino later admitted the case was “a comedy of errors”
(Rolling Stone 2017). In November 1986, the band released their final studio
album, Bedtime for Democracy, which covers topics from the military industrial
complex and “Reaganomics” economics policies to critiques of punk scenes.
136 • Jessica A. Schwartz and Scott Robertson

Bedtime for Democracy critiques Reagan(omics) through explicit reference

to the film Bedtime for Bonzo (1951), in which Reagan and a chimp perform
together in a movie comedy. We read: it’s a circus—it’s all a circus! The album
cover art presents a similar aesthetic to the movie art of a political cartoon. Con-
versely, Reagan’s social and economic policies remain no joke because they have
proven central to the emergence of global marketization and policies of neolib-
eralism. While this album would warrant far greater attention in a longer essay,
it exemplifies Dead Kennedys’ brand of satirical hardcore, which often uses
irony and bitterness to provoke, believes music can wield political influence by
bringing people together around specific issues, and attempts to rally audiences
around those issues. Most Dead Kennedys songs include protest about one or
more political issues.
Dead Kennedys’ first single was “California Über Alles” (1979), in which
we hear epitomic comedic dissidence, woven throughout the song’s structure.
The song is an aporetic refusal of “the possibility or lack thereof for progressive
political action in the late 1970s” (Thompson 2004, 39). Biafra rails against what
he sees as the erosion of early hippie radical politics (Jerry Brown is the “aging
hippie” who begins to embody German 1930s and ’40s fascism—happy order
undergirded and subverted by the terror needed to maintain such order). Lyr-
ics mock Jerry Brown (California state governor 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to the
present) and “hippie fascism”. The title of the song alludes to the first stanza of
the German national anthem, “Deutschland, Deutschland Über Alles” (“Ger-
many, Germany above all”), although this section was removed after the Second
World War. The musical introduction to the Dead Kennedys song resounds
with militaristic drums, a dark, creeping, ominous bass line, and a guitar part
that complements the ominous bass with a twisted surf feel. Through the influ-
ence of surf rock, we are situated in a twilight-zone space, a twisted California
where the Golden State has turned bleak and convoluted. The enveloping
post–Second World War and post–Vietnam War militarization of all spaces is
implied through the militaristic drumming. The lyrics are a pointed, satirical
attack on Governor Jerry Brown, sung from his perspective as an imaginary
version of the man outlines a hippie-fascist vision of America, “I am Governor
Jerry Brown/My aura smiles and never frowns/Soon I will be President”. Lyr-
ics such as “Serpent’s egg already hatched” (a reference to a line from William
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar) comment on the corrosive nature of power. The
chorus is a chant-like sing-along, which intimates either mob mentality or punk
solidarity—or perhaps both.
In the first verse, Biafra satirizes this “far-out” politician and larger power
structures that will afford him presidency—a means of control—then links
to his projected status as “Führer”, an unambiguous reference to Hitler and
Nazism. With the repetition of the line, “Your kids will meditate in school”, the
musical dynamism emphasizes the absurdity of the message. While the verses
are sung with a fluid, melismatic quality, the chorus is delivered in a syllabic,
 Laughing All the Way to the Stage • 137

direct manner. This musical juxtaposition affectively communicates Brown’s

seemingly innocuous, hippie, “far-out” personality and the marked militaristic
deployment of that personality in command. The chorus chant turns anthemic,
perhaps mocking the masses. The second verse satirizes 1970s eco-progressive
politics and health consciousness components of society that take a blind moral
authority to their own potential for abuses of power. Again, “mellow out or you
will pay” is repeated with increasing intensity, ironically threatening listeners
to relax.
After the second iteration of the chorus, the bridge offers a substantially
new melodic difference bringing climax and closure to the form. The date,
“1984”, orientates us and references George Orwell’s “big brother”, followed
by a “knock, knock at your front door” that provides an onomatopoeic word-
painting rhythm. Next, we hear the lyrics, “suede-denim secret police”, which
refers ironically to rounding up Californians and ridding the state of undesir-
able, “unhip” people. The subsequent lines, “Come quietly to the camp/You’d
look nice as a drawstring lamp” reference Holocaust concentration camps,
where human skin was used to create items such as lampshades. The plodding
musical affect subtends the lyrics, which intimates the lies and manipulation of
Jews who were led into the “showers” or gas chambers and provided a “pretty
flower”, that alludes to flower children or the Jewish star of David insignia per-
haps, for their “clothes”. The bridge connects the political stages of Governor
Brown’s ascent to President Brown as an increasingly oppressive authoritative
regime wrought through manipulative practices.
In the following verse, the music speeds up while Biafra’s vocal delivery
builds in intensity. He screams, “Die on organic poison gas/Serpent’s egg’s
already hatched/You will croak, you little clown/When you mess with Presi-
dent Brown (x2)”, referencing the abuse of power of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
This is emphasized during repetition of the line “When you mess with President
Brown”, as multiple voices sing together, evoking the sense of the masses sup-
porting Biafra. The bridge cues the transformation of Brown to the president,
as in the final chorus Biafra unravels, snarling and showing his true side. The
musical outro returns to militaristic marching with percussion, and all sounds
symbolic of California (e.g. surf guitar) are gone, revealing the sameness of
power, regardless of ideology.
The satire of this song exemplifies Dead Kennedys’ use of pedagogy of come-
dic dissidence. Film footage (Dead Kennedys 1985) shows Biafra encouraging
the band’s audience to come on stage and sing along, democratizing leadership
in punk fashion. Alternative Tentacles, Dead Kennedys’ label, even in name,
shares this “alternative reach”. Humour, like the alternative tentacles reaching
out to the audience, disrupts master narratives of leader/follower portrayed
and reproduced in alienating mainstream media and conventional pedagogy,
instead using humour and satire as direct means of communication. By sharing
the narrative and formal progression of the song with students, we can discuss
138 • Jessica A. Schwartz and Scott Robertson

the history of the “hippie” and white appropriation of black hipness in terms of
rock ‘n’ roll. We can work through the fact that there is one black performer in
Dead Kennedys, and discuss how the spectacle of identity invites us to consider
that neither the white male figure nor the black male figure is a trope or ideal;
rather, they are human collaborators. We encourage debate on the terms and
sounds associated with stereotypical Californian liberalism and the “fun in the
sun” attitude, as they intersect with the themes and intertextuality of the song.

Public Enemy: Lessons in Temporal Organization

and Contrapuntal Hype
Carlton Ridenhour (Chuck D) grew up in Queens, New York, in the 1960s.
His parents supplied the soul, R&B and jazz records that would inspire and
inform him. From as young as five, he knew music had to be more than a pas-
time. Describing what this early music meant to him, Ridenhour notes, “it
was an accumulation of rage, reflection, rhythm, and riot” (Ridenhour 2015).
In college, at Adelphi University on Long Island, Ridenhour studied graphic
design and was a school cartoonist with interests in art and culture. During his
early college years, he created no music, but was consumed by it; inspired by
socially conscious hip-hop songs like Brother D’s “How We Gonna Make the
Black Nation Rise” (Brother D with Collective Effort 1980), Ridenhour became
set on making his own music (Ridenhour 2015), leading to the formation of
Public Enemy. Working at the student radio station (WBAU), he met up-and-
coming hip-hop artists, including Hank Shocklee (future brainchild of the
Bomb Squad) and Bill Stephney (future Def Jam executive). Ridenhour caught
the attention of producer Rick Rubin (co-founder of Def Jam) after rapping
over a track that Shocklee had created, “Public Enemy No. 1”. Soon Ridenhour
adopted the moniker “Chuckie D” (Rolling Stone 2017), putting the pieces
together to form Public Enemy, and reaching out to his old friend, William
Drayton (Flavor Flav).
Public Enemy released their debut album, Yo! Bum Rush the Show, in 1987,
featuring heavy production and a sense of anger and resistance, heightened
through the absence of melody. The dynamics of Flavor Flav as “hype man”
are crucial to the success of the music because he provides the dissonant (and
comically dissident) counterpoint to Chuck D—adding characteristic humour
in tracks such as “Miuzi Weighs a Ton”, “Terminator X Speaks with His Hands”
and “Public Enemy No. 1”. In “Timebomb”, Flavor Flav begins with spoken
vocals accompanied by a funky, wah-wah guitar riff. He executes his funny
brand of hyping: “Yo, we gotta get stupid. Yo! We gotta let ’em know what time
it is”, and displays a knack for comedy, especially when the content of the song
is serious. The lyrics of “Timebomb” weave through everyday experiences
from dancing, hooking up with girls and even “proper” cigarette brand choices.
However, through the light-hearted rap emerge moments of tension: “I’m a MC
 Laughing All the Way to the Stage • 139

Protestor—US defector. South African government wrecker. Panther power—

you can feel it in my arm. Lookout y’all, I’m a timebomb. Tickin’, tockin’, all
about rockin’ ”.
Similar to (co-contemporary hip-hop pioneer) Grandmaster Flash in his
song, “The Message” (1982), Chuck D is “close to the edge” and about to explode.
Behind Chuck D’s rap, Flavor Flav escalates his hype, supporting Chuck by dou-
bling his lyrics and staying positive. Flavor Flav’s fun backups keep Chuck D
from detonating the “timebomb”. The lyrics then focus on empowerment: “All
fall to the force of my swing. Like Ali, Frazer, Thriller in Manila. A pinpoint
point blank microphone killer am I. No need to lie, got the Flavor Flav”. Chuck
D is the militant persona, and Flavor Flav the sidekick comic relief, with gold
teeth, oversized glasses and clock necklace that help visualize the jester. We read
through this (pedagogy of) comedic dissidence, the musicalities of explosive
male power and visions of dominance that come with it unchecked. There is
a contrast between the higher pitched elocution of Flavor Flav and the lower
register of Chuck D. It appears somewhat as if the humour is feminized, yet, the
humour supports black masculinity, resonant of the Black Panther Party that
began in 1966 and complementing the white hippie movement that also began
in the mid-1960s. Public Enemy’s second album, It Takes a Nation of Millions
to Hold Us Back, came out the following year and sold over 1,000,000 copies.
Nation contained “Bring the Noise”, which foreshadowed Public Enemy’s knack
for controversy, with Chuck D referring to Black Muslim leader Louis Farra-
khan as a prophet. Calling rap music “CNN for black culture”, he castigated
white-controlled media in “Don’t Believe the Hype”.
The masculinist language of Public Enemy’s lyrics—with sexualized terms
such as “bum rush” from the title of the group’s first album—arguably appears
innocuous. However, the discursive production of sexism and masculine domi-
nation of musical rap (and punk) spaces is problematic, and can turn violent and
dangerous. However, such gendered “pedagogical” spaces are rife with lessons
about societal discrimination and intersectionality. It is perhaps instructive to
reflect on Chuck D’s statement in the foreword to Rebel Music, that hip-hop is
punk (Ridenhour 2015). Both genres are often considered more than music;
they are ways of life: culture. As Tricia Rose notes,

Public Enemy’s prophet of rage, Chuck D, keeps poor folks alert and
prevents them from being lulled into submission by placating and mis-
leading media stories and official “truths”. He holds the microphone with
a vice grip and protects it from perpetrators of false truths, speaking
directly to the poor, using indirection and symbolic reference.
(Rose 1994, 99)

Both Public Enemy and Dead Kennedys were founders of hardcore subgenres
of subcultural musical collectives, and demanded audience participation
140 • Jessica A. Schwartz and Scott Robertson

through a mode of aural vigilance. They satirized mainstream culture with

politicized messages that critically engaged masses, often in masculinist terms.
The comedy fomented among collectives of punk and rap musicians possesses
great power when critiqued through ethical and inclusive listening—which is
precisely what happened when female punk and rap groups later came to offer
their own brands of education and humour.

Conclusions
Punk and hip-hop emerged at a time of creeping neoliberalization and indi-
viduation from the collective spaces of protest of the long 1960s. The music
and other aspects of both subcultures offered alternative, collective modes of
belonging and learning. In contrast to traditional pedagogical approaches of
the school classroom, founded on oppression and domination (Hickey 2016;
Reay 2010), these subcultural movements afforded participants opportunities
to engage in debate and critical thinking (Dines 2015; Snell and Söderman
2014). Combining humour with political commentary and activism, the punk
and hip-hop movements invited and empowered disenfranchised youth and
young adults to be more critical, thoughtful and active civilians. Satire, irony
and hype combined with frustration, anger and diverse musical and artistic cre-
ativities (Burnard 2012) to forge a pedagogy of comedic dissidence in service
of the transformative potential of educational experience (Dewey 1938, 1951).
Stephanie Horsley (2015, 63) observes that, regrettably, music educators have
often “demonstrated a historical avoidance of issues related to politics, citizen-
ship, and social justice”. Hip-hop and punk musics offer alternatives to such
passivity. Estrella Torrez (2012, 135) describes the immensely potent pedagogi-
cal and political power of punk pedagogical praxis, noting, “Punk pedagogy
requires that individuals take on personal responsibility . . . by rejecting their
privileged places in society and working in solidarity with those forced on the
fringes. By doing so, we strive to undo hegemonic macrostructures”. Hip-hop
pedagogy equally possesses this transformative potential, harnessed by the likes
of Public Enemy. We urge educators—schoolteachers, community members and
fellow citizens—to embrace and enact such a pedagogy of comedic dissidence.

Notes
1. Although scholarly work on social justice is deemed serious, hip-hop and use of humour offers
youth an alternative perspective on understanding injustice while also creating a space for heal-
ing, expression and identity.
2. Neil Postman challenged teachers not to ask how they could better teach a subject, but rather to
put the focus on the student by asking how can they help students learn.
3. “The Cowboy President” was a title Reagan earned from his cowboy portrayals as a movie actor
in Western cowboy films. This masculine and individualistic hero has often been a neoliberal
representation of the individual(ist) standing up to “big government”. Rambo became the new
archetype in the ’80s.
 Laughing All the Way to the Stage • 141

References
Abrams, Richard M. 1989. “The US Military and Higher Education: A Brief History.” ANNALS of
the American Academy of Political and Social Science 502, 1: 15–28.
Adams, Paul. 2008. “Positioning Behaviour: Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
in the Post-Welfare Educational Era.” International Journal of Inclusive Education 12, 2:
113–125.
Astley, Tom. 2016. “ ‘Laughter Is a Harlequin’: Laughter and Identity in a Close Reading of a Cuban
Punk Band.” Punk and Post Punk 5, 1: 21–37.
Au, Wayne. 2009. Unequal by Design: High-stakes Testing and the Standardization of Inequality. New
York: Routledge.
Bannister, Matthew. 2006. White Boys, White Noise: Masculinities and 1980s Indie Guitar Rock.
Farnham: Ashgate.
Barthes, Roland. 1993. A Roland Barthes Reader. New York: Random House.
Belsito, Peter, and Bod Davis (Eds.). 1983. Hardcore California: A History of Punk and New Wave.
Berkeley, CA: The Last Gasp of San Francisco.
Benedict, Cathy, Patrick K. Schmidt, Gary Spruce, and Paul Woodford. 2015. The Oxford Handbook
of Social Justice in Music Education. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bestley, Russ. 2013. “  ‘I Tried to Make Him Laugh, He Didn’t Get the Joke .  .  .’—Taking Punk
Humour Seriously.” Punk & Post Punk 2, 2: 119–145.
Bestley, Russ. 2014. “Art Attacks and Killing Jokes: The Graphic Language of Punk Humour.” Punk
and Post Punk 2, 3: 231–267.
Bhagat, Sanjai, Andrei Shleifer, and Robert W. Vishny. 1990. “Hostile Takeovers in the 1980s: The
Return to Corporate Specialization.” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity: Microeconomics
1990: 1–84.
Booher-Jennings, Jennifer. 2008. “Learning to Label: Socialisation, Gender, and the Hidden Cur-
riculum of High-Stakes Testing.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 29, 2: 149–160.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 2003. Firing Back: Against the Tyranny of the Market 2. London: Verso.
Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron. 1977. Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture,
Trans. Richard Nice. London: Sage.
Bradley, Deborah. 2012. “Good for What, Good for Whom? Decolonizing Music Education Phi-
losophies.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in Music Education, edited by Wayne
Bowman and Ana Lucía Frega, 409–433. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bradley, Deborah. 2015. “Hidden in Plain Sight: Race and Racism in Music Education.” In The
Oxford Handbook of Social Justice in Music Education, edited by Cathy Benedict, Patrick
Schmidt, Gary Spruce, and Paul Woodford, 190–203. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bruno, Rosalind. 1987. Educational Attainment in the United States March 1982 to 1985. Dept. of
Commerce.
Burnard, Pamela. 2012. Musical Creativities in Practice. New York: Oxford University Press.
Campbell, Patricia Shehan. 2004. Teaching Music Globally: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Dead Kennedys: The Early Years (DVD). 2002. San Francisco, CA: Target Video/MVD.
Deadkennedys.com. 2017. Accessed March 1, 2017. www.deadkennedys.com/history.html.
Dewey, John. 1938. Experience and Education. Toronto: Collier.
Dewey, John. 1951. Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. New
York: Macmillan.
Ellis, Iain. 2009. Rebels Wit Attitude: Subversive Rock Humorists. New York: Soft Skull.
Forman, Murray. 2002. The ‘Hood Comes First: Race, Space, and Place in Rap and Hip-Hop. Middle-
town, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Freire, Paulo. 2000. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Gilman, Charlotte P. 1898. Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men
and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution. Boston, MA: Small, Maynard.
Giroux, Henry A. 1989. Schooling for Democracy: Critical Pedagogy in the Modern Age. London:
Routledge.
Giroux, Henry A. 2012. Disposable Routh, Racialized Memories, and the Culture of Cruelty. New
York: Routledge.
Giroux, Henry A. 2016. America’s Addiction to Terrorism. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Green, Lucy. 1997. Music, Gender, Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hebert, David G. 2015. “Another Perspective: Militarism and Music Education.” Music Educators
Journal 101, 3: 77–84.
142 • Jessica A. Schwartz and Scott Robertson

Hickey, Maud. 2016. The Tune of Inclusion: Why Not Change the Face of Music Education Now?
www.truth-out.org/speakout/item/35040-the-tune-of-inclusion-why-not-change-the-face-
of-music-education-now.
Hinojosa, Ramon. 2010. “Doing Hegemony: Military, Men, and Constructing a Hegemonic Mas-
culinity.” Journal of Men’s Studies 18, 2: 179–194.
Hirschfield, Paul J. 2008. “Preparing for Prison? The Criminalization of School Discipline in the
USA.” Theoretical Criminology 12, 1: 79–101.
Holmstrom, John, and Bridget Hurd. 2012. Punk: The Best of Punk Magazine. New York: Punk
Magazine, Inc.
Horsley, Stephanie. 2015. “Facing the Music: Pursuing Social Justice Through Music Education in
a Neoliberal World.” In The Oxford Handbook of Social Justice in Music Education, edited
by Cathy Benedict, Patrick Schmidt, Gary Spruce, and Paul Woodford, 62–77. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Johnson, Billy Jr. 2013. “Flavor Flav Explains Why He Wears a Clock Necklace.” Yahoo Music
Online. www.yahoo.com/music/blogs/hip-hop-media-training/flavor-flav-explains-why-
wears-clock-necklace-155453176.html.
Kane, Daniel. 2011. “Richard Hell, Genesis: Grasp, and the Blank Generation: From Poetry to Punk
in New York’s Lower East Side.” Contemporary Literature 52, 2: 330–369.
Krims, Adam. 2000. Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lerner, Ralph. 2009. Playing the Fool: Subversive Laughter in Troubled Times. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
MacLeod, Dewar. 2010. Kids of the Black Hole: Punk Rock in Postsuburban California. Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press.
McClary, Susan. 1991. Feminine Endings: Music, Gender and Sexuality. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
Mcwilliams, Wilson Carey. 1995. “Poetry, Politics, and the Comic Spirit.” PS: Political Science &
Politics 28, 2: 197–200.
Niknafs, Nasmim, and Liz Przybylski. 2017. “Popular Music and (R)evolution of the Classroom
Space: Occupy Wall Street in the Music School.” In The Routledge Research Companion to
Popular Music Education, edited by Gareth Dylan Smith, Zack Moir, Matt Brennan, Shara
Rambarran, and Phil Kirkman, 412–424. Abingdon: Routledge.
Nocella, Anthony J. 2014. From Education to Incarceration: Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipe-
line. New York: Peter Lang.
Orwell, George. 1945/2017. Funny, But Not Vulgar. Accessed March 17, 2017. http://orwell.ru/
library/articles/funny/english/e_funny.
Parmar, Priya, Anthony J. Nocella, Scott Robertson, and Martha Diaz. 2015. Rebel Music: Resistance
Through Hip Hop and Punk. Charlotte, NC: Information Age.
Postman, Neil. 1995. The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School. New York: Vintage.
Postman, Neil, and Charles Weingartner. 1969. Teaching as a Subversive Activity. New York: Dela-
corte.
Rancière, Jacques. 1991. The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation. Palo
Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Rancière, Jacques. 2005. The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. London: Con-
tinuum.
Reay, Diane. 2010. “Sociology, Social Class and Education.” In The Routledge Iternational Handbook
of the Sociology of Education, edited by Michael W. Apple, Stephen J. Ball, and Luis Armando
Gandin, 396–404. Oxford: Routledge.
Regan, Patrick M. 1994. “War Toys, War Movies, and the Militarization of the United States, 1900–
85.” Journal of Peace Research 31, 1: 45–58.
Ridenhour, Carlton. 2015. “Foreword.” In Rebel Music: Resistance Through Hip-Hop and Punk,
edited by Priya Parmar, Anthony J. Nocella, Scott Robertson, and Martha Diaz. Charlotte,
NC: Information Age.
Rolling Stone. 2001. Dead Kennedys Biography. Accessed March 10, 2017. www.rollingstone.com/
music/artists/dead-kennedys/biography.
Rolling Stone. 2017. Accessed March 10, 2017. www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/public-enemy/
biography.
Rose, Tricia. 1994. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Hanover,
NH: University Press of New England.
 Laughing All the Way to the Stage • 143

Shaiken, Harley. 1977. “Craftsman Into Baby Sitter.” In Disabling Professions, edited by Ivan Illich,
Irving K. Zola, John McKnight, Jonathan Caplan, and Harley Shaiken. London: Marion
Boyars.
Smith, Gareth Dylan. 2015. “Masculine Domination and Intersecting Fields in Private-sector Popu-
lar Music Performance Education in the UK.” In Bourdieu and the Sociology of Music and
Music Education, edited by Pamela Burnard, Ylva Hofstander, and Johan Söderman, 61–79.
Farnham: Ashgate.
Snell, Karen, and Johan Söderman. 2014. Hip-Hop WITHIN and Without the Academy. Lanham,
MD: Lexington Books.
Staples, William G. 2000. Everyday Surveillance: Vigilance and Visibility in Postmodern Life. Lan-
ham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Taussig, Michael T. 1999. Defacement: Public Secrecy and the Labor of the Negative. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press.
Thompson, Stacy. 2004. Punk Productions: Unfinished Business. New York: State University of New
York Press.
Watts, Alan. 2004. “Out of Your Mind: Essential Listening From the Alan Watts Archive.” A Place
for a Hermit. Sounds True, Louisville, CO. CD.
Younger, Michael, Molly Warrington, and Jacquetta Williams. 1999. “The Gender Gap and Class-
room Interactions: Reality and Rhetoric?” British Journal of Sociology of Education 20, 3:
325–341.

Discography and Videography

Blondie. Autoamerican. Chrysalis. CHE 1290. 1980. LP Vinyl.
Brother D. With Collective Effort. Dib-Be-Dib-Be-Dize/How We Gonna Make The Black Nation
Rise? Clappers Records. CL-0001. 1980. LP Vinyl.
Dead Kennedys—Live At The On Broadway, San Francisco. Rhino Home Video. RNVD 2001. 1985.
VHS. https://youtu.be/32NtcTf3HUc.
The Dictators. Go Girl Crazy! Epic. KE 33348. 1975. LP Vinyl.
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five. The Message. Sugar Hill Records. SH 268. 1982. LP.
Propagandhi. Less Talk More Rock. Fat Wreck Chords. FAT 666–2. 1996. CD.
Ramones. Ramones. Sire. SASD-7520. 1976. LP Vinyl.
 10
Here’s Some Scissors, Here’s Some
Glue, Now Go Make a Zine! A
Teacher’s Reflections on Zine-
Making in the Classroom
LAURA WAY

Introduction: What Are Zines?

Zines typically are small-scale, independent, non-commercial publications
associated with underground movements, particularly, as Duncombe (2008)
notes, with “do-it-yourself ” (DIY) subcultures. The history of zines can be
traced back to the 1930s in the US, when fans of science fiction began making
and publishing their own stories, and so the term “fanzine” emerged to refer to
a type of small-scale, self-made magazine based around an expression of fan-
dom (Duncombe 2008). The creation of fanzines (now known broadly as zines)
was adopted as part of the punk subculture and its DIY ethos during the 1970s
and 1980s, and later during the 1990s as part of the Riot Grrrl movement as a
means of feminist activism (Duncombe 2008; Marcus 2010). Originally, zines
were made by cutting out text and images, assembling them into collages and
then photocopying the finished product. However, the development of word
processing and internet technologies has led to a growth in the variety of styles
and methods for zine construction. The themes, interests and topics covered
by zines today are countless, with current examples ranging from Mama Riot,
which brings together mothers’ responses to a pre-set theme (with this theme
changing each issue) to Rich Cubesville’s (n.d.) The Vegan’s Guide to People
Arguing with Vegans that collates various arguments and questions non-vegans
might present to those following a vegan diet.
This chapter is an account of ways in which I used the artistic, DIY character
of zines as tools for both my professional reflection and for learners’ reflections.
First I outline the chapter’s underpinning autoethnographic approach and reflect
on my pedagogical values. I then review existing academic literature concerning
zine use in the classroom before reflecting on two examples of my use of zines
in classroom contexts. I conclude by considering zine use as punk pedagogical
practice, and reflecting on the effectiveness of my efforts in this regard.

144
 A Teacher’s Reflections on Zine-Making • 145

An Autoethnographic Approach
Wall (2006, 154) notes a broad range of autoethnographic approaches, from
the “conservative methodologically rigorous study [via] the personal but theo-
retically supported [to] the highly literary and evocative”. This chapter is of the
second of these types, joining autoethnographic studies described as “highly
personalized accounts that draw upon the experience of the author/researcher
for the purposes of extending sociological understanding” (Sparkes 2000, 21).
My autoethnographic approach is aligned with and embedded in the reflective
practice in which I have engaged throughout my teaching career. As part of my
teaching qualification for lifelong learning, I was required to keep a reflective
journal, during which process students were urged to reflect upon critical inci-
dents in our teaching placements, an approach that has been noted to increase
teachers’ capacity for developing critical/reflective skills (Griffin 2003). I
maintained this approach to reflective practice when working for a further edu-
cation1 provider, where formally reflecting on lessons was seen as an important
element of teachers’ continuing professional development. I had no hesitation
in writing what might be considered critical stories, and locating myself within
these, but writing in the first person singular did not always sit easily with me.
Delamont (2007) argues that because autoethnography is rooted in experi-
ence, it is not analytical, which research should be. However, this ignores the
various formats that autoethnographies can take, which (as already noted) can
include rigorous critical analysis. Having spent my post-16 and undergradu-
ate education being told never to write in the first person, when studying for a
master’s degree in women’s studies I was introduced to doing just the opposite.
I initially had a hard time adjusting to my lecturers’ insistence that I write in the
first person and “take authorship of [my] work!”, but ultimately this changed the
way I felt when writing; I felt closer to what I was saying, and found that both
critical analysis and reflection came more easily.
My initial discomfort and bafflement at the requirement to assert my author-
ship of my work were clearly results of my initial introduction to social research,
which had been very much grounded in more traditional, positivist and quan-
titative approaches. Despite critiques of such approaches emerging in the late
twentieth century (e.g. Goodson et al. 2013), and substantial qualitative, con-
structivist work occurring across the social sciences, little acknowledgement
was given to this during my undergraduate degree. While lectures involved
both positivist and anti-positivist approaches, the latter still were approached
with the implicit caveat that social research should avoid the subjective. Auto-
ethnography can, therefore, be seen as the antithesis of the positivist values into
which researchers (and social science students like myself) are often social-
ized. Feminist researchers have pursued inclusion of their own experience in
their research (Ellis 2004), and as a feminist studying women’s studies, I came
to that recognizing this experience could also be important in challenging the
146 • Laura Way

positivist dominance in social research that some feminists have found dis-
empowering to women (Ramazanoğlu and Holland 2002). Averett (2009)
highlights this affinity between autoethnography and feminist research, in that
both are underpinned by the message that the personal is political (Hanisch
1970). Another similarity highlighted by Averett (2009) is the way both still
actively struggle to be accepted in the mainstream research community.
Canagarajah (2012) argues that those who experience marginalization may use
autoethnography as a means of having a voice, suggesting that autoethnography
is an important tool for those without power, and can serve such individuals as
a source of empowerment. This potential can be seen as a common thread run-
ning through autoethnography, zine creation and punk pedagogy.

My (Brief) Autoethnopedagogical History

Reflection can be seen as important to both teachers and learners (Boud et al.
2013). Warren (2011) argues that one way teachers can be reflexive (reflecting,
and then acting upon one’s reflections) and improve their teaching is through
understanding their own autoethnopedagogical histories (Warren 2011), in order
to understand the values and ideas they bring to their practice. It is thus appropri-
ate to consider a little of my own autoethnopedagogical history here, to provide
some understanding of how, as a teacher, I came to use zines in the classroom.
During my secondary education there were two notable teachers whom I
looked up to and admired. One was an English literature teacher and the other
taught music. They were both female, and to my eyes they appeared to chal-
lenge the traditional view I had held of how a teacher “should be”—in part
because they had foul mouths and openly smoked on school trips, flagrantly
disregarding expectations of teacherly propriety. The English teacher loved
cats, and her classroom was a feline shrine of sorts, with every space covered
by a cat picture, adding to my perception of her as a rebel and iconoclast. I
took music largely because of the music teacher. In a music department where
female students would gravitate towards the more classical instruments and
styles, while the male students dominated the practice rooms with their wall of
electric guitars, this music teacher put a bass guitar into my arms, providing an
inroad to an extra-curricular education of playing in bands and participating
in subculture more generally. Both teachers were passionate about their sub-
jects, and because of their combination of idiosyncrasies and passion, English
and music became my favourite subjects at school. I can see the influence of
these two teachers I admired, in how I have felt encouraged not to need to fit a
particular professional ideal. It is perhaps the same underpinning values which
I perceived as informing their teaching (e.g., challenging the status quo or not
being afraid to speak their minds) that I later felt underpinned the punk scene
I became involved in; these values shaped my general outlook, and therefore,
later, my teaching.
 A Teacher’s Reflections on Zine-Making • 147

I become involved in the punk scene after I started playing in a band in my

teens, and it was there that I was first exposed to zines. Zines were sometimes
sold or given away at gigs we attended, and many were based around the punk
music scene of which the band I played in became part, involving reviews
of gigs/music and interviews with bands. There were also some “per-zines”
kicking about, which, as the name suggests, focused more on personal stories
or views. I started to discover a lot more of this style of zine as I became more
involved with feminism, and more specifically the Riot Grrrl movement, par-
ticularly while I was a postgraduate student of women’s studies. I was drawn
to zines because I felt they embodied punk and the DIY ethos, and I also
came to believe in the value they held for feminist activism, giving girls and
women a voice and making the personal political, by raising awareness of
“women’s issues”.
My subsequent decision to use zines as part of my teaching might there-
fore be understood on a very simplistic level in terms of my desire to bring
something from my personal life into my professional life—an integration of
my personal interests and pedagogical practice. But there was a deeper ratio-
nale behind the decision, relating to the implicit pedagogical and sociological
potential I saw in zines. Just as “challenging the status quo” and “speaking one’s
mind” were things I had incorporated into my value system, so too were they
values I hoped to encourage in my learners, and the use of zines in the class-
room facilitated this; zines have been conceptualized as both acts of resistance
and tools for (re)creating self (Kempson 2015). In addition to this, my feminist
values also form an important part of my pedagogical approach. It has been
argued that zine making is suited to a feminist pedagogy as it can facilitate par-
ticipatory learning, develop critical thinking and validate personal experience
(Creasap 2014).

The Potential of Zines in the Classroom

Zines have transcended their underground beginnings (Duncombe 2008), and
their potential in relation to teaching and learning has become increasingly
recognized. Wan (1999) emphasizes the value of zines in the classroom envi-
ronment, offering new and alternative information sources, as well as allowing
students to experience ways in which individuals (often their peers) can take
control of a media outlet. This chapter focuses on zines as creation, and what
the making of zines by learners can offer for both creators and readers. Yang
(2010), for instance, used zines within a biology classroom with learners creat-
ing zines on self-chosen topics to educate others. Yang (2010) found that this
helped deepen the learners’ knowledge as well as providing an opportunity for
them to develop personal agency through taking on the role of educators, sourc-
ing information, deciding what to use and how to present it. This approach to
learning could therefore be seen to chime somewhat with anarchist pedagogy
148 • Laura Way

as envisioned by Shantz (2012, in Dines 2015), whereby an authoritarian mode

of teaching (e.g. the teacher as the authority of knowledge) is replaced with a
non-authoritarian approach with learners becoming the educators.
Creating zines can provide learners with opportunities for reflection, which,
as suggested earlier with regard to journaling, can be seen as a key component of
teaching and learning. In the context of pre-service art education, Klein (2010)
gave university sophomore students a semester-long project of constructing
zines to reflect on their observations of teachers. It was argued that zines’ capac-
ity for author self-expression through images and text could assist in both the
reflection and visual journaling of the students. Prinsloo et al. (2011) highlight
the value of unstructured online diaries for enabling “spontaneous and authen-
tic” reflection on learning; I would argue that an unstructured approach and
freedom in creation are inherent to working with zines, which provide an ideal
tool for achieving such aims.
I propose, following Gauntlet (2007), that the creative, visual nature of
zines might allow people to communicate ideas from disciplines that are less
obviously creative within a teaching and learning context. This could be par-
ticularly beneficial to learners who may struggle otherwise to voice their ideas
in the classroom through written or oral communication, or who, when these
modes of communication dominate, can be marginalized and disempowered.
The potential of zines being used in the classroom to promote inclusivity and
empowerment of learners aligns with ideals of anarchist and punk pedagogical
approaches (Antliff 2012; Froehlich and Smith 2017). Using zines in a higher
education context, Congdon and Blandy (2003) adopted an approach that
employed zines as both resource and creation. The authors asked learners to
create zines, which were subsequently distributed and discussed as a source for
engaging students in postmodern discourse. They noted that this also allowed
a break from the strictures of formal paper writing germane to the university
context (Congdon and Blandy 2003). The use of zines may therefore be viewed
as an alternative to traditional academic practice, and this may also be relevant
to the pursuit of punk pedagogical strategies.

Zine Creation in Class

What follows are two examples of my use of zine creation in a teaching and
learning context in the UK. Each example is based on my experience of work-
ing with a group of learners aged between 16 and 20 years of age as part of a
further education course in sociology. Within each group there was an equal
distribution of females and males, and each group included one learner with
special educational needs. Learners were of a similar social background, and
there were no international students present. Example 1 is based on my experi-
ences with a group that included 12 learners, while Example 2 involved a larger
group of 24.
 A Teacher’s Reflections on Zine-Making • 149

Example 1
In this first example, zine creation was used for the purposes of reflection,
for the learners and for me as a teacher. The educational institution where I
worked required learners to complete a generic survey for each of the sub-
jects they were studying about mid-way through the academic year. I was
unconvinced of the usefulness of this survey, since (among other issues) many
questions were not relevant to particular subjects. One advantage of the zine
activity, therefore, was that it could allow me to seek richer, more detailed
feedback from the learners about, for example, which topics they had par-
ticularly enjoyed. I aimed for this to feed back into my own reflection on my
teaching, as discussed later. In terms of learner reflection, I hoped that creat-
ing the zines would give them more control over what they wanted to express
while also potentially offering a more accessible alternative to language-based
feedback for some learners (Gauntlett 2007).
I decided to use zines as part of a lesson towards the end of the academic year,
as I wished to ask students to reflect on the year to date. I had created a few slides
to show them, which gave some explanation of what a zine was, and had lugged
in my own zine collection to provide tangible examples of the possible scope
in aesthetics and approach. I asked students each to create a zine that reflected
on their first academic year of studying sociology. I specified that they should
include certain elements (for example, which area(s) of study they enjoyed the
most) but otherwise gave them creative autonomy. This contradicted some-
what the “absolute” freedom usually associated with zine creation, but seemed
necessary for the (my) intended purpose of the activity. I also brought in what
I considered some necessary zine-making tools: glue, paper and newspapers/
magazines. There were some protests from one or two of the students of “but I’m
no good at art!”; nonetheless, they all busied themselves for the lesson making
zines, and all had something to submit at the end of the session.
A number of issues arose during the activity. First, it was apparent that the
learners needed longer to examine zines in order to gain a fuller understand-
ing of what was involved, as a number of them voiced concerns over what they
were actually expected to produce. This could have been remedied by having
the task spread over more than one 90-minute lesson. A learner with additional
needs in particular struggled and misinterpreted the activity. Second, there
were constraints when it came to resources—usually zine makers self-select
resources that are to hand, whereas in the classroom context these learners
were constrained by the resources selected and provided by me. This may have
limited the learners’ creative freedom, and inhibited their inspiration and moti-
vation—seemingly antithetical to DIY and anarchist pedagogical approaches. A
third issue was the public creation of the zines, with learners expected to make
their zines while surrounded by peers in close proximity, due to the constraints
of classroom space. The lack of privacy and the impact of peer pressure may
thus have limited students’ creations. Fourth, just as the learners could have
150 • Laura Way

benefitted from having longer to explore what zines were, they may have also
benefitted from more time to construct their own. Zine makers are generally
able to create zines at their own pace, rather than watching the clock as these
learners were. I would, with hindsight, prefer for my students not to have to
work under such time pressure.
Informal feedback from learners was mixed, split between those who
enjoyed the activity for its creative focus, and those who disliked it for that
very reason. Perhaps this reflected the particular zines I had shown them, and
maybe I placed too much emphasis on image-based examples composed mostly
of drawings, collages and photographs. I could have shared zines containing
mostly or entirely writing. The feedback I gathered from reading the zines indi-
cated elements of the course learners enjoyed or did not enjoy—information
the generic institutional survey would have not have provided. I was thus able
to reflect on why certain elements of the course may have struck a chord (or
not) with individuals and the group, helping me to consider course content and
particular ways of teaching.

Example 2
Reflections on the first example informed my next use of zines in the classroom,
for which I took a different approach. This took place during the following
academic year, and within the first few weeks of term. An initial lesson was
dedicated to gaining an understanding of zines; this involved some input from
me, and group work allowing learners to consider a variety of zines and identify
what these involved. I was careful this time to include examples of zines that
were text-focused, rather than image-orientated. To provide learners with more
freedom in the resources they utilized, and to facilitate privacy in their creative
activity, I set the zine-making as a homework task based on “their views of soci-
ety”. I gave no further guidelines, and hoped such a broad theme would engage
and enact as much agency and freedom as possible. My rationale for focusing
on students’ views of society was that it would develop learners’ critical, ana-
lytical skills through considering contemporary societal issues while reflecting
on and interrogating their own positionality and values. Pridmore and Har-
ling Stalker (2009) suggest that such a reflexive pedagogical approach can
assist learners in developing their sociological imagination, examining their
approach to instruction while acknowledging their social locations/positions.
All 24 learners completed the task. As was the case in the first example, one
student with additional needs appeared to misunderstand the task, highlight-
ing to me that further work was needed regarding the suitability of the task for
particular learners. Another student focused on others’ views instead of their
own, which was not what I had asked for, but this perhaps demonstrated the
power for that student of being afforded agency through the set task. The zines
produced were of varying length and formats, and utilized a range of resources.
Some focused on one main theme while others were more varied. This led me
 A Teacher’s Reflections on Zine-Making • 151

to consider whether provision of resources (e.g. magazines to cut from, scissors,

glue) could have been beneficial, as some students perhaps were limited in what
they had to hand. Conversely, since it is in the nature of zine creation that one
works with that to which one has access, perhaps my concern merely reflected
my own narrow expectations regarding the appearance of zines.
Issues and topics covered in the zines were varied, with some recurring
themes. Reading the zines made me think about topics and issues I could
employ in the classroom when starting to consider sociological concepts on
the basis of ideas with which learners were already familiar, or opinions they
held about society. It was also beneficial to “hear” the voices of learners who
struggled to participate in classroom discussion. One of the most profound
revelations for me was seeing the level of societal awareness of some learners.
The zines were mostly negative and/or critical in tone, and half made reference
to stereotyping. I had erroneously assumed a “typical” 16- or 17-year-old to be
somewhat apathetic regarding societal issues, which reflected in my teaching
of sociology. Conversely, however, the zines demonstrated that, while learners
may not have always expressed their ideas openly in class, they were aware of
particular issues and could offer interesting, critical insight.
Once we had briefly covered some key sociological perspectives (func-
tionalism, Marxism, feminism, interactionism and postmodernism) in class,
I asked learners to analyze their zines, reflecting on which perspectives they
thought had emerged from or were reflected in them. I collected both the zines
and reflections to read and feed back. All bar one learner had attempted the
requested analysis. The students were all able to link their zines to sociological
perspectives covered on the course, with one unable to explain the link, indi-
cating that I should perhaps provide further guidance in future. Some learners
were more detailed in their application than others. Perhaps it would have
been beneficial for me to have provided more structure and criteria for writ-
ing analyses; however, this might have undermined other (punk and anarchist
pedagogical) benefits of having less structure. A cycle of application, reflection
and experimentation, such as outlined by Kolb (1984) and Gibbs (1981), may
help to identify where this balance is best struck. As such, the written feedback
I provided was minimal, but offered links between their zines and sociological
perspectives that students may have not considered.

Conclusion: Zines as Punk Pedagogical Tools

As demonstrated throughout this volume, a “do-it-yourself ” (DIY) ethos is fre-
quently advocated as part of punk pedagogy. Although this chapter focused
on teacher-initiated and individually focused zine creation, I aimed in my
teaching and facilitating of the classes to highlight ways in which creating
zines can encompass DIY and collaborative punk pedagogical values (Gor-
don 2012; Grimes and Wall 2015; Smith and Gillett 2015). The DIY ethos also
152 • Laura Way

underpinned my rationale for asking learners to create zines in the first exam-
ple; I was dissatisfied with the institutional learner survey they were required
to complete, and so found an alternative method of gathering learner feedback
on my course and teaching.
Critical, anarchist and punk pedagogues alike recognize and challenge tra-
ditional models of teaching and learning that position a teacher as bearer of
knowledge and students as empty vessels to be filled (Froehlich and Smith 2017;
Kallio, this volume). Torrez (2012, 133) argues that “education [should be] a
fundamentally empowering, liberating, and healing cycle of reciprocity between
teacher and learner”, relating to her vision of a punk pedagogy that breaks with
normative modes of institutional education. Similarly, Kahn-Egan (2008) pro-
poses that punk pedagogy should move away from models of passive learning.
As such, the making of zines in the classroom can be seen as empowering and
liberating punk pedagogical practice, wherein learners are active creators and
agents in their own learning; this recalls Yang’s aforementioned (2012) use of
zines in the biology classroom. Based on my own and my students’ reflections,
zines clearly have the capacity for allowing learners to be active creators; how-
ever, as I realized, care must be taken not to constrain this potential, through
ensuring the creative task is not too prescriptive, and by not limiting, or making
too many assumptions about, the resources available to learners.
As noted in my second example, zines can also provide those learners who
may not so readily vocalize their opinions and thoughts in class, an arena in
which they can “speak”—that is, a means of achieving authentic, personal
expression that traditional pedagogical models can elide. This may have been
effective in this particular example, in part because of how large the class was.
Armaline (2009) points out that an anarchist pedagogy aims to maximize the
voices of all involved—zines may provide a valuable pedagogical tool in achiev-
ing this. Zines, therefore, have the potential to empower learners who may feel
marginalized. Zines can thus help students to bring theoretical concepts to
bear upon their personal experiences, values and perspectives; in the second
example, I noted an emerging criticality among the learners when reflecting on
society and societal issues. Zines can thus provide an opportunity for learners
to demonstrate and/or develop critical awareness, drawing together their socio-
logical training and their interaction with the world. Developing this type of
consciousness (Dines 2015) and criticality (Kahn-Egan 2008) are both impor-
tant elements of punk pedagogy.

Closing Reflections
In this chapter I have discussed merits and pitfalls of using zines in the class-
room, embedded within my wider reflexive practice as an educator, feminist,
sociologist and punk. Zine making can offer learners the opportunities to feed
back to teachers in a way not available to them through other institutional
 A Teacher’s Reflections on Zine-Making • 153

channels; it helps students to express ideas in a non-verbal way, which may

be particular suited to some; it can also provoke learners to engage with their
own positionality in linking their own and others’ ideas and understandings to
wider social experiences of the world.
From my perspective as an educator, reflecting on these two instances of
zine-making in the classroom has brought me to consider how I could use
zines again in my future teaching and learning practice. Care needs to be
taken regarding the freedom that learners have in creating; as such, in any
future zine-making I would aim sensitively to curate, facilitate and recognize
manifestations of that freedom. More extreme notions and forms of freedom
associated with punk might need to be tempered better to accommodate and
support all learners in the classroom—however anathema the notion of com-
promise might appear in the context of punk practice! Further thought needs
to be given to ways of managing zine creation with learners presenting addi-
tional needs, so as to support them in helping them fully to understand and
create zines.

Note
1. “Further education” in a UK context refers to the post-compulsory education sector that offers
vocational training and/or access to higher education.

References
Anderson, Leon. 2006. “Analytic Autoethnography.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 35:
373–395.
Antliff, Allan. 2012. “Afterword: Let the Riots Begin.” In Anarchist Pedagogies: Collective Actions,
Theories, and Critical Reflections on Education, edited by Robert H. Howorth, 326–328. Oak-
land, CA: PM Press.
Armaline, William T. 2009. “Thoughts on Anarchist Pedagogy and Epistemology.” In Contemporary
Anarchist Studies: An Introductory Anthology of Anarchy in the Academy, edited by Randall
Amster, Abraham DeLeon, Luis Fernandez, Anthony J. Nocella II, and Deric Shannon. Lon-
don: Routledge.
Averett, Paige. 2009. “The Search for Wonder Woman: An Autoethnography of Feminist Identity.”
Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work 24, 4: 360–368.
Boud, David, Rosemary Keogh, and David Walker. 2013. “Promoting Reflection in Learning: A
Model.” In Boundaries of Adult Learning, edited by Richard Edwards, Ann Hanson, and Peter
Raggatt. London: Routledge.
Congdon, Kristin G., and Doug Blandy. 2003. “Zinesters in the Classroom: Using Zines to
Teach About Postmodernism and the Communication of Ideas.” Art Education 56, 3:
44–52.
Creasap, Kimberly. 2014. “Zine-Making as Feminist Pedagogy.” Feminist Teacher 24, 3: 155–168.
Cubesville, Richard. No date. The Vegan’s Guide to People Arguing With Vegans. [no publisher].
Delamont, Sara. 2007. “Arguments Against Auto-Ethnography.” Paper presented at the British
Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Institute of Education, University of
London, September 5–8.
Delamont, Sara, Paul Atkinson, and Lesley Pugsley. 2010. “The Concept Smacks of Magic: Fighting
Familiarity Today.” Teaching and Teacher Education 26, 1: 3–10.
Dines, Mike. 2015. “Learning Through Resistance: Contextualisation, Creation and Incorporation
of a Punk Pedagogy.” Journal of Pedagogic Development 5, 3: 20–31.
154 • Laura Way

Duncombe, Stephen. 2008. Notes From the Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Cul-
ture. Bloomington, IN: Microcosm.
Ellis, Carolyn. 2004. The Ethnographic I. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.
Froehlich, Hildegard C., and Gareth Dylan Smith. 2017. Sociology for Music Teachers: Practical
Applications, 2nd edition. New York: Routledge.
Gauntlett, David. 2007. Creative Explorations: New Approaches to Identities and Audiences. Oxon:
Routledge.
Giroux, Henry A. 2002. “Public Pedagogy and the Politics of Resistance: Notes on a Critical Theory
of Educational Struggle.” Educational Philosophy and Theory 35, 1: 5–16.
Goodson, Ivor, Nigel P. Short, and Lydia Turner. 2013. Contemporary British Autoethnography. Rot-
terdam: Sense.
Gordon, Alastair. 2012. “Building Recording Studios While Bradford Burned.” In Punkademics: The
Basement Show in the Ivory Tower, edited by Zack Furness, 105–124. Brooklyn, NY: Minor
Compositions.
Griffin, Maureen L. 2003. “Using Critical Incidents to Promote and Assess Reflective Thinking in
Preservice Teachers.” Reflective Practice 4, 2: 207–220.
Grimes, Matt, and Tim Wall. 2015. “Punk Zines: ‘Symbols of Defiance’ From the Print to the Digital
Age.” In Fight Back: Punk, Politics and Resistance, edited by Matthew Worley. Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
Guzzetti, Barbara J., Leslie M. Foley, and Mellinee Lesley. 2015. “Nomadic Knowledge: Men Writing
Zines for Content Learning.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 58, 7: 591–601.
Hanisch, Carol. 1970. “The Personal Is Political.” In Notes From the Second Year: Women’s Libera-
tion: Major Writings of the Radical Feminists, edited by S. Firestone and A. Koedt. New York:
Notes (From The Second Year).
Hayler, Mike. 2011. Autoethnography, Self-Narrative and Teacher Education. Rotterdam: Sense.
Kahn-Egan, Seth. 2008. “Pedagogy of the Pissed: Punk Pedagogy in the First-Year Writing Class-
room.” College Composition and Communication 49, 1: 99–104.
Kempson, Michelle. 2015. “ ‘My Version of Femininity’: Subjectivity, DIY and the Feminist Zine.”
Social Movement Studies 14, 4: 459–472.
Klein, Sheri. 2010. “Creating Zines in Preservice Art Teacher Education.” Art Education 63, 1: 40–46.
Lake, Jonathan. 2015. “Autoethnography and Reflexive Practice: Reconstructing the Doctoral The-
sis Experience.” Reflexive Practice 16, 5: 677–687.
Larrivee, Barbara. 2000. “Transforming Teaching Practice: Becoming the Critically Reflective
Teacher.” Reflective Practice 1: 293–307.
Loughran, John. 2002. “Effective Reflective Practice: In Search of Meaning in Learning About
Teaching.” Journal of Teacher Education 53, 1: 33–43.
Marcus, Sara. 2010. Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution. New York: Harper
Perennial.
Pridmore, Jason, and Lynda Harling Stalker. 2009. “Reflexive Pedagogy and the Sociological Imagi-
nation.” Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge 7, 3: 27–36.
Prinsloo, Paul, Sharon Slade, and Fenella Galpin. 2011. “A Phenomenographic Analysis of Student
Reflections in Online Learning Diaries.” Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and
e-Learning 26, 1: 27–38.
Ramazanoğlu, Caroline, and Janet Holland. 2002. Feminist Methodology: Challenges and Choices.
London: SAGE.
Richardson, Laurel, and Elizabeth Adams St Pierre. 2005. “Writing: A Method of Inquiry.” In The
Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, edited by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln.
Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Smith, Gareth D., and Alex Gillett. 2015. “Creativities, Innovation and Networks in Garage Punk
Rock: A Case Study of the Eruptörs.” Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts 4,
1: 9–24.
Sparkes, Andrew C. 2000. “Autoethnography and Narratives of Self: Reflections on Criteria in
Action.” Sociology of Sport Journal 17: 21–43.
Suresh Canagarajah, Athelstan. 2012. “Teacher Development in a Global Profession: An Autoeth-
nography.” TESOL Quarterly 46, 2: 258–279.
Torrez, Estrella. 2012. “Punk Pedagogy.” In Punkademics: The Basement Show in the Ivory Tower,
edited by Zack Furness, 131–142. Brooklyn, NY: Minor Compositions.
Wall, Sarah. 2006. “An Autoethnography on Learning About Autoethnography.” International Jour-
nal of Qualitative Methods 5, 2: 146–160.
 A Teacher’s Reflections on Zine-Making • 155

Wan, Amy J. 1999. “Not Just for Kids Anymore: Using Zines in the Classroom.” Radical Teacher
55: 15–19.
Warren, John T. 2011. “Reflexive Teaching: Toward Critical Autoethnographic Practices of/in/on
Pedagogy.” Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies 11, 2: 139–144.
Yang, Andrew. 2010. “Engaging Participatory Literacy Through Science Zines.” American Biology
Teacher 72, 9: 573–577.
 11
Give Violence a Chance:
Emancipation and Escape in/
from School Music Education
ALEXIS ANJA KALLIO

Introduction
At first glance, there may well be few things in this world less punk than the
secondary school music classroom. Indeed, it has been noted that the intro-
duction of “youth music” to formal teaching and learning has been an efficient
means to render any music as decidedly uncool (Allsup 2010)—perhaps all the
more true with punk, arguably enjoyed by more middle-aged teachers than
teenage students. Yet, popular musics have been seen in contemporary music
education philosophy and practice as an efficient means to connect with young
students, bridging the divide between music in schools and their “real world”
musical experiences. Particularly in Nordic classrooms, popular music has
been justified as a means to attend to the inherent diversity of student popu-
lations through motivating and engaging all students in accessible, authentic
music-making. As such, popular musics are constructed as particularly dem-
ocratic, playing a key role in “creating learning environments and methods,
which break the rules of tradition, the conventional, and the taken-for-granted”
(Westerlund 2002, 216). Such characterizations of a student-led, anti-hierarchi-
cal classroom may seem amenable to the inclusion of punk musics and their
associated anti-authoritarian, do-it-yourself, rebellious ideologies. Similarly,
the notion of punk pedagogies—as enquiry-based, critical approaches that pro-
mote student empowerment and social responsibility (Dines 2015, 22)—may
also align with these participatory ideals. Punk musics and/or pedagogies may
thus hold promises for teachers looking to enact the democratic potentials of
music education through challenging of the status quo—asking how we “define
music learning and what prevents people, processes, and performances from
enacting positive and meaningful transformative change?” (O’Neill 2012, 178).
However, it is important to note that the music classroom is not neutral ter-
rain across which teachers guide change in their students, leading them towards
becoming more knowledgeable, skilful, musical, socially responsible, active,
moral citizens. Although it has been argued that plurality and the possibility

156
 Give Violence a Chance • 157

for change are preconditions of democracy (e.g. Westerlund 2002), the school
context does not, and arguably cannot or should not, allow for pluralities of
absolutely any sort, or changes in absolutely any direction. After all, schooling
is as much a moral enterprise as an academic one. This raises questions as to the
extent to which a punk ethos (as underlies either/both musics or pedagogies)
can serve as an arena for the democratization of music education through pop-
ular music. Do the “dialogue, shared meaning making, and sociocultural and
sociopolitical associations” (O’Neill 2012, 179) of the school community wel-
come punk on its own terms? Or is punk included only insofar as it emphasizes
a “failure to conform” (Dewey MW4: 278) to the established moral boundaries
of the classroom? Is punk accepted within certain limits—with students told,
“explore, but don’t go too far”? (Allsup 2016, 12). Drawing upon the philosophi-
cal writings of French philosopher Jacques Rancière, and the context of popular
music education in Finland, I here argue that punk musics or pedagogies may
unsettle the democratic project of music education, offering an alternative
to transformative approaches to music education that risk imposing narrow
visions of what constitutes the right and the good. I thus pose the question: if
punk can be included in a way that avoids the pasteurization of the politics so
often positioned in opposition to the progress-oriented, regulated, adult worlds
of which school is a part, what will become of our students?

“Welcome to Paradise”1: Claiming Space for

Punk in a Democratic School Music Education
The Finnish public school system has often been promoted in international
forums as a paradise for popular music education. Most classrooms are equipped
with guitars, keyboards, drums and microphones, and lessons have been said to
resemble the working model of a garage band (Westerlund 2006). Introduced
as part of the first comprehensive school curriculum at the turn of the 1970s,
popular musics now hold an established place in school repertoires and tertiary
music teacher education programmes. Similarly to other Nordic music educa-
tion systems, this embrace of popular musics has been justified from a number
of standpoints, each of which supports a vision of teaching and learning that
stipulates that school music education should not only prepare students for par-
ticipation in democratic societies, but be democratic in and of itself (Kallio 2015).
Foregrounding inclusion and participation, democracy here refers to Gandin
and Apple’s (2002) concept of thick democracy, concerned with producing an
active citizenry. In searching for a place for punk in the thick democracy of the
music classroom, I begin this chapter with an outline of the primary justifica-
tions for including popular music in school curricula more broadly, considering
how punk affirms, or perhaps upsets, these inclusive, participatory ideals.
In opposition to reductionist approaches to education that limited teaching
materials to a narrow corpus of masterworks (e.g. Bloom 1987; Hirsch 1988),
158 • Alexis Anja Kallio

contemporary music education scholarship, both in Finland and interna-

tionally, has sought to serve increasingly heterogeneous student populations
through a broadening of classroom repertoires. The narrow focus on “high
art” was seen to promote singular understandings of musical value, simultane-
ously excluding students who did not identify with classical, Western ideals. In
addressing this marginalization of other musics and values, it has been argued
that multicultural classrooms are also multimusical (Reimer 1993). The inclu-
sion of popular music, as youth culture, has thus been seen as a means to reach
out to all students by representing the (musical) cultures they are presumed
to identify with and enjoy. In other words, the inclusion of Other musics has
been seen as a means to include Other students. In attending to this multimusi-
cality of school classrooms and drawing upon students’ out-of-school musical
worlds, Bennett Reimer (1984/2009) considered it “fruitless to deem any par-
ticular style of music, say, as inherently more or less worthy than any other
style” (199). However, it was also suggested that qualitative judgements could
be made within any given style or genre, and the teacher’s task was thus to
lead students towards cultivated appreciation through listening (185). Such an
approach establishes a hierarchy of popular musics not so dissimilar to the hier-
archies that distinguished “high art” from the merely popular, not to mention
a hierarchy of musical engagements through the prioritization of apprecia-
tive listening.2 The teacher’s role as expert was similarly undisturbed, with the
assumed ability to select musical goods from oceans of mass media–oriented
flotsam and jetsam—even with regard to what was commonly seen as the music
belonging to, and enjoyed by, the young. As such, while attending to the mul-
timusicality of classroom populations may have changed the soundtrack of the
classroom, such justifications for the introduction of popular musics to school
curricula were still only a small step towards thick democracy.
International calls to broaden classroom repertoires as an ethical response
to multiculturalism may be seen to conceive of music as cultural artefact,
with the learning and appreciation of different musics allowing for the learn-
ing and appreciation of the different cultures to which the musics “belong”.
However, more recent philosophical work, particularly that associated with
praxialism, has reconsidered music in the classroom from artefact to social
activity. This has been articulated through David Elliott’s (1995) definition of
music as a verb, “to music”, through his term musicing. In learning from con-
texts beyond the Western classical music tradition, praxialism has called for
a considerable shift in classroom emphasis, from passive engagements with
music as artefact (textual or auditory), to students actively making music
together. With classrooms assumed to be inherently multimusical, and “the
values and meanings evidenced in actual music making and music listening
in specific cultural contexts” (Elliott 1995, 14), teachers have been instructed
that they can no longer rely upon predetermined criteria in selecting any one
music as best or better. Rather than selecting exemplars from collections of
 Give Violence a Chance • 159

musico-cultural artefacts, the teacher’s role has been reconstructed as facilita-

tor of student meaning-construction, through hands-on experiences of active
music-making. This celebratory focus upon musical doings has somewhat
foreclosed critical questions of which musics are to be included as part of
classroom activities, seen as intricately related to the “why and who” of music-
making. As Elliott and Silverman (2015) explain, teachers should “look to
themselves and their own teaching circumstances” when selecting material
for the classroom (406). Furthermore, in line with the democratic purpose of
popular musics in the classroom, students have also been invited to partici-
pate in decisions regarding lesson content, as teachers ask, “what do they want
to achieve now, this minute, and what is the main thing they need to achieve
it?” (Green 2008, 34).
Adding to the justification for popular musics in the classroom as a way of
attending to students’ own musical preferences and experiences has been an
underlying belief that popular musics are more accessible and readily intelli-
gible for novice learners. With the classroom focus on music-making, putting
together a complete pop song during class time has been seen as a feasible goal
for teachers and students, at least when compared to achieving the same feat
within the realm of Western art musics. Consequently, accessible pop/rock
musics (ostensibly enjoyed and owned by the young) have been seen not only
as democratic through enhancing participatory opportunities, but also as offer-
ing more authentic musical experiences. Bridging the divide between music
in the “real” world and music in schools has also demanded new pedagogi-
cal approaches. This has perhaps been most notably expressed in Lucy Green’s
(2002) seminal work that looked at “How Popular Musicians Learn” in seeking
alternatives to the rigid master-apprenticeship pedagogical traditions associ-
ated with the teaching and learning of Western art musics. Popular music was
thus seen to open up student-centred teaching and learning spaces, guided by
the ideals of equality and inclusion.
Such an authentic, inclusive and democratic approach to music education,
affording students opportunities to participate in decision making and hands-
on music-making, has not only been promoted as a means to empower the
individual but also to foster a sense of community. Community, manifest in the
ability to speak in terms of we or us, may be understood as hinged on at least
the ideal of, if not actual, agreement. However, as seen in Dewey’s exclamation
that “there is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community,
and communication” (MW9:7), this does not mean that there is no room for
difference or dissent. If learning is experiential—as Dewey and many others
have claimed, and as has underpinned much of the turn towards music-making
in the classroom—it takes place in reference to “the whole matrix within which
the human being confronts the world—the material and social environment,
the ever-changing flux of every-day life” (Westerlund 2002, 49). Indeed, con-
frontation is an essential component of teaching and learning, if the task of
160 • Alexis Anja Kallio

schooling is to change our unreflective habits and actions that function in line
with “stupid and rigid convention” (Dewey MW14: 15).
This may sound like fertile soil for punk in the classroom, given punk’s pro-
pensity for the provocative. However, the academic and social goals of school
music education raise questions with regard to how conflict is navigated, and to
what ends. As government-funded and mandated institutions intended to serve
all and contribute towards a democratic society, schools bear a considerable
burden of social responsibility, both reflecting and constructing understand-
ings of the right and good, and also the deviant and deleterious. With this in
mind, the extent to which punk songs such as NOFX’s “Drugs Are Good”
(1995) or Pennywise’s “Fuck Authority” (2001) can, or should, be included in
school activities raises questions regarding whose values and ideals construct
the school community. Similarly, which (or whose) punk ethos one welcomes
through classroom doors holds serious implications—is the punk ethos,
by definition, “progressive”? What of the “ ‘darker side’ of punk’s politics . . .
representing right-wing and fascist ideologies?” (Phillipov 2006, 387). With-
out critically attending to popular music meanings as historically, ideologically
and also institutionally constructed, music education runs the risk of includ-
ing musics—and students—that already align with the ideals and values of the
majority, and excluding or marginalizing those that stand in opposition. Rather
than the multimusical, democratic ideals of equality whereby all students are
included, this may instead (re-)enforce “systems of domination that assimilate
and eradicate difference” (Laes and Kallio 2016, 81).

“The Kids Aren’t Alright”: Is Punk Too Punk for

School Music Education?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, punk is often referred to as one of the many popular
musics “cast in antipathy to education” (Green 2002, 159), existing in opposi-
tion to the ideals and values of many school communities. Indeed, North and
Hargreaves (2008) include punk in their category of problem music, and the
genre is often essentialized as a noisy, rebellious counterculture (at least when
considered in relation to “school culture”). Similarly, the notion of punk peda-
gogies leaves many an educator scratching their heads (Dines 2015), unsure
how the anti-establishment ethos might gel with the policies and practices
of formal education institutions. However, punk—as music, ethos or peda-
gogical approach—is not inherently immoral or problematic, and defining
punk as school-appropriate or otherwise may be understood as a political
act of legitimation in and of itself. Considering how it is that punk comes
to be defined as problematic, it is worth noting that such conceptualiza-
tions do not necessarily arise as the result of a one-directional authoritarian
decision—such as a teacher telling a student that their favourite punk song is
inappropriate to play in class. Rather, labels such as “problem music” may be
 Give Violence a Chance • 161

seen as ongoing processes of deviantization, arising from competing ideologi-

cal and moral agendas (Kallio 2015).
As negotiations take place with regard to what is good music, and what
music is good for, teachers’ situational classroom repertoire decisions require
ethical deliberation if the ideals of democracy are to be upheld and enacted.
Allsup and Westerlund (2012) state that teachers “must be more than a wit-
ness to student freedom” (134), and should contradict the values and ideals of
students’ musical selections if they are not in keeping with those of the school.
Rather than a laissez-faire “anything goes” approach to repertoire selection,
they argue that “an ethically conceived informalist methodology must struggle
openly with the possible contradictions of educational ends (the cultivation
of citizenship, plurality, moral and disciplinary knowledge) and sociological
ends (the cultivation of individuality, identity formation, social inclusion, and
in-groups/out-groups)” (Allsup and Westerlund 2012, 134). This retains the
teacher’s position as expert, if not in relation to content (what is good music),
then in relation to ethical and educational ends of teaching and learning (what
music ought to be good for). Even if we agree with Allsup’s later (2016) claim
that “equipping students with the tools, musical and otherwise, not merely to
respond or adapt to change but to consciously shape and direct one’s future is
a moral end of school and university” (110), there is still a need to continu-
ally interrogate whose morals define the success of such critical awareness, and
whose “dubious values” (Woodford 2014, 30) lie outside the enforced moral
boundaries of the school. Indeed, it is necessary to question whose values con-
struct the moral boundaries of schooling in the first place, and who ought to
act as enforcer.
Thus, although taking ethical dimensions of teaching and learning into con-
sideration may (re-)construct music education as seeking or embracing open
encounters (e.g. Allsup 2016), these are not necessarily philosophies of open
ends. Beyond musical or educational ends (however one might define these),
recent music education philosophies have been concerned with the moral ends
of music education, through embarking upon a quest, if not for certainty,3 for
the better. The risk of conceiving music education as transformative practice is
that difference is all too easily positioned as a challenge to overcome, assimi-
lating students into the norms and values of the school community, or rather,
who the constantly evolving school community is envisioned to become. In
this sense, processes of becoming are emphasized just as much as they are in
aesthetic or other traditions, adding morality to the agenda of “students becom-
ing more musical, becoming more confident, becoming more tolerant, becoming
more knowledgeable, becoming more technically proficient, becoming more like
us” (Laes and Kallio 2016, 81). The inherent problem with this unwavering
focus on becoming is that it requires inequality—a division between those who
are less and more moral, less and more critically aware, less and more eman-
cipated. This echoes what Jacques Rancière (1991) has referred to as the myth
162 • Alexis Anja Kallio

of pedagogy: “the parable of a world divided into knowing minds and ignorant
ones, ripe minds and immature ones, the capable and the incapable, the intel-
ligent and the stupid” (6). The teacher’s work is then to explicate the true and
the good, leading students out of ignorance and immorality.
The transformative work in guiding or cultivating students’ becoming can
also be seen in sociologist Howard Becker’s (1963) figure of the moral entrepre-
neur, who is “not only interested in seeing to it that other people do what he
thinks is right. He believes that if they do what is right it will be good for them”
(148). The teacher’s deliberation “between multiple and contradictory ends and
multiple and contradictory ideals” (Allsup and Westerlund 2012, 135) is then
curtailed by a priori assumptions of which (or whose) ends and ideals are desir-
able or normal. In defining the good, in which direction teachers and students
should strive, so in turn the school community defines the deviant. Deviance
here is seen as “behaviour [which includes music, if thought of as social action]
which somehow departs from what a group expects to be done or what it con-
siders the desirable way of doing things” (Cohen 2009, 35). More complex than
this, it has been noted that defining something as deviant

is not a static event but a continuous and changing process. This is so

because . . . it is a way of characterizing and reacting, exhibited by indi-
viduals and groups whose interests and favored values, and their ability
to impose them, vary greatly and in many instances change over time . . .
the distribution of power among persons and groups crucially shapes
deviance outcomes.
(Schur 1980, 66)

In this way, the teacher’s ethical deliberations are contextualised within broader
moral negotiations that draw the line between propriety and the problematic,
as “struggles over competing social definitions” (Schur 1980, 8), referred to by
sociologist Edwin Schur (1980) as stigma contests. These stigma contests arise
as individuals or social groups seek to (re-)enforce their own moral boundar-
ies in order to legitimize or normalize their own epistemological and ethical
perspectives.
As this epistemological and ethical competition produces meanings of
musics, worldviews, actions and so forth as normal, desirable and moral, so
too does it frame others as existing outside of the boundaries of propriety—
the deviant. Morality and deviance are thus two sides of the same proverbial
coin. If punk musics or pedagogies then seem out of place in the school class-
room, it is worth reflecting upon the negotiations of morality/deviance that
construct them as such. Particularly if music education is intended to be inclu-
sive, open, participatory and democratic, who holds the power to construct
what/who is considered normal, productive, moral and desirable (to become)?
Who assigns punk meaning, in which situations, and to what ends? Defining
 Give Violence a Chance • 163

musics such as punk as “problem music” are, in this sense, “not just labels, or
mere words uttered in the heat of the moment, but categories of denunciation
or abuse lodged within very complex, historically loaded practical conflicts
and moral debates” (Sumner 1990, 28)—strategies of domination and control
that potentially work against the participatory ideals of thick democracy in
the music classroom.

“We Don’t Need Freedom”: What Are the Sins of Imposition

We Commit in the Name of Liberation?4
If music education is to be considered as transformative practice, and engage
ethically and openly with “questions of culture . . . issues concerning identity
and identity politics; and in multicultural education” (Biesta 1998, 500), we must
interrogate the relations between schooling as an institution and who is being
schooled, in what and to what ends. As a deviantized music in school contexts,
punk may hold the potential to unsettle the moral boundaries of the dominant
culture and the social stratifications of the status quo, giving rise to more equita-
ble spaces and practices. Seen as not only artefact or activity, but also as ideology
(Lamb 1996), punk music may be construed as a tool of empowerment—with its
inclusion as part of classroom activities holding potential to empower, emanci-
pate and address injustice. However, in light of Rancière’s myth of pedagogy, and
the stigma contests that shape musical meanings, the transformative intentions
of music education may, in practice, function to pasteurize punk, divorcing it
from its social, historical, political and ideological meanings. For instance, in
selecting musical material that is appropriate for the classroom, the teacher
may well find music that “might promote antiviolence, challenge unjust social
conditions, support gender equity, encourage education, critique commercial
interests in the music industry, and/or other prosocial values” (Kruse 2016, 17).
However, this same music may be excluded on the basis of the (musical) means
through which such values are expressed, perhaps adapting musics for the class-
room through changing the musical aesthetics themselves (the acoustic guitars,
keyboards and xylophones commonly found in Finnish classrooms may result
in an arguably less aggressive performance than the instrumentation of a typi-
cal punk band), or changing the lyrics, or selecting “socially conscious”, “clean”
punk songs that do not “rock the boat” too much lest it capsize. This reminds
me of Allsup’s (2016) question: “What if a musical Law, or a social more, were
intentionally violated?” (113). What if the teacher themselves is positioned as
the target of punk’s antiauthoritarian rebellion? What are the challenges then, in
including such a music without re-appropriating the musical and social mean-
ings to align with predetermined, or at least hoped, student becomings? In this
way, well-intentioned attempts at inclusion may not result in the emancipation
of students, but their assimilation through the normalization and (re-)enforce-
ment of mainstream musical and moral boundaries.
164 • Alexis Anja Kallio

With punk musics part of classroom repertoires, so too are the socio-cultural-
political meanings that give rise to, accompany or are borne out of these musics.
In navigating these, teachers are often directed to explicitly address issues of
power and social responsibility. Punk pedagogies, as defined by Dines (2015),
have been discussed as closely related to critical pedagogy, which offers an
important perspective in:

thinking about, negotiating, and transforming the relationships among

classroom teaching, the production of knowledge, the institutional struc-
tures of the school, and the social and material relations of the wider
community, society and nation state.
(McLaren 2000, 345)

The goal of critical popular music pedagogy, and perhaps punk pedagogy, is
then not only the conscientization (Freire 1970) of musical meanings embedded
and produced in socio-political context, but also to take action, through music-
making, towards social justice, empowerment and social change. However, if
we are to heed Rancière’s warnings against stratifications that assume, and are
reliant upon, hierarchies of knowledge, ability, morality and so on, questions
are raised as to the direction of this change: how can we be sure that change is
for the better?
Such questions are nothing new. Indeed, the “progressive agenda” behind
much critical pedagogical work has been long criticized for its abstraction
and obscurity (e.g. Ellsworth 1989). Positioning the teacher as moral entre-
preneur or emancipatory authority appears to rely on a number of certainties
that warrant critical attention, particularly if we take into account the inherent
multimusicality and diversity of classrooms. One of these certainties is the very
need for transformation itself. Research in critical pedagogy, or social justice
in education more broadly, often focuses its gaze on those deemed disadvan-
taged, disaffected or at-risk, notably labelled as such by the critical pedagogue
themselves. For instance, in seeking to close the achievement, or opportunity,
gap, scholars have often sought ways to boost the performance of underachiev-
ing social groups—to include them in the mainstream. Such transformative
visions construct difference (or inequality) as a “retard in one’s development”
(Rancière 1991, 119) by privileging certain musics, cultures and values as the
norm to which we should all aspire to. The punk student may then be seen as
simply going through an awkward adolescent phase that they will grow out of
with guidance and maturity. Non-conformity is thus conflated with a failure to
conform—a deficiency requiring corrective action.
In Rancièrian terms, the inequality fostered here is one that ranks intel-
ligences through positioning the teacher as master, and the student as
deficient—unable to emancipate themselves—through a distribution of the sen-
sible (partage du sensible), a “system of self-evident facts of sense perception
 Give Violence a Chance • 165

that simultaneously discloses the existence of something in common and the

delimitations that define the respective parts and positions within it” (Rancière
2004, 12). With students requiring explication as to not only how to emanci-
pate themselves from oppressive power but how their own welfare ought to
be constituted, such projects of transformation risk manifesting as projects of
assimilation, antithetical to the inclusive, participatory ideals of thick democ-
racy, as seen in Giroux and McLaren’s (1986) explication of critical pedagogical
approaches: “students and teachers can engage in a process of deliberation and
discussion aimed at advancing public welfare in accordance with fundamental
moral judgements and principles” (247). One might ask what the transforma-
tive critical pedagogue might make of the student whose punk music expresses
an opposition to—or rejection of—these fundamental morals, judgements and
principles? Is such an expression even within the realms of the sensible at all?
Another certainty implied in transformative teaching is that power is a
“fixed possession” (Walkerdine 1992, 15), often imposed in a one-directional
torrent of oppression. In turn, freedom may be assumed to be the absence
of such power. Such understandings downplay or negate the complex moral
negotiations and conflicts arising through the stigma contests that produce
meaning, values, morals and ideologies, preventing teachers and students
from critically attending to these processes of normalization and deviantiza-
tion. With the school community (ideally) seen as cohesive, and power seen
as something one possesses (or not) once and for all, teachers and students are
often seen to unite against a common oppressor. However, if the stigma con-
tests of the school are recognized, and power ever-present and ever-negotiated,
the school classroom is itself politicized terrain and home to both oppres-
sors and oppressed. Music education is thus always inclusive and exclusive
(e.g. Kallio 2015; Bowman 1998), the teacher always and both oppressor and
oppressed, liberator and enforcer.
Without a recognition of the conflicts and tensions arising through the
stigma contests that establish the moral boundaries that define who makes up
the school community, the punk music that is included in the critical music
classroom may not be particularly punk after all. Rather, it may be punk ren-
dered impotent, a safe simulation (Ericsson et al. 2010, 113) cleansed of its
socio-political, historical, ideological meanings as an illusion of emancipa-
tion and equality while simultaneously fortifying the non-negotiability of the
(authority-defined) universal truth that serves as educational ends-in-view.
One way in which this may be achieved is through teachers explicating punk
for students, maintaining control over its meanings and value (at least within
the context of school work). Almost three decades ago, Elizabeth Ellsworth
(1989) criticized the assumed “superiority of teachers’ understandings” (307)
that afforded critical pedagogues permission to transform “conflict into rational
argument by means of universalized capacities for language and reason” (Walk-
erdine 1985, 205). Punk’s “apocalyptic mantra ‘no future’, its investment in
166 • Alexis Anja Kallio

detritus, and its desire for shock” (Howes et al. 2016, 3) do not easily align with
the enforcement of “the rules of reason in the classroom” (Ellsworth 1989, 304)
aiming towards universal validity. Students who identify with or enjoy punk are
then not included as equal rational beings, but led by the expert teacher along
the routes of becoming towards full, democratic citizenship. Rancière’s myth of
pedagogy is thus manifest as the teacher is envisioned not as

an aged obtuse master who crams his students’ skulls full of poorly
digested knowledge, or a malignant character mouthing half-truths in
order to shore up his power and the social order. On the contrary, he is
all the more efficacious because he is knowledgeable, enlightened, and of
good faith.
(Rancière 1991, 7)

Rather than enhancing equality and participatory democracy in schools, such

divisions between the powerful and the powerless, the knowledgeable and the
ignorant, the rational and the irrational, the pedagogue and the punk, may be
seen to inform a transformative education that is dependent on the perpetua-
tion of social inequality. Indeed, “[o]ne need only learn how to be equal men
[sic] in an unequal society” (Rancière 1991, 133).

“Give Violence a Chance”: Punk as an Escape Route

So how else might music education approach the “questions of culture  .  .  .
issues concerning identity and identity politics; and in multicultural educa-
tion”? (Biesta 1998, 500). Might there be a place in the school music classroom
for punk music to be included on its own terms? Can music education offer
transformative experiences without predetermined destinations in mind with
regard to who we would like our students to become? How might we broaden
our ideas of who constitutes the we of the school community to enact the ide-
als of democratic participation? In concluding this chapter, I put forward one
suggestion for what might constitute punk pedagogies in the school music
classroom, and what they might offer teachers and students as they engage
with the negotiations and conflicts over meaning, values and morals that politi-
cize classroom content and activities. I argue that punk pedagogies, imagined
through Rancière’s understanding of emancipation, “may enable teachers and
students to engage in critical reflections and negotiations that extend beyond
fixed notions of what constitutes a good music, or a good student” (Kallio
2015, 105)—escaping the dichotomies of inclusion/exclusion that have thus far
framed approaches to music education aiming towards thick democracy.
When freedom is understood as the absence of power, emancipatory or
transformative music education cannot allow for students’ multiple, and at times
conflicting, becomings. If music education is to avoid such well-intentioned
 Give Violence a Chance • 167

exclusion and assimilation, it is necessary to move beyond assumptions of a

foundational principle of a community that explicates what it is that those who
are unequal should be emancipated from, and by whom. Rather than envi-
sioning the school community in terms of an included majority and excluded
minorities, Rancière’s thesis of radical equality conceives of a community that
is continually negotiated and reconfigured. What this thesis offers in terms
of transformative pedagogies is an escape from governance and control—an
escape from emancipation as a process of becoming itself. What is the eman-
cipatory, transformative, critical pedagogue to do, then? In his book Hatred of
Democracy (2006), Rancière states, “democracy first of all means this: anar-
chic ‘government,’ one based on nothing other than the absence of every title
to govern” (41). Such a statement does not imply that society need do away
with government, or in this case, teaching, but challenges any justification
for making a “distinction between those who occupy the position of govern-
ing and those who do not” (May 2012, 119). In other words, the teacher is
not positioned as one who knows more, or who knows better, who can guide
or emancipate the student. Quotation marks around the word “government”
furthermore unsettle what it is such guidance might be or in what direction it
might guide. This embrace of uncertainty aligns with anarchist pedagogies that
aim not towards a new social order, but towards “freer and more critical minds,
and more open, cooperative and nonoppressive relationships within society”
(Mueller 2012, 14). This multiplicity and openness of (educational) ends may
well serve as the basis of punk pedagogies, offering not emancipation but escape
(Rancière 1995).
Through escaping minoritized positions, or the structuring of society
(through education), punk pedagogies entail a “rupture in the order of things”
(Rancière 2003, 219); a “removal from the naturalness of a place” (Rancière
1995, 36); a troubling of certainty; a shock. Punk pedagogies, as pedagogies
that antagonize and disrupt, might both identify and subvert the power hier-
archies of the school classroom. By rejecting the “inhibiting constraints of
conformity . . . [as] an oppositional tendency that seeks to unmask the sources
of power, hoping to reveal their exploitive nature, disseminating the truth the
way it is perceived and  .  .  . potentially [serving] the function of an organic
intellectual” (Kristiansen et al. 2010, 145), punk pedagogies refocus attention
from the idealized destination to the stigma contests that construct social, cul-
tural and musical meaning. Such pedagogical approaches require attending to
what, or who, constitutes the social in the first place. The teacher is then not
simply a witness to student freedom as Allsup and Westerlund (2012) cau-
tion, as such a freedom is impossible. Yet, neither is the teacher guiding the
students out of ignorance, or oppression, as such a liberatory approach “runs
the risk of being duplicitous, engaging in circular processes of manumission,
unreflectively partaking in the very . . . processes of domination and oppres-
sion it aims to eradicate” (Kallio 2015, 99). The multiple and multi-directional
168 • Alexis Anja Kallio

power relations inherent in the school music classroom, and the inclusion and
exclusion resulting from them, are then not necessarily bad, nor good; they
quite simply are.
Following from a recognition of power, inclusion and exclusion as omnipres-
ent, interrelated and even necessary aspects of classroom work, deviantization
is not necessarily experienced as a negative. Thinking about deviance dif-
ferently, punk may be seen to find refuge in its exclusion from mainstream
legitimized repertoires and norms, and exclusion is thus a source of power in
itself. Punk pedagogies, in this way, do not seek to overcome difference by invit-
ing the Outsiders of music education into mainstream policies and practices,
but to embrace difference as of “political value, a means of preserving certain
practices and dimensions of existence from regulatory power, from normative
violence” (Brown 1998, 314). Through enacting ruptures to the status quo, and
regarding difference as a resource for, rather than hindrance to, learning, punk
pedagogies seen through a Rancièrian perspective position equality as the start-
ing point of education rather than a goal to strive towards. Emancipation is thus
the verification of equality, “a struggle for equality which can never be merely
a demand upon the other, nor a pressure put upon him, but always simultane-
ously a proof given to oneself ” (Rancière 1995, 48). The potentials of punk
pedagogies might then lie deep within, or even beyond, thick democracy, in
the escape from the mainstreaming of majoritarian worldviews and value sys-
tems, within the school system itself. This escape is enacted by (re-)politicizing
classroom spaces as multiple and complex, engaging with disruptions that arise
through communication and conflict, interrogating the processes of devian-
tization that legitimize and exclude, and giving violence, in all its destructive
potency, a chance.

Notes
1. In keeping with Elliott’s (1995) claim that music is social action rather than artefact, the subtitles
for this chapter are drawn from musics that were, and are, part of my own becomings—Welcome
to Paradise (Green Day, 1992); The Kids Aren’t Alright (Offspring 1998); We Don’t Need Freedom
(Saccharine Trust 1981); Give Violence a Chance (G.L.O.S.S. 2016).
2. Divisions between means of engaging with musical works in the classroom have been furthered
since the mid-1970s by scholars such as Keith Swanwick (2016), who distinguishes between five
parameters of musical experience: composition, literature studies, audition, skill acquisition and
performance (30).
3. Cautions against a “quest for certainty” appear already in John Dewey’s writings, but also more
recently in those of Zygmunt Bauman for example.
4. Orner, M. (1992, 77).

References
Allsup, Randall E. 2010. “On Pluralism, Inclusion, and Musical Citizenship.” Nordic Research in
Music Education Yearbook 12: 9–30.
Allsup, Randall E. 2016. Remixing the Classroom: Toward an Open Philosophy of Music Education.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
 Give Violence a Chance • 169

Allsup, Randall E., and Heidi Westerlund. 2012. “Methods and Situational Ethics in Music Educa-
tion.” Action, Criticism and Theory for Music Education 11: 124–148.
Becker, Howard. 1963. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: Free Press.
Biesta, Gert J. J. 1998. “Say You Want a Revolution . . . Suggestions for the Impossible Future of
Critical Pedagogy.” Educational Theory 48, 4: 499–510.
Bloom, Allan. 1987. The Closing of the American Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Bowman, Wayne D. 1998. “Universalism, Relativism, and Music Education.” Bulletin of the Council
for Research in Music Education 135: 1–20.
Brown, Nancy. 1998. “Freedom’s Silences.” In Censorship and Silencing: Practices of Cultural Regula-
tion, edited by Robert Post, 313–327. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute for the History
of Art and the Humanities.
Cohen, Stanley. 2009. Against Criminology, 4th edition. Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Dewey, John. “The Middle Works: 1899–1924 (MW).” In The Collected Works of John Dewey 1882–
1953, edited by J. A. Boydston 1969–1991. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Dines, Mike. 2015. “Learning Through Resistance: Contextualization, Creation and Incorporation
of a ‘Punk Pedagogy’.” Journal of Pedagogic Development 5, 3: 20–31.
Elliott, David J. 1995. Music Matters: A New Philosophy of Music Education. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Elliott, David J., and Marissa Silverman. 2015. Music Matters: A Philosophy of Music Education, 2nd
edition. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ellsworth, Elizabeth. 1989. “Why Doesn’t This Feel Empowering? Working Through the Repressive
Myths of Critical Pedagogy.” Harvard Educational Review 59, 3: 297–325.
Ericsson, Claes, Monica Lindgren, and Bo Nilsson. 2010. “The Music Classroom in Focus: Every-
day Culture, Identity, Governance and Knowledge Formation.” Nordic Research in Music
Education Yearbook 12: 101–116.
Freire, Paolo. 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Gandin, Luís A., and Michael Apple. 2002. “Challenging Neo-Liberalism, Building Democracy:
Creating the Citizen School in Porto Alegre, Brazil.” Journal of Education Policy 17, 2: 25–279.
Giroux, Henry, and Peter McLaren. 1986. “Teacher Education and the Politics of Engagement: The
Case for Democratic Schooling.” Harvard Educational Review 56, 3: 213–238.
Green, Lucy. 2002. How Popular Musicians Learn: A Way Ahead for Music Education. Aldershot:
Ashgate.
Green, Lucy. 2008. Music, Informal Learning and the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy. Farnham:
Ashgate.
Hirsch Jr., Eric D. 1988. Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. New York: Vintage
Books.
Howes, Seth, Mirko Hall, and Cyrus Shahan. 2016. “Punk Matters: An Introduction.” In Beyond
No Futures: Cultures of German Punk, edited by Mirko M. Hall, Seth Howes, and Cyrus M.
Shahan. New York: Bloomsbury.
Jorgensen, Estelle. 2003. Transforming Music Education. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Kallio, Alexis A. 2015. Navigating (Un)Popular Music in the Classroom: Censure and Censorship in
an Inclusive, Democratic Music Education. Doctoral dissertation, Sibelius Academy of the
University of the Arts, Helsinki.
Kristiansen, Lars J., Joseph R. Blaney, Philip J. Chidester, and Brent K. Simonds. 2010. Screaming
for Change: Articulating a Unifying Philosophy of Punk Rock. Plymouth: Lexington Books.
Kruse, Adam J. 2016. “Featherless Dinosaurs and the Hip-Hop Simulacrum: Reconsidering Hip-
Hop’s Appropriateness for the Music Classroom.” Music Educators Journal 102, 4: 13–21.
Laes, Tuulikki, and Alexis A. Kallio. 2016. “A Beautiful Cacophony: A Call for Ruptures to Our
‘Democratic’ Music Education.” Finnish Journal of Music Education 18, 2: 80–83.
Lamb, Roberta. 1996. “Discords: Feminist Pedagogy in Music Education.” Theory Into Practice 35,
2: 124–131.
May, Todd. 2012. “Rancière and Anarchism.” In Jacques Rancière and the Contemporary Scene: The
Philosophy of Radical Equality, edited by Jean-Philippe Deranty and Alison Ross, 117–128.
London: Continuum.
McLaren, Peter. 2000. “Critical Pedagogy.” In Knowledge and Power in the Global Economy: Poli-
tics and the Rhetoric of School Reform, edited by David A. Gabbard, 345–352. Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Mueller, Justin. 2012. “Anarchism, the State, and the Role of Education.” In Anarchist Pedago-
gies: Collective Actions, Theories, and Critical Reflections on Education, edited by Robert
H. Haworth, 14–31. Oakland, CA: PM Press.
170 • Alexis Anja Kallio

North, Adrian, and David J. Hargreaves. 2008. The Social and Applied Psychology of Music. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
O’Neill, Susan. 2012. “Becoming a Music Learner: Towards a Theory of Transformative Music
Engagement.” In The Oxford Handbook of Music Education, edited by Gary E. McPherson
and Graham F. Welch, 163–186. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Orner, Mimi. 1992. “Interrupting the Calls for Student Voice in ‘Liberatory’ Education: A Feminist
Post Structuralist Perspective.” In Feminism and Critical Pedagogy, edited by Carmen Luke
and Jennifer Gore, 74–89. New York: Routledge.
Phillipov, Michelle. 2006. “Haunted by the Spirit of ’77: Punk Studies and the Persistence of Poli-
tics.” Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 20, 3: 383–393.
Rancière, Jacques. 1991. The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation. Stan-
ford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Rancière, Jacques. 1995. On the Shores of Politics. London: Verso.
Rancière, Jacques. 2003. The Philosopher and His Poor. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Rancière, Jacques. 2004. The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible . London:
Continuum.
Rancière, Jacques. 2006. Hatred of Democracy. London: Verso.
Reimer, Bennett. 1984/2009. “Choosing Art for Education: Criteria for Quality.” In Seeking the
Significance of Music Education, edited by Bennett Reimer, 191–200. Plymouth: Rowman
& Littlefield.
Reimer, Bennett. 1993. “Music Education in Our Multimusical Culture.” Music Educators Journal
79, 7: 21–26.
Schur, Edwin. 1980. The Politics of Deviance: Stigma Contests and the Uses of Power. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Sumner, Colin. 1990. Censure, Politics and Criminal Justice. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Swanwick, Keith. 2016. A Developing Discourse in Music Education: The Selected Works of Keith
Swanwick. Oxon: Routledge.
Walkerdine, Valerie. 1985. “On the Regulation of Speaking and Silence: Subjectivity, Class, and
Gender in Contemporary Schooling.” In Language, Gender, and Childhood, edited by Car-
olyn Steedman, Cathy Urwin, and Valerie Walkerdine, 203–241. London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul.
Walkerdine, Valerie. 1992. “Progressive Pedagogy and Political Struggle.” In Feminisms and Critical
Pedagogy, edited by Carmen Luke and Jennifer Gore, 15–25. New York: Routledge.
Westerlund, Heidi. 2002. Bridging Experience, Action and Culture in Music Education. Doctoral
dissertation, Sibelius Academy.
Westerlund, Heidi. 2006. “Garage Rock Band: A Future Model for Developing Musical Expertise?”
International Journal for Music Education 24, 2: 119–125.
Woodford, Paul. 2014. “The Eclipse of the Public: A Response to David Elliott’s ‘Music Education
as/for Artistic Citizenship’.” Philosophy of Music Education Review 22, 1: 22–37.
 Part III
Theorizing from Punk
Pedagogical Practice
 12
Being Punk in Higher Education:
Subcultural Strategies for
Academic Practice1
TOM PARKINSON

Introduction
The relationship between punk and formal education is ambiguous and com-
plex. The beginnings of punk’s narrative are typically located in the late 1970s,
against a backdrop of ostentatiously virtuosic rock music, manufactured pop
music and late free-market capitalism (Moore 2012). Punks positioned them-
selves in opposition to these cultural, political and economic status quos, and
to the mainstream institutions that were seen to support the dominant order
(Hebdige 1979). State-funded schools and universities have been portrayed by
many punk artists as an invidious aspect of institutionalized culture, mediating
knowledge in the service of state ideology. In one such example, the Suicidal
Tendencies’ song “Institutionalised” (Muir and Mayorga 1983) plays on the
idea of institutionalization by linking education with mental health. The song’s
protagonist Mike is considered mentally ill by his parents because of his frus-
tration with life and desire to remain in his bedroom all day. This exacerbates
his frustration, which in turn reinforces his parents’ belief that he is mentally
ill. As they inform him he is to be sectioned, Mike replies angrily that he has
already attended their “institutionalised learning facilities” that “brainwash
you until you see their way”, and that it is in fact they who are “crazy” (Muir
and Mayorga 1983). This vignette depicts the common punk theme of mar-
ginalization, in which outsiders are misunderstood, diagnosed and ultimately
subdued by an institutionalized system. In its antagonism towards this system,
punk can be seen as not only non-institutional but an anti-institutional coun-
terculture. The do-it-yourself (DIY) ethics espoused in punk culture promote
the rejection of mainstream cultural infrastructure, and the establishment of a
supposedly emancipated alternative social world through unmediated knowl-
edge sharing and community building (Moore 2010; O’Hara 1999). Thus punk
might be seen to constitute an alternative education system, with its own arte-
facts, practices and foundational ideologies.

173
174 • Tom Parkinson

This oppositional narrative glosses over a history of reflexive engagement

between punk and formal education. In particular, the early punk aesthetic
was in large part formulated by academy-educated artists and musicians famil-
iar with the compositional practices of the postmodern avant-garde (Gordon
2005; Moore 2012). Yet a clear unease surrounds this relationship, issuing from
a sense that it is contradictory and unethical. Much of the discussion of the
punk/education nexus grapples with the problem of how “punkademics” (Fur-
ness 2012) might engage in higher education without compromising their punk
identity and values (e.g. Haworth 2012; Moore 2012), and defend themselves
against “co-optation lurk[ing] around every corner” (Deleon 2012, 315).
Identity is approached in this paper as relating both to “an individual’s iden-
tification with different groups”, and to “an image that we construct of ourselves
[in terms of] humanist notions of individuation, self-actualisation and [.  .  .]
self-awareness” (Kreber 2010, 171). In an academic context, Winter (2009) sug-
gests that “identity schisms” (124) can occur as a result of value conflict at the
nexus of academic and “managerial” identities, particularly when academics
are “engaged in academic work that embodies corporate ideologies, values and
practices [. . .] that conflict with a central valued and salient [professional] self ”
(122). Winter’s conception of academic identity is delimited to academics’ rela-
tive identification with their organization and their profession, amounting to
what Kreber (2010) refers to as the “immediate social context” (172), and as
such does not accommodate consideration of academics’ wider sociocultural
backgrounds. Yet if we understand identity to be “essentially intersubjective,
dialogical and relational in nature” (172), then cultural (including subcultural)
subjectivities that are, prima facie, external to the immediate academic con-
text nonetheless participate in academics’ identity formation, and thus impact
upon their approaches to and experiences of academic practice. Drawing on
interviews with five UK-based academics who self-identify as punk(s), in this
chapter I consider how punk identity might inform academics’ values and
teaching practice. Furthermore, I consider whether punk ethics and practices
might offer helpful responses to the state of contemporary higher education in
the United Kingdom.

Punk and Institutional Education

Punk has been an object of study almost since its emergence (e.g. Hebdige
1979). More recently however, punk has manifested in academe beyond sim-
ply being an artefact, informing research methodologies, academic publishing
and pedagogy. In 2008 for example, Jim Groom, a learning technologist at the
University of Mary Washington, Virginia, used the term “edupunk” to call for
“an EdTech movement towards a vision of liberation and relevance” in pro-
test at online learning platforms such as Blackboard’s “capitalist will to power”
(Groom 2008). Edupunk has since burgeoned into an international movement
 Being Punk in Higher Education • 175

inspired by DIY ethics and punk aesthetics, and promoting autodidactic

approaches to learning. Although the ethics of Edupunk have become somewhat
contested, amid accusations of co-optation, watering down and the “positing
[of] the entrepreneur [. . .] as saviour” (Groom 2010), it has nonetheless thrown
up the possibility of a “third space” based on collaborative social networks that
“route around established disciplines” (Cunnane 2011). Edupunk, Punk Schol-
ars Network and other examples evidence a growing alternative infrastructure
that skirts the periphery of traditional academe, yet is sustained through social
media. Within such spaces, alternative, non-institutional intellectual activity
can intersect with mainstream scholarship, and in so doing disrupt scholarly
norms and boundaries.
Punk’s presence within the university proper has been discussed in a number
of publications, including an edited volume (Furness 2012). Many have sug-
gested an affinity between punk ethics and the critical pedagogy movement
(e.g. Haworth 2012; Malott 2006; Miner and Torrez 2012). Such arguments can
be persuasive, but there are reasons to be cautious. First, as Gordon (2005)
suggests, the ideological heterogeneity of punk defies attempts to assert a set
of common, core ethics; punk has, for example, manifested itself across the
political spectrum from far right to far left and cannot therefore be reduced to
a specific political bent. Second, these comparisons tend to be made in first-
person accounts by educators who both openly identify as punk and align
themselves with critical pedagogy, and thus are bound up in the authors’ reflec-
tive rationalizations of their own practice. Treated as case studies, however, they
offer insights into how punk educators across a range of contexts negotiate their
ethical positions in the coming together of their punk and academic identities,
and how this impacts upon their academic practice in the classroom.
Malott (2006) proposes “pedagogies of insurrection” based on an under-
standing of punk rock practices as “spaces of non-alienated labour outside the
boundaries of dominant society” (159). Relating this to Bey’s (1985) anarchist
notion of the Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ), Malott (2006) argues for
the potential of localized autonomous activity to effect change beyond itself and
promote the “experience of enlightenment” (Malott 2006, 160). Shantz (2012)
also writes of the influence of Bey’s (1985) work on punk activism in his ethno-
graphic account of the Anarchist Free Skool [sic] in Toronto. Shantz provides
two AFS course descriptions in his appendix. These read as a striking hybrid of
university module guide and political manifesto:

This course will be a broad introduction to anarchist theory and practice,

as well as a look at the history of anarchism and anarchist struggles.
[. . .]
This course seeks to reconnect anarchism with the struggles of work-
ing people to build a better world beyond capitalism of any type.
(Shantz 2012, 143)
176 • Tom Parkinson

There is perhaps an irony in Malott (2006) and Shantz (2012) calling for the
establishment of radical educational spaces from tenure-track university posts.
In later writing, Malott (2012) reflects upon his earlier resistance to “university
culture”, which denied him “any strategic room for adaptability” (Malott 2012,
65). He chronicles how, through subsequent employment in a little-known and
under-resourced institution, he found balance between his skate punk and aca-
demic identities by engaging critically with power structures and developing
links with “activist scholars” (Malott 2012, 65). Malott (2012) acknowledges the
competitive pressure to achieve prestige in US academia, but justifies his career
trajectory on the belief that the radical Left needs to be represented in elite
institutions, however much this might contradict punk ethics. Ultimately, it is
through reflective engagement with the dilemma of participation and opposi-
tion that Malott constructs his academic identity.
A similar unease is portrayed by Haworth (2012), who recounts being called
a “fucking sell-out” (1) by a student, a pivotal experience that prompted him to
interrogate his values and behaviours and critically examine the relationships
between anarchism and education. He characterizes this relationship as one
of “tension and ambiguity” (2), but argues that while formal institutions have
“oppressive tendencies”, there may be “ways to make use of the institutional
space without being of the institution” (Haworth 2012, 5, his emphasis). Miner
and Torrez (2012) likewise conceive of their presence within the university as
a form of “infiltration” (32), and like Malott (2012) justify it on the basis that
outsider perspectives need representation within the university.
Dunn (2008) argues for punk to be studied within International Relations
(IR) as an example of counter-hegemonic globalization. While the relationship
between punk and academia is not his central focus, he nonetheless argues for
punk’s pertinence to his discipline beyond its being an object of study. He jux-
taposes an IR conference and a punk show, noting that “while the discipline
of IR pontificated down the street, I swirled in the mosh pit wondering: what
relevance did I and the [conference community] have to these kids?” (Dunn
2008, 194). Dunn recalls that it was through engagement with punk as a teen-
ager that he became aware of labour struggles and the experiences of subaltern
groups, which in turn prompted him to engage proactively with current affairs.
Contrasting this with his current position as an academic, he concludes that
“academia has alienated me from the world that I am trying to understand [by]
decrying emotions and passion” (Dunn 2008, 210).
Erricker (2001) offers a more detached, third-person discussion of the rel-
evance of punk to education. His exploration is broadly epistemological rather
than ethical in emphasis and focuses on the destabilization of “knowledge sus-
tained by tradition” (74) by outsider perspectives. He defines the punk as one
who feels they do not fit with, and subsequently challenges, the institutional-
ized order and “introduce[es] the subjectivity of the knower into the frame”
(2001, 77). Accordingly he ascribes the label of punk onto Kuhn, Wittgenstein,
 Being Punk in Higher Education • 177

Hayden White and Paulo Freire, on the basis that they interrogated the assump-
tions of their disciplines and disrupted the dominant conceptual order. Erricker
(2001) thus considers the intellectual (as opposed to ethical) utility of punk, and
ultimately asks: “what if we treat all epistemologies subversively and relativisti-
cally, by denying them the status they confer on themselves?” (74).
Punk is not the only form of popular culture to be explored for its academic
potential. McLaughlin (2008) identifies a “pedagogy of the Blues”, where what
she refers to as the “Blues metaphor” (xiii), in which the life narratives of blues
singers, the lyrical content of blues music and the historical associations of blues
are intertwined, is employed as a didactic framework for exploring race, class and
gender. Aligning it with critical pedagogy, McLaughlin (2008) sets it in opposi-
tion to “techno-rational” (21) curricula that delegitimize knowledge and values
that sit outside of what state administrations deem important and correct. She
asserts its potential to undermine the “banking concept” (Freire 1970) whereby
students’ minds are conceived as vessels to be filled, and to provide students
and teachers with the tools to become “uncov[er] injustices” (McLaughlin 2008,
21). Beyond this, however, McLaughlin argues for pedagogy to be approached
as art, to emancipate the learner from strictly rational modes of apprehension.
She calls for the performative characteristics of blues to be harnessed in the act
of teaching, leading to pedagogy as ‘an embodied art form in which spontaneity,
invention, and change are important com- ponents’ (2008, xv).
Bladen (2010) proposes a “gonzo” pedagogy that takes inspiration from
the writings of Hunter S. Thompson. Identifying the ideological subtext of
gonzo culture as rejection of mainstream hegemony, Bladen (2010) considers
it in relation to contemporary higher education, and via a Gramscian analysis
asserts that the pressures of student recruitment, quality assurance and league
tables have become internalized by teachers and detracted from their focus on
teaching and learning. At the same time, he argues that financial and social
pressures can impact upon students’ motivation and engagement, and that lec-
turers’ “outdated content and [. . .] unsophisticated delivery style” (Bladen 2010,
38) can compound this. Like McLaughlin (2008) with blues, Bladen considers
the application of gonzo pedagogy in terms of form as well as ideology, propos-
ing a teaching style wherein “the gonzo lecturer-as-performer uses a variety of
techniques” (38) such as personal narrative, exaggeration and humour, “to lib-
erate [themselves] from [. . .] oppressive, institutional hegemony and students
from a dry, often un-engaging educational communication style” (38).
To summarize here, it is clear that these educators have identified in punk
and other forms of popular culture ethical and aesthetic values that resonate
with their academic values, and participate in the formation of their academic
identities. It should be noted that, with the exception of Bladen (2010) and Err-
icker (2001), all of the authors reviewed here were working in US universities
at the time of their writing. Although many of the themes covered are germane
to higher education in a general sense, Malott’s (2012) and Miner and Torrez’s
178 • Tom Parkinson

(2012) references to US cultural expectations highlight that the experiences of

academics are contingent upon different cultural, social and policy contexts.
Since all participants in this study work in the United Kingdom, it is worth giv-
ing some space here to an overview of UK higher education.

Contemporary Higher Education in the United Kingdom

Higher education discourse of the two last decades has been characterized by
themes of marketization, managerialism and employability. White papers and
other publications by successive governments have set out visions of educational
purpose using distinctly business-like rhetoric, emphasising efficiency, global
competition and value for money and rationalising higher education funding in
terms of macroeconomic return. The funding strategy for UK higher education
has moved incrementally towards a tuition fee–dependent model where student
recruitment bears directly upon the funding available to universities. Cribb and
Gewirtz (2013) argue that the shift in the dominant values of higher education
towards those of business and global competition has resulted in a “hollowed out”
higher education sector with no ethical core, in which the traditional orientation
of universities towards “the celebration of human learning and achievement”
(342) has been relegated to the sidelines amid “gloss and spin” (341).
Against this backdrop, it has been suggested that academics’ sense of identity
can become destabilized when the perceived culture of the institution or sector
contradicts their understanding of the intrinsic value and purpose of education
(e.g. Harland and Pickering 2011; Kreber 2010; Skelton 2012; Winter 2009).
However, the level of debate surrounding this perceived cultural shift has argu-
ably given rise to dualistic analyses of academic values and identity in terms of
the “clash of values between traditional academic cultures and the modernis-
ing corporate cultures of higher education” (Winter 2009, 127). In contrast,
however, the literature reviewed earlier suggests that identity schisms cannot
always be understood in terms of a traditional/corporate dualism, and may
instead relate to other, more entrenched academic norms, such as the notion of
detached scholarship (e.g. Dunn 2008) or perceptions of racial discrimination
(e.g. Miner and Torrez 2012). Haworth (2012) warns against the assumption
that resistance to neoliberal visions of higher education correlates to a desire
to return to the liberal ideal, noting that many activists are “more privy to the
complex historical problems of how universities operate, [and wish] to distance
themselves from the reestablishment of these structures” (5).

The Participants
Six educators’ voices are presented in this chapter. The first of these is my own.
I am 35 years old at the time of writing and hold lecturing posts in the disci-
plines of education and music. I have been teaching in higher education for five
 Being Punk in Higher Education • 179

years. Although I have never self-identified wholly as a punk (in the subcul-
tural taxonomy of 1990s South East London I was an Indie Kid), I have always
identified with punk practices, ethics and culture, all of which are woven into
my lifestyle and worldview. This study proceeds in acknowledgement of this
interested position and with the understanding that my analyses are inevitably
coloured by it.
The remaining five voices belong to academics working within UK higher
education, across a range of disciplines. Four are members of the Punk Scholars
Network, and responded to my participant call asking for teaching-active academ-
ics who self-identify as punk(s). One is a personal contact. They are as follows:

Table 12.1 List of Participants

Name School/faculty Position Age

Philip Music Senior lecturer 50

Heike Politics Hourly paid lecturer 41
Vlad Sociology Research fellow 40
Mehmet International Relations Lecturer 31
Claire* Theology Hourly paid lecturer 38
*Names have been changed

Unstructured interviews were conducted with each participant, themed

around the intersection of the participants’ punk and academic identities, their
perceptions of UK higher education and their teaching practice. An inductive
approach as outlined by Thomas (2006) was used to code the data into thematic
categories.

“Two Sides of the Same Coin”: Becoming Punk Educators

All five participants had identified as punk since they were teenagers. Although
their definitions of punk were differently nuanced, these all corresponded to
resistance to dominant hegemonies, boredom, conservatism and elitism, and
also corresponded to learning. For Vlad, there was no sense of discord between
academic life and punk culture; instead, he had experienced a symbiotic rela-
tionship between these two aspects of his life since first attending university in
newly post-Soviet Russia, where a reactionary spirit on campus coincided with
punk activity, including the occupation of university buildings as squats and per-
formance spaces. From then on, punk and academia were, for Vlad, “two sides
of the same coin, [both] about freedom, the opening of meanings, discovery
[. . .] exploration”. Mehmet’s views regarding punk and education were similar to
Vlad’s. He felt no sense of contradiction or betrayal, and had become aware that
formal learning and subcultural learning could be mutually enhancing when,
180 • Tom Parkinson

as a high school student, he sought to challenge the narratives presented in his-

tory textbooks and was “praised for [his] critical thinking”. Claire attributed her
intellectual development as a teenager to discussions at anarchist bookstores,
and recalled an impromptu speech at a show as a critical juncture in her life
when she was awakened to the value of education, and to her own desire to
become a teacher. Philip spoke of his interest in alternative culture stemming
from his early encounters with punk, while Heike, like Dunn (2008), had devel-
oped her interest in politics through engagement with punk.

Never Mind the Bollocks: Punk Awakening and the Gestalt Shift
My analysis of interview data revealed three main themes that were of con-
cern among participants. The first related to the prevalent epistemologies and
methodological conventions within the participants’ disciplines. The second
related to the state of UK higher education, from the perceived obsession with
measurement and accountability to its time-consuming bureaucracy. The last
concerned the ideological assumptions perceived to be inherent in mainstream
curricula.
There was a sense among the participants working within the social sci-
ences (Mehmet, Vlad and Heike) that their field had become too introspective
at the expense of outward purpose. Vlad suggested that sociology had become
“a monastery commenting on itself ”, with little interest in developing “new
research that can change the world”. He felt this led to meaningless discussion
and the “horrible ritual of talking about things [we] already know anyway”:

Nowadays reading academic articles is boring and time-wasting [for me].

[. . .] I have to force myself to finish and by the end it hasn’t taught me
anything new at all.

Mehmet echoed this position, and spoke of the “navel-gazing” tendencies of

social scientists to deliberate at length over “esoteric” issues of ontology and
epistemology. As with Vlad, this was for Mehmet a distraction from the central
purpose of his discipline:

Why waste time arguing with someone that your ontology is more valid
in a pluralist discipline that doesn’t agree on the nature of knowledge?
You can leave that to the side.

Relating this to his students’ experience, Mehmet explained that this culture
led to anxieties about “not understanding the discipline”, which in turn sapped
students’ motivation. He was keen to emphasize the primacy of conviction and
original thought over the “window dressing”. Employing the Sex Pistols’ slogan,
he recounted discussions with tutees:
 Being Punk in Higher Education • 181

cos it’s a social science context, and there’s [. . .] an overwhelming back-
drop of that scientific, positivist approach, the students are freaking out
about what to put into their theoretical framework chapter and into their
methodology, and I say “never mind the bollocks, what’s your opinion?
Why do you have it, and can you lead me through the steps that led you
to it?”

Mehmet spoke at length about the inherent conservatism that he perceived

within the social sciences, and his belief that restrictive protocols exerted a
control over the flow of knowledge within the field, inhibiting innovation and
leading to “boring” thought:

If you think about the window dressing [too much] your thought will
suffer and you’ll end up thinking like a boring person, the way those
categories and conventions make you think.

Similarly, Vlad told his students that there was no need to write at length “about
theories and methodologies and so on, that’s boring”. Of greater importance
was “honesty”, which he related to punk ethics, and accordingly he encour-
aged students to write about “something they’ve lived through themselves”. He
conceded that because of its overt subjectivity “in some ways [this was not] sci-
ence”, but was opposed to the dominance of detached research within the social
sciences and sought to promote more subjective research writing:

I am regularly trying to get rid of this anathema. Although very often it

doesn’t look very academic, I enjoy reading it and it’s something that I
learn a lot from, it’s something new, because [when] someone who went
through some problems of violence or community writes about it, that’s
great because who else would write about it?

Heike, although in agreement with Vlad and Mehmet about the need for
change within the social sciences, was more cautious about actively challenging
the dominant norms in a teaching context, “because [she] wanted the students
to graduate [and didn’t] want to fuck up their chances”; she reasoned there-
fore that radicalism needed to take on “subtler” forms, chiefly through “lifting
somebody onto a more critical plain”. Her approach was characterized by prag-
matism, but also by an anxiety of complicity in an academic culture at stark
odds with her own values, and which in her view inhibited the university’s abil-
ity to effect change.
Also reflecting upon the impact of UK higher education (HE) culture on the
“front line” of teaching, Claire spoke of “often meaningless” aims and learning
outcomes, stemming from an obsession with accountability and bureaucracy.
She felt that these strictures inhibited the live-ness of pedagogy and left “no
182 • Tom Parkinson

room for spontaneity, for interaction in the moment with one another”. She sug-
gested that the precariousness of the academic job market served to compound
this situation, since “rules [could] be used to bash you over the head with the
possibility of unemployment”. Relating this to her punk background, however,
she asserted that she had “forgot[ten] to stand in line when they were handing
out risk-adverse tendencies”.
Of most concern to Claire, Philip and Mehmet was the dominance of main-
stream worldviews that went unchallenged within curricula. Philip spoke of
assuming rhetorical positions that would lead students to engage with the pos-
sibility of different perspectives and support independent critical thinking,
something he aligned with the “punk ethos”:

I’m very fond of the avocatis diavoli kind of approach. [. . .] I’m not tell-
ing them what to think, you know. [. . .] I think it comes back to where
we started really, the punk ethos. The wonderful thing that I remember
about punk was [. . .] “don’t listen to what anyone else is saying, it’s rub-
bish”. And that was a tremendously useful starting point, particularly in
our subject areas it seems to me.

Mehmet’s approach was similar. He felt that, for all the emphasis on “critical
thinking”, not enough space was given to alternative worldviews that might
provoke students to examine their assumptions. Harnessing what he saw as
punk’s ability to awaken people to the possibility that “things aren’t always what
they seem”, he took a performative approach to teaching in which he shifted
between worldviews:

I play the punk rocker. I might play the Marxist even though I’m not a
Marxist, but that’s how you achieve the gestalt shift. [.  .  .] My job as a
scholar and educator is not lifting the veil as showing you the truth, but
lifting the veil on the idea of there being one truth. The punk thing to do
is say “well why are you so certain?”

“Here’s a Chord. Here’s Another. Here’s Another.

Now Form a Band”2: Agency, Responsibility and
Experience in the Classroom
Each of the five participants spoke of drawing from punk culture and prac-
tice in the classroom. For some, this was in response to normative teaching
and curriculum design that they perceived to be constraining and outmoded.
Claire, who had been a secondary school teacher prior to entering higher edu-
cation, found the top-down pedagogies and curricula she had encountered in
institutional education to be “constricting and largely irrelevant”. Recounting
 Being Punk in Higher Education • 183

her own experiences of being a student, she identified within the university a
tendency to patronise young people, and to devalue ways of knowing associ-
ated with youth culture:

They [. . .] had the attitude of “you know nothing because you are young,”
instead of thinking actually your ideas hold merit, [. . .] let’s talk about
them further.

This was in stark contrast to her experiences of the anarchist bookstore she
attended as a teenager, where “punks would take the time to talk with rather
than at a 14 or 15 year old who was incredibly shy and inarticulate”.
Vlad also spoke of the need to position students’ ideas at the centre of their
intellectual development, and to recognize their personal experiences as a legiti-
mate source of knowledge. He felt it was important to accommodate the cultural
phenomena and artefacts through which young people sought meaning, since
young people “look for the answers to their problems in popular culture”. Vlad
tried to “engage students as much as possible about their own experiences”, and
saw this as an opportunity to learn “with” and “from” students. Claire also spoke
of “learning alongside [students] and valuing their experiences”, and related
this to the autodidactic DIY principles of punk, enshrined in “the whole here’s 3
chords now go do thing—here’s the info, here’s the skills, go apply, learn, change
and educate us on your return”. She gave an example from teaching in a Theol-
ogy context:

One of the courses I created focuses on religion and conflict and it works
incredibly well doing that there. “There is the name of the country and
the religions, there is a room, go and sort it out and report back however
you want”. It becomes like an academic battle of the bands at the end of
the course.

Mehmet, together with “other punks of the department”, had seized the
opportunity to design his own module “specifically around the idea of punk
awakening”, as it offered a chance to escape the restrictive schemes of work pre-
scribed by senior colleagues. They had sought to simulate “the punk experience
for students who haven’t had it subculturally”, avoiding dispassionate analysis
and instead, like Vlad, encouraging students to engage their own ethical beliefs
in their investigations.

Rise Above! Changing and Reclaiming Higher Education

I asked all participants about their educational values and how these related
to their experiences of working within the UK higher education sector. In all
cases, there was a perception that ethical change was needed, although this
184 • Tom Parkinson

corresponded to different things. For Claire, this meant reasserting the social
and moral purpose of education, and shifting the emphasis away from skilling
an “elite” and towards achieving social justice:

[It] forces [students] to conform to a learning structure set up when

Britain was an empire and the elite would rule the masses. [. . .] It is a
redundant system. Learning should be for the betterment of the indi-
vidual, the community and society.

She felt that higher education had a responsibility to protect and secure justice
for marginalized groups, a cause to which she felt punk values were particularly
applicable:

It is [being] willing to wear the mantle of the Other to make a change that
makes punk so strong, or at least potentially strong. If a bunch of snotty
nosed kids can do it, why can’t we?

Reflecting on the impact of marketization on learning culture, and on students’

understanding of what higher education was for, Claire identified an obses-
sion with grades that was “getting worse and worse as they adopt ever more
the business model”, and detracted from the intrinsic value of learning. Heike
perceived the “decline” of British higher education as stemming from the state’s
funding strategy, which in contrast to the European model commodified the
educational experience, rendering it responsive to consumer demand. She sug-
gested that the threat of unemployment within the current system promoted a
conservative attitude among teachers, which she found frustrating. Similarly, at
sector level, fears for survival sustained what she saw as the neoliberal identity
and purpose of UK (and US) higher education, and undermined universities’
potential to effect change:

The agenda of [UK] higher education is not to effect change but to train
future professionals. And that precludes or prevents radical change.
[. . .] the Anglo-American system is built on foundations that don’t want
radical change because if [they] promote radical change then [they]
undermine [their] identity and longevity.

Heike felt that in Germany (her native country), where the education system
was not reliant on student fees, the culture of higher education was in a healthier
state than in the United Kingdom and that academics “had more opportunities
to be radical”. Within UK HE however, she distinguished between academics
who were complicit in the status quo and those who sought to change it, and
suggested that the potential and responsibility for change, as in punk, lay at the
level of the individual:
 Being Punk in Higher Education • 185

The institutional umbrella is reliant on the people who are committed to

a certain mission, [but] we’re not all total sell-outs. [. . .] The individual
academic has often retained some sense of “I want to make a change”.

Mehmet spoke of the pressure exerted on his department to undertake teach-

ing and research activity that “ticked the boxes” of a status quo. While this was
widely resented among his colleagues, he was immune to it “cos [he was] too
punk”; by resisting these expectations he maintained his punk integrity and
projected an example of resistance to his students:

I can see colleagues sensing the pressure, but I refuse it at such a deep
level that I don’t even feel it anymore. I wear T-shirts of punk bands to my
lectures, and I don’t do it ignorantly, it’s a deliberate sign [. . .] about being
myself in the face of those imperatives, and getting on with projects and
engaging in those contexts despite those pressures.

Regardless of official learning outcomes that he gave little thought to, the out-
come he most desired was for students to develop a sense of responsibility for
the world:

My real aim is to convince someone of the urgency and the open-end-

edness of this challenge that we face, and the need to try to develop
responses [because] the system is fucked. Or to be more specific, the
current nexus of economic and political logics involves huge degrees of
social violence, distributed unevenly, and that sucks. I don’t know the
answer [. . .] but we need to come up with responses.

Discussion
In general terms, the participants’ responses conveyed themes of frustration,
boredom, individual and collective responsibility, and resistance to the status
quo. These themes chimed with their understandings of the spirit of punk,
which they all spoke of applying in their academic practice. As in the literature
reviewed earlier in this paper, participants tended to reflect holistically on their
experiences, and detailed, specific examples of applying punk practices peda-
gogically were relatively sparse, but their application of punk in their teaching
can nonetheless be collated into three broad themes.

Performativity
Mehmet and Philip both spoke of acting out different roles and opinions within
the classroom to highlight the possibility of different perspectives, which
Mehmet likened to “play[ing] the punk rocker” to antagonize and disrupt.
186 • Tom Parkinson

This is as much an application of punk’s aesthetic as of its ethos, in that, as

McLaughlin (2008) and Bladen (2010) suggest for blues and gonzo, respectively,
he employed the form by which punk’s ethos is embodied. More than simply
constituting a performance in the mimetic sense, however, in proposing “perfor-
mative pedagogy” McLaughlin (2008) emphasizes also a potential to perform,
in that word’s other sense of effecting change; this sense that was also implicit
in the participants’ reflections. Furthermore, to draw analogously3 from Butler’s
work (e.g. 1993, 1999 [1990], 2004) and related work (e.g. Benhabib et al. 1995;
Hey 2006; Olson and Worsham 2000) on performativity in relation to gender
identity, and on performative resignification, we might argue that participants’
invocation and embodiment of punk constitutes a performative resignification,
untying punk as a concept from its normative associations and, in applying it in
an educational context, disrupting what they perceive as a scripted pedagogical
status quo. Punk thus provides a form through which the participants perform
resistance in response to identity schisms felt within the academy.

Autodidactism and Amateurism

The idea of learning for oneself is a longstanding ethical principle of punk and a
dimension of the broader DIY principle, implicit in the “here’s a chord” maxim
discussed earlier. While the notion of autodidactism within formal educa-
tion is arguably, in an absolute sense, oxymoronic, Vlad’s and Claire’s placing
emphasis on students taking responsibility for their own learning, and on the
accessibility of knowledge to those who sought to acquire it, bore the spirit of
these principles. Mehmet’s honesty in declaring to students that he “[didn’t]
have the answers”, and Vlad’s and Claire’s acknowledgement of learning from
and with students, point to pedagogies in which the traditional delineation of
teacher and student is disrupted, and the active acquisition of knowledge is pre-
sented as everybody’s individual and collective responsibility. Such approaches
display a resistance to “the idea of there being one truth” (Mehmet)—an idea
implicit in “techno-rational” (McLaughlin 2008) education systems premised
on Freire’s “banking concept” (1974, cited in McLaughlin 2008)—and point to
the emancipatory potential of critical thinking.
The notion of amateurism is also, in many respects, anathema in higher
education, particularly in the current global iteration that prioritizes the
development of skills for professional service. Yet beyond its meaning-in-use
as the opposite of professionalism, amateurism connotes an “altruistic com-
mitment and [. . .] personal investment in the activity undertaken [. . .] that
can generate important knowledge contributions outside formal standards and
accreditation” (Edwards 2015, 869) that provides the intrinsic motivation for
autodidactism to flourish. Claire, Mehmet and Vlad all stressed the importance
of harnessing students’ curiosity and enthusiasm, and recalled its centrality to
their own learning.
 Being Punk in Higher Education • 187

Experience and Praxis

Related to autodidactism, this concerned the placing of students’ experiences
and subjectivities at the centre of their learning. Claire felt that “you can’t actu-
ally make a difference in the world until the sociocultural context of your own
life is made clear”, and like Vlad encouraged students to focus on their own lives
as sources of knowledge. As such, detached, disinterested modes of inquiry were
discouraged in favour of experiential and emotionally invested approaches.
Where Dunn (2008) lamented his own disengagement from the “world [he is]
trying to understand” as a result of his enculturation into dispassionate, passive
scholarship, Mehmet and Claire were emphatic about the responsibilities that
accompanied knowledge, to the extent that learning and action were conceived
as inextricably bound together in the educational experience, each an aspect of
the other. These understandings were closer to Deweyan notions of experiential
learning as a non-dualistic “organic connection between education and experi-
ence” (Dewey 1938, 25) occurring symbiotically within and throughout a “lived
experience”, and with moral implications, than to the more recent connotations
of experiential learning in the contexts of professional skills development or
accreditation (e.g. APEL). These understandings were thus also at odds with
the privileging of skills for business and economic growth within higher educa-
tion discourse (see Cribb and Gewirtz 2013).
Experiential learning can also be approached here in terms of praxis, under-
stood by Freire (1970) as simultaneous and symbiotic thinking and action
for the purpose of transformation and emancipation. Kolb (1984) notes that
“praxis [involves] the process of ‘naming the world’, which is both active—in the
sense that naming something transforms it—and reflective—in that our choice
of words gives meaning to the world around us” (29), and in this regard praxis,
like performativity as conceived by Butler (1993, see above) can constitute “that
discursive practice that enacts or produces that which it names” (13). Such an
understanding is writ large in Mehmet’s and Claire’s rationalization of learn-
ing in terms of responding to “economic and political logics involv[ing] huge
degrees of social violence” (Mehmet) and “the betterment of the community,
society and the individual” (Claire).
Obviously, these themes are not exclusive to punk educators, or necessar-
ily radical per se. Indeed, it could be argued that they are already implicit in
learning outcomes that place emphasis on criticality, self-directed learning
and reflectivity and moreover that the norms, cultures and policy climate they
oppose are commonly critiqued in higher education literature (e.g. Carr 2009;
Cribb and Gewirtz 2013; Williams 2012, 2016). What is important here how-
ever is that, in the context of profound feelings of values incongruence and
identity schism (Winter 2009), punk served as an ethical, epistemological and
aesthetic resource for participants (and those educators whose accounts are
discussed in the literature review) in their resistance to a perceived status quo.
188 • Tom Parkinson

It is significant that arguments for the educational value of other subcultures

(e.g. gonzo [Bladen 2010], blues [Mclaughlin 2008], hip-hop [e.g. Dimitriadis
2001; Hill 2009]) tend to be made in similar terms, commonly asserting an
affinity with critical pedagogy and a social justice agenda and advocating a per-
formative embodiment of the forms’ aesthetics in the act of teaching. All such
arguments are inherently countercultural in that they present these forms as
strategies for resistance against the dominant cultural order, both within and
outside of the academy. This is not to reduce these different subcultural pedago-
gies to a generic ethos, but rather to emphasize that, just as subcultural forms of
popular culture express different groups’ experiences of living against the grain
of the dominant culture while simultaneously constituting lived practices of
resistance for those who identify with them, so too can they be seen to provide
ethical, epistemological and aesthetic frameworks for their affiliates’ academic
practice. Such cases highlight that, just as students “look for the answers to their
problems in popular culture” (Vlad), the enduring influence of popular culture
on academics’ identities and practice warrants attention.
Bladen (2010) describes the gonzo lecture as a “countercultural” activity,
and it is in terms of a countercultural orientation that these educators’ experi-
ences are best understood. We might consider this in relation to May’s (2001)
suggestion of three “moments” in US higher education, later applied by Cribb
and Gewirtz (2013) to the UK higher education context. The first and second
moments describe the liberal arts college ideal and subsequent shift towards mar-
ket-oriented training and careerism. The third accounts for the “counter-cultural
movement [who] sought immediate relationships to people, power, truth and
morals and rejected all mediated relations in these spheres” (May 2001, 253; cited
in Cribb and Gewirtz 2013, 343). Cribb and Gewirtz (2013) suggest that this coun-
tercultural movement has been muted in the UK context during the last 35 years,
while instrumentalism has gained pace and the liberal ideal has struggled to gain
footing. Across the interviews and literature reviewed in this chapter, however,
there is clear evidence of a reactionary disposition that conforms to May’s (2001)
characterization of the countercultural moment in HE. May’s (2001) notion of
counterculture relates to the domain of education and does not equate to the use
of that term in the popular culture context. Yet as has been demonstrated in this
paper, these two senses can coalesce in the experiences and identities of punk
academics. The grand punk narrative set out at the beginning of this chapter
has obvious facility to these educators as a mythological tool, encapsulating and
ennobling their ethical frameworks and validating their responses to the pres-
sures of academic life in a troublesome higher education climate.

Notes
1. This chapter was originally published as Tom Parkinson (2017), “Being punk in higher educa-
tion: subcultural strategies for academic practice,” Teaching in Higher Education, 22:2, 143–157.
doi:10.1080/13562517.2016.1226278.
 Being Punk in Higher Education • 189

2. This is a reference to the famous cover of the Sideburns fanzine’s first issue, which featured dia-
grams of three guitar chords and the instruction “Here’s a chord. Here’s another. Here’s another.
Now form a band”. This slogan has now taken a place in punk lore as a mission statement
enshrining the DIY ethics of punk culture.
3. This is not to claim equivalency, and my analogy here is necessarily reductive; a more thorough
application of Butler’s theories to a discussion of punk and pedagogy would be valuable.

References
Benhabib, Seyla, Judith Butler, Drucilla Cornell, and Nancy Fraser. 1995. Feminist Contentions: A
Philosophical Exchange. London: Routledge.
Bey, Hakim. 1985. T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism.
New York: Autonomedia.
Bladen, Charles. 2010. “The Gonzo Lecture: Counterculture in the Classroom.” Compass: The Jour-
nal of Learning and Teaching at the University of Greenwich 1: 35–41.
Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. London: Routledge.
Butler, Judith. 1999 [1990]. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York:
Routledge.
Butler, Judith. 2004. Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge.
Carr, David. 2009. “Revisiting the Liberal and Vocational Dimensions of University Education.”
British Journal of Educational Studies 57, 1: 1–17.
Cribb, Alan, and Sharon Gewirtz. 2013. “The Hollowed-Out University? A Critical Analysis of
Changing Institutional and Academic Norms in UK Higher Education.” Discourse: Studies
in the Cultural Politics of Education 34, 3: 338–350.
Cunnane, Sarah. 2011. “DIY Says Edupunk Star. Distortion and Sell-Out, Say Critics.” Times Higher
Education. November 17: 20–21.
Deleon, Abraham. 2012. “Against the Grain of the Status Quo: Anarchism Behind Enemy Lines.”
In Anarchist Pedagogies: Collective Actions, Theories, and Critical Reflections on Education,
edited by R. Haworth, 312–326. Oakland: PM Press.
Dewey, John. 1938. Experience and Education. New York: Collier Books.
Dimitriadis, Greg. 2001. Performing Identity, Performing Culture: Hip Hop as Text, Pedagogy and
Lived Practice. New York: Peter Lang.
Dunn, Kevin. 2008. “Nevermind the Bollocks: The Punk Rock Politics of Global Communication.”
Review of International Studies 34, 1: 193–210.
Edwards, Richard. 2015. “Amateurism and Autodidactism: A Modest Proposal?” Discourse: Studies
in the Cultural Politics of Education 36, 6: 868–880.
Erricker, Clive. 2001. “Living in a Post-Punk Papacy: Religion and Education in a Modernist
World.” Journal of Beliefs and Values 22, 1: 73–85.
Freire, Paolo. 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Furness, Zack. 2012. Punkademics: The Basement Show in the Ivory Tower. Wivenhoe: Minor
Compositions/Autonomedia.
Gordon, Alistair 2005. The Authentic Punk: An Ethnography of DIY Music Ethics. PhD diss, Lough-
borough University. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/handle/2134/7765.
Groom, Jim. 2008. “The Glass Bees.” [blog] Bava Tuesdays blog. http://bavatuesdays.com/the-glass-
bees/.
Groom, Jim. 2010. “Edupunk or, on Becoming a Useful Idiot.” [blog] Bava Tuesdays blog. http://
bavatuesdays.com/edupunk-or-on-becoming-a-useful-idiot/.
Harland, Tony, and Neil Pickering. 2011. Values in Higher Education Teaching. London: Routledge.
Haworth, Robert H. 2012. “Introduction.” Chapter 1 In Anarchist Pedagogies: Collective Actions, Theo-
ries, and Critical Reflections on Education, edited by R. Haworth, 1–12. Oakland: PM Press.
Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge.
Hey, Valerie. 2006. “The Politics of Performative Resignification: Translating Judith Butler’s Theo-
retical Discourse and Its Potential for a Sociology of Education.” British Journal of Sociology
of Education 27, 4: 439–457.
Hill, Mark L. 2009. Beats, Rhymes, and Classroom Life: Hip-Hop Pedagogy and the Politics of Identity.
New York: Teachers College Press.
Kolb, David. 1984. Experiential Learning as the Science of Learning and Development. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
190 • Tom Parkinson

Kreber, Carolin. 2010. “Academics’ Teacher Identities, Authenticity and Pedagogy.” Studies in
Higher Education 35, 2: 171–194.
Malott, Curry. 2006. “From Pirates to Punk Rockers: Pedagogies of Insurrection and Revolution:
The Unity of Utopia.” Critical Journal of Education Policy Studies 4, 1: 159–170.
Malott, Curry. 2012. “Finding Balance in the Academy.” In Punkademics: The Basement Show in the
Ivory Tower, edited by Z. Furness, 65–66. Wivenhoe: Minor Compositions/Autonomedia.
May, William F. 2001. Beleaguered Rulers: The Public Obligation of the Professional. Louisville: West-
minster John Knox.
McLaughlin, Shirley. 2008. A Pedagogy of the Blues. Rotterdam: Sense.
Miner, Dylan, and Estrella Torrez. 2012. “Turning Point: Claiming the University as a Punk Space.”
In Punkademics: The Basement Show in the Ivory Tower, edited by Z. Furness, 27–34. Wiven-
hoe: Minor Compositions/Autonomedia.
Moore, Ryan. 2010. “Postmodernism and Punk Subculture: Cultures of Authenticity and Decon-
struction.” Communication Review 7: 305–327. doi:10.1080/10714420490492238.
Moore, Ryan. 2012. “Is Punk the New Jazz?” Chronicle of Higher Education. January 15. http://
chronicle.com/article/Is-Punk-the-New-Jazz-/130281/.
Muir, Mike, and Louiche Mayorga. 1983. “Institutionalised” [Recorded by Suicidal Tendencies]. On
Still Cyco After All of These Years [LP]. Sun Valley: Frontier Records.
O’Hara, Craig. 1999. The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise. New York: Autonomedia.
Olson, Gary A., and Lynn Worsham. 2000. “Changing the Subject: Judith Butler’s Politics of Radical
Resignification.” JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory 20, 4: 727–765.
Shantz, Jeffery. 2012. “Spaces of Learning: The Anarchist Free Skool.” In Anarchist Pedagogies:
Collective Actions, Theories, and Critical Reflections on Education, edited by R. Haworth,
124–145. Oakland: PM Press.
Skelton, Alan. 2012. “Value Conflicts in Higher Education Teaching.” Teaching in Higher Education
17, 3: 257–268.
Thomas, David R. 2006. “A General Inductive Approach for Analysing Qualitative Evaluation
Data.” American Journal of Evaluation 27, 2: 237–246.
Williams, Joanna. 2012. Consuming Higher Education: Why Learning Can’t Be Bought. New York:
Bloomsbury.
Williams, Joanna. 2016. Academic Freedom in an Age of Conformity. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Winter, R. 2009. “Academic Manager or Managed Academic? Academic Identity Schisms in Higher
Education.” Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 31, 2: 121–131.
 13
“There’s Only One Way of Life,
and That’s Your Own”1
GARETH DYLAN SMITH

Introduction: Taming the Impetuosity Reflex

The interview for my first salaried teaching position, at a north London pre-
paratory school in the summer of 2001, consisted principally of me defending
my position in an argument with the school’s headmaster, who asserted that
Donovan was a superior artist to Bob Dylan. As far as I was concerned (despite
having not even a passing familiarity with Donovan’s back catalogue), Donovan
had nothing that held a candle to Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom” (1968), “John
Wesley Harding” (1967), “Blowin’ in the Wind” (1963), or anything off of Blood
on the Tracks (1975). The headmaster’s expression of preference for one legend-
ary folk singer over another was a red rag to a bull; my middle name is Dylan,
and my parents brought me up to enjoy the music of Bob Dylan and the poetry
and plays of Dylan Thomas. There was no way I was about to agree with this
guy, job interview or not. Simply keeping my mouth closed or saying, “yeah,
Donovan remains pretty unequalled” did not even cross my mind.
My would-be employer struck me as something of an eccentric from the out-
set. In response to my unsolicited written enquiry regarding a potential position
at the school as a drum teacher, he had called me for interview on the grounds
that he had no need of a drum teacher, but did require an enthusiastic Director
of Music who would work three days a week teaching general music, choir, gui-
tar, reading and sports. He could offer more money than I needed for rent while
I worked in my ample spare time towards fame and fortune with my rock band
(the reason I was moving to London in the first place). I accepted his offer of
the job before leaving his office. This man’s dubious hiring practices (an unwit-
tingly brilliant approach to human resourcing—the following year he recruited
the inspiring woman who would later become my wife) set in motion a series
of events that continues to unfold. That job interview was a critical moment in
my nascent punk pedagogical practice.
I have been able, more recently, to channel my combative-argumentative
streak to achieve more strategic ends than potentially shooting myself in the
foot in job interviews. I work with undergraduate students to question a societal
and music industrial status quo that many of them instinctively recognize as
191
192 • Gareth Dylan Smith

flawed, and seek in my writing to challenge, for instance, rampant and unfet-
tered neoliberalization of the higher education system (Allsup 2015; Giroux
2014a; Smith 2015a), constructions of music graduate “success” (Smith 2013a),
and the sexism and misogyny that plague institutions of the contemporary
music industry and higher popular music education (HPME) (Parkinson and
Smith 2015; Smith 2015b). I was relieved recently to discover that “this attitude
of constant challenge and determination to disrupt is [an] observed feature of
the punk mindset” (Sofianos et al. 2015, 30). At least I now have a label for my
impetuosity reflex.
In early 2002 I answered an advert in the New Musical Express (NME) to
audition for a “Psycho Ceilidh” band called Neck. Playing (what I naively inter-
preted as) really fast rock music with highly virtuosic folk instrumentalists
dancing all over the top, this band seemed ideal for me, as I had been indoctri-
nated with a love (albeit somewhat undiscerning) of Celtic music and folk-rock
since my childhood. To me, this would be like playing in Fairport Convention,
only faster, which suited me down to the ground. Off the back of playing for six
months in Neck, and on the very night that we were permanently kicked out of
our hard-won residency gig at the Lord Nelson pub on Holloway Road because
the drummer was too loud for the landlord to bear, I was invited to join a second
punk band. This group had recently changed its name, sensibly, if misleadingly,
from “Speed-o-phile” to “Eruptörs”. In less than a year we were undertaking a
DIY tour of the American Midwest that set the tone and drew the road map for
our ascent to total obscurity. The Eruptörs appealed to me through their invita-
tion to play whatever I wanted, as fast and as loudly as possible. It sounded like
my perfect musical home. After making a number of records, the three mem-
bers of the Eruptörs eventually went our separate ways—geographically, if not
musically—and two of us now publish and give conference presentations about
aspects of our “punkademic” practice (Furness 2012).2

Back to School
Occupying my time as a music teacher, wannabe rock star and part-time punk,
in 2003 I undertook to learn about being an educator, motivated to do so by
my obvious skills gap in this area and because my girlfriend was considering
staying in the UK (she was visiting on a visa from the US) to complete the mas-
ter’s degree that she needed to in order to retain her New York State teaching
certification. My higher education to date consisted of just an undergradu-
ate degree in (classical) music, and I knew I should really do a PGCE,3 since
this would open numerous doors at other schools nationwide, would teach
me how to teach and would lead me inexorably to Qualified Teacher Status
and higher earning potential—traditional markers of career success. Instead
of applying for a PGCE, however, I started on an MA in Music Education at
the (now UCL) Institute of Education in central London. This programme
 “There’s Only One Way of Life” • 193

seemed really interesting from the prospectus. Fame and fortune from my
drumming career were, as they surely remain today, just around the next
corner. Much better then, to have fun and learn things, I reasoned, than to
position myself for an undesired career as a school teacher. Plus, if I ended up
marrying this American girl and moving with her to the US, the Americans
wouldn’t know what a PGCE was anyway (I assumed without checking any of
the facts).
Among the people to teach me on the MA programme were educators
whose pedagogical practices were decidedly “punk”. Dr. Colin Durrant started
me attending academic conferences and publishing my writing, and set me on
the road to studying for a PhD. He was deeply passionate about family life and
choral conducting, and kept telling me that academia was “a game”, resonating
with Dines’s (2015, 30) conclusion that punk pedagogy can be and feel like lots
of fun. Drawing a parallel with Higgins’s (2012, 50–51) observations about the
participatory nature of the late ’70s British punk music scene, Colin, “dispel-
ling the feeling of elitism . . . explored, celebrated, and affirmed the identity of
those who participated” in his classes. I began to feel that there could really be
a legitimate way to combine my drumming, my instinctive critical streak, and
my need (and, I began to admit, increasing fondness) to teach.
As a classical choral conductor, I am not certain Colin would easily iden-
tify as a “punk”. However, Rashidi (2012, 84) confirms punk rock as a “genre
formulated on critical thinking”. Throughout supervising my dissertation, and
in his class on aesthetics and philosophy in music and music education, Colin
encouraged, enabled and legitimated my proclivity to problematize, dem-
onstrated the need to question all things, and pointed me in the direction of
continuous, necessary and (ir)reverent iconoclasm. He gave me a glimpse of
how it might be possible and even essential to be punk, as integral to a role in
the academic community; after all, as Parkinson (this volume) notes, punk is an
“anti-institutional counter-culture”. Torrez, too, affirms,

punk pedagogy requires that individuals take on personal responsibility

(anarchist agency in the face of capitalist structuralism) by rejecting their
privileged places in society and working in solidarity with those forced on
the fringes. By doing so, we strike to undo hegemonic macrostructures.
(2012, 135)

This was what I instinctively felt, and what Colin stoked in me.
Following a few more years working as a drummer, high school general music
teacher, peripatetic drums, guitar and clarinet teacher, and, for a spell, a driving
instructor, another round of unsolicited job applications in early 2009 led me
to receive a phone call from the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance
(ICMP). I accepted their offer of a job teaching blues drumming for an hour a
week, which rapidly led to more teaching, administration and research. In 2014,
194 • Gareth Dylan Smith

ICMP hired Mike Dines and Tom Parkinson (co-editors of this volume), and by
2015 I was employed full-time: a licensed, legitimized punk pedagogue! That
legitimation did not long survive, following a change in senior management;
just before the publication of this book, I parted ways with ICMP for what, had
we been in a band together, might be cited as “artistic differences”.
Following Torrez (2012, 135), I understand punk as “both an epistemology
(world-view) and ontology (nature of being)”—the latter being apparent to me
many years ahead of the former. I still play occasionally with Neck and the
Eruptörs, and continue to question everything I am told. Punk praxis, philoso-
phy and pedagogy appear to loom large in my life. Writing this chapter has
allowed me to put a name and a frame to it all, acknowledging, as Parkinson
(this volume) notes, “punk has manifested in academe beyond simply being
an artifact, informing research methodologies, academic publishing and peda-
gogy”. Sofianos et al. describe punk as being reactive, a mode in which people
very quickly have “moved from angst to action; a kind of philosophical short-
cut, with learning and reflection and adaptation (of both methods and ideas)
following afterwards” (2015, 26). This certainly rings true for my approaches to
teaching, in which I have adapted and adopted models to suit my ends.
Mantie and Higgins (2015, 1) ask about socio-musicologist and political
activist, Charles Keil, “Are author and person one and the same?” They conclude
in the affirmative. Without seeking to elevate myself to anything approaching
Keil’s revered academic and ethical status, this much I share in common with
him: when I write, as with when I drum, when I teach, and when I go about my
life in general, I cannot but be me. I find it hard not to be full and frank. I feel
an obligation to myself and to others to be sincere and honest in my writing (see
also de Rond 2008, xii). In this regard, and as identified by one of Parkinson’s
(this volume) participants, I “forgot to stand in line when they were handing out
risk-averse tendencies”. I hope nothing detrimental comes to me from my work,
but I always feel subservient to the process and the purpose. In the rest of this
chapter, I look at how various aspects of my work as a teacher and academic are
informed by and contribute to what might be read as a punk pedagogy.

Punk Pedagogy and Eudaimonism

Torrez (2012, 136) explains that “punk pedagogy is a manifestation of equity,
rebellion, critique, self-examination, solidarity, community, love, anger, and
collaboration”. This heady, complex mix of attributes and attitudes contains
numerous tensions, not least between imperatives that seem to focus primar-
ily on individual responsibility and action (critique, self-examination, love
and anger), and those which emphasize collaboration, cooperation or working
for others (equity, solidarity, community and collaboration); rebellion, while
requiring an other, can work on an individual level or collectively. As explored
in the following section, much of the (my) practice of punk pedagogy can be
 “There’s Only One Way of Life” • 195

seen to take place in the push-and-pull between serving one’s own needs and
seeking to meet those of others.
Della Fave et al. (2011, 204) explain “Aristotle’s definition of eudaimonia as
the fulfillment of one’s deepest nature in harmony with the collective welfare”.
However, extant literature on the “ethics of eudaimonism” (Norton 1976, 15)
focuses overwhelmingly on the pursuit of self-fulfillment (Ryan et al. 2008;
Smith 2016; Waterman 1993). For Dierendonck and Mohan (2006, 232), “Eudai-
monic well-being [is] related to feeling challenged and to activities that offer the
opportunity for personal growth and development”. Thus, Norton (1976, 8) sug-
gests that earnestly pursuing one’s daimion, or “eudaimonistic ‘integrity’ exhibits
a marked kinship to the ‘identity’ that contemporary men and women are said
to be searching for”. He describes people “quietly and decisively living their lives
according to their own inner imperative” (1976, xiii).
There is, then, arguably something very zeitgeist and twenty-first century
about eudaimonism, where everyone is, or is encouraged to be, an entrepreneur
(Hewison 2014). Bourdieu (2003, 30) describes this as the “myth of the trans-
formation of all wage earners into dynamic small entrepreneurs”, and explains
how, under the guise of individual empowerment, European governments have
been able:

to collaborate, in the name of monetary stability and budgetary rigor, to the

sacking of the most admirable conquests of the social struggles of the past
two centuries—universalism, egalitarianism  .  .  . and internationalism—
and to the destruction of the very essence of the socialist idea or ideal.
(2003, 54)

The mainstream media perpetuate this ideal as the hegemonic new normal
(Shaiken 1977), “reciting the neoliberal gospel” (Giroux 2014b, 11).
In step with this trend, higher education institutions adopt and are increas-
ingly bound to a “conception of educational value traceable to a dominant
neoliberal meta-policy that totemizes global competition” among individuals,
departments and institutions. In this climate, “Neoliberal education constrains
the information needed for democratic participation and choice through its
development of ‘manipulated man’ ” (Horsley 2015, 71). As I have suggested
elsewhere, however:

Our job as educators is to lead by example. Where curricula and mis-

sion statements are instrumentalist in focus, we have to show students
by engaging them critically—helping them to see Oz from different per-
spectives by removing the green glasses of neoliberalism, and discussing
that there is an alternative possibility to the normative, self-defeating
crush of the omnipotent capitalist, neoliberal paradigm.
(Smith 2015a, 79)
196 • Gareth Dylan Smith

If we believe, as Dewey (1897, 80) did, that “education is the fundamental

method of social progress and reform”, then for punk pedagogues in higher
education our responsibility to act becomes clear. As Lynch et al. note, “The
freedom from necessity enjoyed by academics affords them the space to write
and teach, so there is a choice whether or not to use that freedom to act” (2010,
297). Eudaimonism, therefore, may be helpful to capture and frame the balance
between individualism and the welfare of others that is core to a punk ethos
and to manifestations of punk pedagogy.

Levelling the Land4

The title of this chapter is taken from the chorus of the Levellers’ (1991) song,
“One Way”. For a while I was unsure about the band’s call to agency and self-
determination. As a bigoted young Methodist at age 14, I was confident that my
life was predestined by God, so the only way of life could surely be His; after
all, Jesus claimed He was “the way, the truth and the life” (Holy Bible, John 14:6,
emphasis added). Reading the song as blasphemous (but nonetheless guiltily
enjoying the catchy melody, playing the song repeatedly and singing along),
I did not allow myself to engage with the rest of the lyrics, or, therefore, to
understand other possible meanings or the context of the chorus. My enjoy-
ment of the band’s music was complex, owing in large part to the fact they were
from my hometown—well, almost. I lived in Shoreham-by-Sea, and the Level-
lers were based in Brighton, six miles away. We had a Brighton postcode, and a
Brighton-area phone number, which was enough for me to feel I was from the
city; as soon as I was old enough, I hung out there all the time (mostly going to
the jazz club). There is a big park in Brighton called The Level, and I thought
the band had named themselves after that, which was partly the case, but, more
significantly, they took the title of a radical English political organization of the
1640s. The hugely influential Levellers movement foreshadowed the politics of
the democratic governments that grew out of the French and American Revo-
lutions (British Broadcasting Corporation 2011), and Levellers’ ideology can be
heard resonating among today’s democratic socialist political advocates and in
more anarchist political viewpoints.
Foxley (2013, 94–95) explains that “the Leveller ideal of the common good as
exemplified in the equal freedoms of individuals” led to “extensive conclusions
about political rights” of all Englishmen. This can be seen as a quintessentially
punk outlook. Thus a more mature reading of the lyrics of “One Way” (Songlyrics
2015) clearly aligns the song’s meaning and intent with the band’s political
leanings, concerning a more equitable distribution of power, in this case over
“our” personal and social destinies, and the agency that affords them to a whole
generation. This song became an anthem for the band, uniting audiences in the
quintessentially “democratic and non-hierarchical” punk ethos that is reflected in
the work of those identifying (and identified) as punk pedagogues (Dines 2015, 27).
 “There’s Only One Way of Life” • 197

Torrez explains, “Punk pedagogy requires individual responsibility for social

actions, while invoking continuous reflexivity in our quotidian actions upholding
supra institutions of oppression” (2012, 135). Or, as the Levellers (and eudaimonist
philosophical perspectives) put it, “there’s only one way of life, and that’s your own”.
As I progressed through my undergraduate music studies, I moved simul-
taneously away from the church and what I guessed/intuited/prayed might
be God’s bidding for me, towards fulfilling what I hoped (and worked hard
towards) would be my destiny as a drummer, teacher, writer and, eventually,
academic. I became increasingly interested in providing the best education
and future for my students and those with whom they may come into contact
beyond graduation. Through the work of numerous scholars (e.g. Barrett 2011;
Green 2008a; Wright 2010), I have come to appreciate and to work (as well as
to struggle) with the tension inhering in the constant reconciling of academic
entrepreneurism and individualism with the great and deep compassion that
educators are prone to feel for their fellow humans. Parkinson (this volume)
identifies this as a “punk/education nexus [that] grapples with the problem of
how ‘punkademics’ (Furness 2012) might engage in higher education without
compromising their ideological principles”. He goes on to describe how “aca-
demics’ sense of identity can become destabilized when the perceived culture
of the institution contradicts their understanding of the intrinsic value and
purpose of education”, as mentioned earlier. This is a discombobulation and
cognitive dissonance with which I have become familiar.
The destabilized identity of which Parkinson writes can, I suggest, be rebal-
anced and reconciled through incorporation into a punk pedagogical frame.
Despite the fact that a punk pedagogy may in various ways appear “paradoxical”
or “oxymoronic” (Dines 2015, 20), it can be used to tackle and effect social change
for the better, perhaps all the more so with an awareness of peers (such as fel-
low contributors to this volume) trying to achieve similar ends. Ladson-Billings
(2015, 416) notes of another disruptive, socially conscious, grassroots popular
music movement, “Educators seek colleagues who are willing to ‘be’ hip-hop”;
pedagogues welcome affiliation with others who are willing to “be” punk.

Punk Pedagogical Practice

My master’s degree at the UCL IOE, as I mentioned earlier, was for me an
inspirational and empowering time, thanks in large part to the (punk) teach-
ing approach of Colin Durrant. He embodied all three of the themes emerging
from Parkinson’s (this volume) study into how teachers in higher education
understand and apply punk pedagogy: (1) performativity (the teacher adopt-
ing different roles); (2) autodidactism (empowering students through learning
for themselves); and (3) experience (putting students’ experiences at the core of
their education). Following Durrant’s insistence that academia was “a game”, I
have since chosen to play it by what I perceived to be rules he set out.
198 • Gareth Dylan Smith

Performativity
In Durrant’s class on philosophy in music and education, he had a wonder-
ful way of adopting any given position, to the extent that some class members
seemed fully convinced that our lecturer believed everything he said. He would
nimbly adopt a range of subtle, sometimes oppositional positionalities, deftly
navigating the classroom space in discussion, facilitating and deepening debate.
This technique seemed to get the best out of individuals and the group, as we
each were incensed, appeased or amazed by the insights and perspectives of
influential thinkers in our field. In my own teaching practice, I try to emulate
this performativity. In seminar classes where contentious issues are under dis-
cussion, I adopt the role of, for example, Bourdieu, Butler or Adorno, switching
hats as guide and referee to help students navigate the terrain. When provid-
ing written and verbal feedback on drafts of written assignments, I will also
“play the part” of an author or commentator representing a particular stance,
including sometimes just playing devil’s advocate to help students to see and
work through a problem. I use this technique in my approach to publication as
well, writing for instance about the exciting future of entrepreneurship and the
need to collaborate in a market economy (Smith 2013b; Smith and Gillett 2015;
Smith and Shafighian 2013), and then arguing to the contrary and for a more
nuanced approach from colleagues across the higher music education sector
(Parkinson and Smith 2015; Smith 2015a; Smith 2016a).
As various famous writers from Norman Mailer to Hunter S. Thompson are
alleged to have said, I often do not know what I think until I write it down—and
frequently not even then, having only articulated my thinking (through others’)
in part. Moreover, I often feel uncertain about what to think or how to think
until I have worked through it all on my laptop. The research that I publish is
always contingent—on context, on delimitations and on understandings and
experience. A punk, multifaceted performativity allows me and my students
to get inside a range of perspectives, and to understand and argue from there,
affording us insights into rationales and principles that we might not otherwise
have understood or considered.

Autodidactism
From being given carte blanche as a primary school Director of Music, through
the empowerment I felt as a fledgling academic author fashioning my mas-
ter’s dissertation for publication, to days of gleefully leafing through journal
back issues from the shelves of the UCL IOE library as a PhD student and
engaging my students in their own writing and activism, autodidactism has
been a core feature of my learning to be a teacher and academic. I should add
that the “auto”-didactism in which I engaged during my doctoral studies was
expertly and lovingly supported by the guidance and supervision of Professor
Lucy Green. As a part-time PhD student working several jobs, I was unable to
 “There’s Only One Way of Life” • 199

take full advantage of the doctoral student community at UCL IOE. I therefore
sought out conferences where I could present my developing work to peers
and senior scholars from relevant disciplines and fields, immersing myself in
discourse and discussion in a collegial spirit of sharing. My approach to con-
ferencing reflected the DIY punk approach (Gordon 2012) I had become used
to among bands at punk shows and festivals, that is “more collaborative than
competitive” (Smith and Gillett 2015, 19).
Since earning my PhD and feeling the burning desire to publish,5 I have
opted mostly to write book chapters for and edit compilations that appeal to
me, for example, Burnard et al.’s (2015) Bourdieu and Sociology of Music Edu-
cation, Randles’s (2014) Music Education: Navigating the Future, Kenny and
Christophersen’s (in press) volume on musician-teacher collaborations, and
my co-edited book with Roger Mantie (2016), the Oxford Handbook of Music
Making and Leisure. Working on these projects felt like drumming in a band
whose members are working together to record an album or rehearse a stage
set, as opposed to, for instance, sending a recorded solo drumming project out
into the ether to see who “bites”; I like the frame and the direction provided for
my creativities by a book, and it is exciting to have to read and to learn. In each
of the examples listed and more, I have been privileged to work on projects
that align with other punk pedagogical ideals, in step with Keil’s conviction
that people of this generation can be “the antidote, the cure” to “the capitalist
nastiness that seems to be guiding policy and guiding people toward more war,
more nationalism” (quoted in Mantie and Higgins 2015, 2). Whereas I know
from senior colleagues that I “should”, in career terms, focus more on publish-
ing articles in particular revered journals, my approach to scholarship, which I
find incredibly creative and fulfilling (eudaimonic), reflects Cook’s (2012, 120)
observation that “Rock [musicians] prefer an intuitive approach over creativity
toolboxes”—a “punk publication” approach, perhaps.
My learning experiences on this academic journey have much in common
with the “informal” (Green 2002) and “non-formal” (Mok 2010) learning
approaches gaining traction and recognition in music education scholarship
and practice (D’Amore and Smith 2016; Green 2008b). The Music Learning
Profiles Project (2016, 65) identifies such broad-ranging, inclusive approaches
to learning engaged by contemporary institutional and non-institutional
learners as “hybridized learning”, following Smith (2013b, 26). Advocates of
hybridized learning are especially concerned with ascription of “pedagogic
authority” (Bourdieu and Passeron 1977, 19), which refers to learners’ decisions
regarding from whom they are willing to learn (Froehlich and Smith 2017);
sometimes this can be recognized teachers, but pedagogic authority refers to
the ascription of wisdom or valued knowledge to any particular source—I, for
instance, ascribe and have ascribed significant pedagogic authority to the first
four albums of Led Zeppelin, to Joseph Heller’s (1961) Catch 22, and to numer-
ous scholars and peers across music and music education.
200 • Gareth Dylan Smith

Experience
Along my career trajectory, much of my writing draws on and problematizes
my environment and my experiences—from my study of drummers (Smith
2013a) to the eudaimonic music-making of non-celebrity contemporary musi-
cians (Smith 2016a); from the exploration of gendering in the music business
and music education (2015b) and “success” in popular music (Smith 2013b)
to the discussion of relationship marketing and new models of creativities and
entrepreneurship (Cartwright et al. 2015; Smith and Gillett 2015). My cultural
psychological study of drummers stemmed from an awareness, also observed
by Hart (1990, 30), that as a community drummers were under-researched
(Smith 2013c, 11). Prior to exploring “masculine domination” (Bourdieu 2001)
throughout the music industry and my place of work, I felt “an ethical and
pedagogical obligation to write [that] chapter” (2015b, 61). My work on “(Un)
popular music making and eudaimonism” grew out of a need I felt to explain
that so many musicians of my acquaintance simply “have to make time for
making music” (Smith 2016a). My involvement in this book grew out of my
response to a call for papers so tempting as to be irresistible!
In reference to teaching (history) in a contemporary context in the US,
Ladson-Billings observes:

The hardest thing we have to do is actually making democrats in undem-

ocratic spaces. This is close to impossible . . . The larger question is how
to re-situate democracy in the school, so that students begin to under-
stand how issues of rights, fairness, equality, and equity can and should
exist within the school and its practices, rather than as abstract concepts
to be applied at some later date.
(2015, 417)

I was fortunate in that at my former institution, ICMP, lecturers were

encouraged—some readings of the job description might even say required—
to curate democratic spaces in our classrooms. This was nowhere more evident
than in the Music, Culture, Context and Criticism thread that led to the final-
year Dissertation module (ICMP 2016).6 Reflection, discussion and criticality
were encouraged among all students from the outset, and were acknowledged
and rewarded through assessment of spoken and written assignments. The dis-
sertation, especially, provided a vehicle for incorporation of the performative
and autodidactic aspects of a punk pedagogical approach.
The teaching “delivery” model for the final-year dissertation included
weekly small-group seminar classes, organized by topics reflecting students’
research proposals. Seminars that I facilitated include Music and Society, and
Music and Gender. I approached these classes as a carte blanche endorse-
ment of Torrez’s (2012, 5) conviction that “Punk [pedagogy] is . . . a critique of
 “There’s Only One Way of Life” • 201

hegemony and the advocacy against conformity”. One of my principal tasks

early on in the classes was to demonstrate my dissatisfaction with the world and
my enthusiasm for expressions of anger, frustration, impatience and so forth
from young people who are engaged in the world around them and for whom
it can seem unjust, unkind and unfair. It was my pleasure to permit and facili-
tate these expressions, through seminars and one-to-one supervision, while
students each spent nine months researching a dissertation project, resulting
in a critical, evaluative report of about 10,000 words. I was buoyed by Dines’s
encouragement that punk pedagogy is “heuristic. It becomes the living coun-
terpart to the subject matter of the curriculum” (2015, 28).
I encouraged my students to challenge everything I said and they read,
and to read and view widely, so as to have context and content for their argu-
ments. As Dines (2015, 25) writes of punk pedagogical praxis, “students are
encouraged . . . to question an existing hegemony and instead look to new, cre-
ative ways to discover self-empowerment” (2015, 25). All ideas were welcome
in my classes, and we challenged one another in an environment of mutual
respect. I made explicit my fundamentally punk orientation to the world, try-
ing to live my belief that “life matters, so don’t fuck it up, and if someone else
is fucking it up, do something about it” (Bayard 1999, 13): that to “do some-
thing” could begin with writing about it in a dissertation. Students frequently
raised a wide range of issues that were either omitted from curriculum or
mainstream discussions, or that ran counter to the norms and expectations
of an overtly conservative education and music industry. I am not sure the
space was wholly democratic, but I made it very clear from the outset that the
class was certainly not about me filling vacant vessels with (my) knowledge.
Reflecting the compassionate, empathic and politically charged pedagogical
approach of Niknafs and Przybylski (2017), I tried to embrace in those spaces
the pedagogical principle “that education is a fundamentally empowering,
liberating, and healing reciprocity between teacher and learner” (Torrez 2012,
133). My work on the Dissertation module aimed to tackle two questions at
the core of punk’s raison d’être, “ ‘How should we live in practice?’ and ‘What
should we believe in?’ ” (Sofianos et al. 2015, 21).
Students writing dissertations for the first time were often unsure of how to
locate their papers in what feels like meaningful context. For many, grounding
their writing in their own experiences could provide a way into understand-
ing more about issues affecting them, and to contextualize their experiences
in a community or from a perspective not previously foregrounded in their
(formal) education. Even when students did not produce the best dissertations,
I was often aware that the learning, discussion and soul-searching that hap-
pened would be far more valuable, to the students and to those who populated
their lives, than necessarily the completion of an a A-grade piece of critical
writing. However, when the final assessed product was great too, I confess to
feeling especially humbled and excited. Dissertation subjects from recent years,
202 • Gareth Dylan Smith

notable for their potency or for the capacity of the learning journey to change
and empower the authors, included an exploration of homophobic lyrics and
attitudes in popular mainstream hip-hop; work-life balance for professional
musicians with commitments to jobs and families; expressions of feminism in
different movements and “waves”; the queer and transgender punk scene in
London; the dearth of female music producers; and objectification of women
in music videos, audio recordings and performances.

Critical, Anarchist and Punk Pedagogies

Parkinson (this volume) sagely notes, “The ideological heterogeneity of punk
defies attempts to assert a set of common, core ethics”. As such, authors claim-
ing kinship with punk pedagogy sometimes align their thinking and actions
with critical pedagogy or broader, less clearly defined anarchist pedagogy (Par-
kinson, this volume). Torrez (2012, 136) finds “Critical pedagogy . . . and punk
ideologies  .  .  . can and do meet once punks begin to claim space within the
academic world”. As Dines (2015, 31) explains, “Punk pedagogy seeks to build
upon the work of critical and anarchist pedagogies, seeking new ways in which
to address and interrogate marginalization”. For me, a key locus of my being
punk resides in the eudaimonistic sensibility described earlier, where I just feel
that I have to do something, to be a certain way, that is, critical of perceived
untruths and injustice.
Advocating for a “critical education”, Giroux writes:

Against an increasingly oppressive corporate-based globalism, educators

and other cultural workers need to resurrect a language of resistance and
possibility, a language that embraces a militant utopianism, while being
constantly attentive to those forces which seek to turn such hope into a
new slogan or to punish and dismiss those who dare look beyond the
horizon of the given.
(2007, 31)

Giroux recalls the writing of Antliff, who, discussing “anarchist pedagogy”,

explains it “is . . . about subverting and transcending oppressive social for-
mations so as to realize our freedom to creatively shape our lives in the
fullest sense” (2012, 328). This is what I felt I was doing, in a very small way
indeed, with some of my aforementioned publications and others that, for
instance, question the validity of confounding and straitjacketing grading
criteria (Smith 2011). These papers all come from my inkling that things
could be better, and that I have to put my hand up and speak, combined with
a sense that if I draw my understandings of these issues to people’s attention,
then maybe things can be changed for the better. As well as shaping my own
life, as Antliff implies, I hope very much that the publication, discussion
 “There’s Only One Way of Life” • 203

and dissemination of these articles can help to effect positive change in and
through the lives of my and others’ students, so extending from my impetu-
osity reflex and eudaimonistic leanings to a perhaps more compassionate
punk pedagogy.
I feel conflicting, and perhaps complementary, responsibilities in my role
working with undergraduates who expect careers somehow related to, if not
exactly as rewards for, their studies; in my role there is a palpable tension
between training and education, between vocationalist and liberal educational
values and authenticities (Allsup 2015; Jones 2017; Parkinson and Smith 2015).
As I have noted elsewhere, I feel strongly that those of us teaching in higher
education “are obliged to use the liminal space afforded us in the classroom”
(Smith 2015b, 78) to engage in critical educational practice. With students
navigating such a fragile, significant space (Tuan 1977) as contextualizes the
undergraduate or postgraduate journey, the un-criticized status quo is simply
never good enough. I have never been consciously “anarchistic” in my peda-
gogical approach, but recognize that my behaviour could perhaps be construed
as such. I identify strongly with Antliff ’s observation that,

Rooted in antiauthoritarian values often at odds with the “mainstream”,

anarchists conceive of education as a site of critical reflection and creative
license, where life and learning comingle, giving rise to ways of being that
prefigure and realize our ideals on a practical level, as a lived reality.
(2012, 326)

This is what Dines (2015, 25–26) means when he talks about “incorporating
[an ethos of punk] into pedagogical practice”. His words chime with those of
Dewey, who strongly advocated that, “the mature person, to put it in moral
terms, has no right to withhold from the young on given occasions whatever
capacity for sympathetic understanding his own experience has given him”
(1997, 38). Hear, hear.

Towards a (Personal) Punk Pedagogy

I was privileged at ICMP to work closely with (co-editor of this volume) Mike
Dines. Mike was, and remains, wonderfully supportive and encouraging of
punk pedagogical positionality and praxis. I realize that this privilege works
in direct counterpoint to situations elsewhere, such as, for instance, in Hous-
ton, Texas (one of several US states to permit concealed weapons on university
campuses), where in February 2016 faculty were advised by a forum of peers
to “be careful discussing sensitive topics” and to “not ‘go there’  ” if lecturers
sense anger (Wermund 2015). While perhaps sensible for the protection of
those on campus, the perceived threat of gun violence in classrooms, and these
suggested measures to avoid such a threat, run directly counter to the ontology
204 • Gareth Dylan Smith

of a liberal higher education. The advice given to these Texan faculty members
provides frightening and disappointing evidence to support Giroux’s observa-
tion that “there is widespread refusal . . . to address education as a crucial means
for expanding and enabling political agency” (2003, 96). Perhaps even more
alarming in this regard is the Professor Watchlist website that aims to “continue
to fight for free speech and the right for professors to say whatever they wish;
however students, parents, and alumni deserve to know the specific incidents
and names of professors that advance a radical agenda in lecture halls” (Turning
Point USA 2016, emphasis added).
The concept of individual freedom and agency was core to the Levellers’
political philosophy in seventeenth-century Britain, and strong traces of this
unsurprisingly remain in the politics of (former British colony) the United
States. In the fictional dystopian, totalitarian North American state of Gilead,
Margaret Atwood suggests a dichotomy of “freedom to and freedom from”
(1986, 34); while over-simplistic, as binary oppositions are wont to be, this
notion highlights the perennial tension in punk and anarchist ideology between
freedom and responsibility. In government and state ideological terms, this can
be bifurcated as the libertarian/authoritarian dichotomy. As Atwood’s charac-
ter, Aunt Lydia, says, “In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are
being given freedom from” (1986, 34). The Levellers’ (the folk-punk band’s)
insistence that there is “one way of life, and that’s your own” highlights the neces-
sary balancing act for governments, citizenry and perhaps especially educators,
between empowering individual agents or actors and accepting responsibility
towards other individuals. This issue is at the core of eudaimonism’s apparent
conundrum, indicated earlier—a stance that is at risk of being an “ethics of the
selfish” (Smith 2016b).
I take solace in Antliff ’s affirmation, “Changing society anarchically through
learning  .  .  . is a process of ‘becoming anarchist’ that necessarily eludes any
final resolution” (2012, 328). As well as trying to be punk, it is a lifetime’s work
continually to become punk. Fortunately, there remain numerous punkademics
(Furness 2012) who see it as their vocation to take this road and effect change.
Niknafs and Przybylski (2017), for example, write about a need for actively
“de-institutionalizing space” in universities, and Kaltefleiter and Nocella (2012,
203) urge and envision:

The space in which university learning takes place can be resisted so as

to create oppositional paradigms of thought that allow for new modes
of communication and direct action. Students and faculty collaborate to
engage in a resistance culture wherein individuals question the ways in
which members of society come to internalize and to believe the ide-
ologies set forth the by ISAs [ideological state apparatuses], including
universities.
 “There’s Only One Way of Life” • 205

Conclusion: Persevering With Punk Pedagogy

Bayard refers to the early US hardcore scene as “A house of freaks and misfits
struggling to deal with each other and themselves—sometimes successfully,
sometimes not” (1999, 9), a description that could very easily be applied to
punkademics! Within this “house of freaks and misfits”, we do not all need to
know precisely who we are or exactly what we are doing all the time, but we
punks like to talk about punk pedagogy, to think about it, and we feel compelled
to keep trying to get it right. Part of our strength surely lies in our diversity,
itself linked to our instinctive non-conformity. Dines reassuringly notes, “the
porous nature of punk means that it can draw up on the multifarious to cre-
ate identity and meaning. It can draw upon a plethora of ideas and beliefs to
supplement its core” (2015, 22), a core that is also multi-located, contingent and
individualized.
In closing this chapter I would like to suggest three main reasons for adopt-
ing punk pedagogy, as a principle and/or as praxis:

• Punk pedagogy describes and includes ways of being and modes of

behavior that seem to come naturally to some people;
• Punk pedagogy seeks democratically to empower students, lecturers
and all who embrace and are affected by it;
• Western “democracies” stand at a critical point in the lives of their
societies—punk pedagogy may be able to help us.

Henry Giroux suggests, “Political exhaustion and impoverished intellectual

visions are fed by the increasingly popular assumption that there are no
alternatives to the present state of affairs” (2003, 94). As I first drafted this
chapter, however, there was a tangible rise of the political left in the US and
the UK, proposing socialist democratic alternatives to the neoliberal pact,
that appear popular among especially younger members of the electorate.
While this more democratic socialist sentiment took a beating at polls, owing
to a commensurate rise on the right (perhaps, most notably, directly prior to
and since the election of President Donald Trump in the US), the reinvigora-
tion of political activity and activism feels like a mandate to keep working at
being a punk.
Punk pedagogy is intimately connected with the social justice agenda in
education, sharing the ethos of this movement towards greater democracy.
Horsley, citing Sonu (2012) explains:

Social justice education—however we might conceive of it [is identifi-

able through] “its adherence to the belief that education can cultivate
within students a sense of civic responsibility, the duty to care about the
plight of others, and the means to work in solidarity to transform the
206 • Gareth Dylan Smith

structural and ideological forces that benefit certain communities at the

expense of others”.
(2015, 62)

Punk pedagogy provides a flexible framework, successful precedents and

accessible literature for setting about realizing necessary and dramatic social
change. It is important as an ethos for our times, and is key to giving voice
to democracy—a core, reified ideology that, nonetheless, is “elusive and con-
tested” (DeLorenzo 2015a, 1). Woodford (2005, 79) observes, “Democracy is
an open and socially constructed concept and set of principles into which each
generation must breathe new life”. It is, then, an ideal home and project for
punk pedagogy. Democracy, DeLorenzo writes, “is more than a political state-
ment. It is freedom: freedom to celebrate the triumphs of mankind; freedom to
bear witness to the horrors of humanity; freedom to advocate for change; and
freedom to reflect on the human condition. Let us not waste this opportunity”
(2015b, 262). Let us go forth and be punk.

Notes
1. The title of this chapter is taken from the chorus refrain of the Levellers’ song “One Way” from
their 1991 album, Levelling the Land.
2. We also still make music together, although rarely in the same physical space. We now average
about three years between each rehearsal/recording session.
3. Postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE), the UK’s gateway qualification to teaching for
those with undergraduate degrees outside of education.
4. Levelling the Land is the title of the Levellers’ second album, released in 1991.
5. Alongside the pressing need to write in the “publish or perish” world of academia.
6. “Modules” on degree programmes in the UK are typically referred to as “courses” in, for exam-
ple, the US.

References
Allsup, Randall E. 2015. “The Eclipse of a Higher Education or Problems Preparing Artists in a
Mercantile World.” Music Education Research 17, 3: 251–261.
Antliff, Allan. 2012. “Afterword: Let the Riots Begin.” In Anarchist Pedagogies: Collective Actions,
Theories, and Critical Reflections on Education, edited by Robert H. Haworth, 326–328. Oak-
land, CA: PM Press.
Atwood, Margaret. 1986. The Handmaid’s Tale. London: Jonathan Cape.
Barrett, Margaret S. 2011. A Cultural Psychology of Music Education. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Bayard, M. 1999. “Introduction.” In The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise! edited by Craig
O’Hara, 8–13. London: AK Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 2001. Masculine Domination. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 2003. Firing Back: Against the Tyranny of the Market 2. London: Verso.
Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron. 1977. Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture,
Trans. Richard Nice. London: Sage.
British Broadcasting Corporation. 2011. The Levellers and the Tradition of Dissent. Accessed Janu-
ary 10, 2016. www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/benn_levellers_01.shtml.
Cartwright, P. A., A. Gillett, and G. D. Smith. 2015. “Valuing Networks for Emerging Musicians.”
In Les Tendances Technico-économiques de la Valeur, edited by Valérie LeJeune, 129–160.
Paris: l’Harmattan.
 “There’s Only One Way of Life” • 207

Cook, Peter. 2012. The Music of Business: Business Excellence Fused With Music. Gillingham: The
Academy of Rock.
D’Amore, Abigail, and Gareth D. Smith. 2016. “Aspiring to Music Making as Leisure Through the
Musical Futures Classroom.” In The Oxford Handbook of Music Making and Leisure, edited
by Roger Mantie and Gareth D. Smith, 61–80. New York: Oxford University Press.
Della Fave, Antonella, Ingrid Brdar, Teresa Freire, Dianne Vella-Brodrick, and Marié P. Wissing.
2011. “The Eudaimonic and Hedonic Components of Happiness: Qualitative and Quantita-
tive Findings.” Social Indicators Research 100: 185–207.
DeLorenzo, Linda C. 2015a. “Introduction.” In Giving Voice to Democracy in Music Education:
Diversity and Social Justice, edited by Lisa C. DeLorenzo, 1–12. New York: Routledge.
DeLorenzo, Lisa C. 2015b. “Conclusion.” In Giving Voice to Democracy in Music Ducation: Diversity
and Social Justice, edited by Lisa C. DeLorenzo, 252–262. New York: Routledge.
De Rond, Mark. 2008. The Last Amateurs: To Hell and Back With the Cambridge Boat Race Crew.
Cambridge: Icon Books.
Dewey, John. 1997. Experience and Education. New York: Touchstone.
Dierendonck, Dirk van, and Krishna Mohan. 2006. “Some Thoughts on Spirituality and Eudai-
monic Well-Being.” Mental Health, Religion and Culture 9, 3: 227–238.
Dines, Mike. 2015. “Learning Through Resistance: Contextualisation, Creation and Incorporation
of a ‘Punk Pedagogy’.” Journal of Pedagogical Development 5, 3: 20–31.
Dylan, Bob. 1963. “Blowin’ in the Wind.” The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Columbia/Sony,
B0001M0KDO: CD.
Dylan, Bob. 1967. “John Wesley Harding.” John Wesley Harding. Sony, B009MBANUU: CD.
Dylan, Bob. 1968. “Chimes of Freedom.” Another Side of Bob Dylan. Sony, B009M94H7C: CD.
Dylan, Bob. 1975. Blood on the Tracks. Sony, B009MBBJK8: CD.
Foxley, Rachel. 2013. The Levellers: Radical Political Thought in the English Revolution. Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
Froehlich, Hildegard C., and Gareth D. Smith. 2017. Sociology of Music Teachers: Practical Applica-
tions. New York: Routledge.
Furness, Zack (Ed.). 2012. Punkademics: The Basement Show in the Ivory Tower. Brooklyn, NY:
Minor Compositions.
Giroux, Henry A. 2003. “Utopian Thinking Under the Sign of Neoliberalism: Towards a Critical
Pedagogy of Educated Hope.” Democracy and Nature 9, 1: 91–104.
Giroux, Henry A. 2007. “Utopian Thinking in Dangerous Times: Critical Pedagogy and the Project
of Educated Hope.” In Utopian Pedagogy: Radical Experiments Against Neoliberal Global-
ization, edited by Mark Coté, Richard J. P. Day, and Greig de Peuter, 25–43. London, ON:
University of Toronto Press.
Giroux, Henry A. 2014a. Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education. Chicago: Haymarket.
Giroux, Henry A. October 10, 2014b. “Beyond Orwellian Nightmares and Neoliberal Authoritari-
anism.” Academia.edu. www.academia.edu/9474333/Neoliberal_Violence_in_the_Age_of_
Orwellian_Nightmares.
Gordon, Alastair. 2012. Building Recording Studios Whilst Bradford Burned. In Punkademics: The
Basement Show in the Ivory Tower, edited by Zack Furness, 105–124. Brooklyn, NY: Minor
Compositions.
Green, Lucy. 2002. How Popular Musicians Learn: A Way Ahead for Music Education. Aldershot:
Ashgate.
Green, Lucy. 2008a. Music on Deaf Ears: Musical Meaning, Ideology, Education. London: Abramis.
Green, Lucy. 2008b. Music, Informal Learning, and the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy. Alder-
shot: Ashgate.
Hart, Mickey with Jay Stevens. 1990. Drumming at the Edge of Magic: A Journey Into the Spirit of
Percussion. New York: HarperSanFrancisco.
Hewison, Robert. 2014. Cultural Capital: The Rise and Fall of Creative Britain. London: Verso.
Higgins, Lee. 2012. Community Music: In Theory and in Practice. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Holy Bible. Bible Hub. Accessed January 9, 2016. http://biblehub.com/john/14-6.htm.
Horsley, Stephanie. 2015. “Facing the Music: Pursuing Social Justice Through Music Education in
a Neoliberal World.” In The Oxford Handbook of Social Justice in Music Education, edited
by Cathy Benedict, Patrick Schmidt, Gary Spruce, and Paul Woodford, 62–77. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Jones, Michael. 2017. “Teaching Music Industry in Challenging Times: Addressing the Neoliberal
Employability Agenda in Higher Education at a Time of Music-Industrial Turbulence.” In The
208 • Gareth Dylan Smith

Routledge Research Companion to Popular Music Education, edited by Gareth D. Smith, Zack
Moir, Matt Brennan, Shara Rambarran, and Phil Kirkman, 341–354. Abingdon: Routledge.
Kaltefleiter, Carline K., and Anthony J. Nocella II. 2012. “Anarchy in the Academy: Staying True to
Anarchism as an Academic-Activist.” In Anarchist Pedagogies: Collective Actions, Theories,
and Critical Reflections on Education, edited by Robert H. Haworth, 200–216. Oakland, CA:
PM Press.
Ladson-Billings, Gloria. 2015. “You Gotta Fight the Power: The Place of Music in Social Justice
Education.” In The Oxford Handbook of Social Justice in Music Education, edited by Cathy
Benedict, Patrick Schmidt, Gary Spruce, and Paul Woodford, 406–419. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Levellers, The. 1991. “One Way.” Levelling the Land. China, B0000925P3: CD.
Levellers, The. 1991. Levelling the Land. China, B0000925P3: CD.
Lynch, Kathleen, Margaret Crean, and Marie Moran. 2010. “Equality and Social Justice: The Uni-
versity as a Site of Struggle.” In The Routledge International Handbook of the Sociology of
Education, edited by M. W. Apple, Stephen J. Ball, and Luis Armando Gandin, 296–305.
Oxford: Routledge.
Mantie, Roger, and Lee Higgins. 2015. “Paedeia Con Salsa: Charles Keil, Groovology, and Under-
graduate Music Curriculum.” College Music Symposium 55. http://dx.doi.org/10.18177/
sym.2015.55.fr.10885.
Mantie, Roger, and Gareth Dylan Smith (Ed.). 2016. The Oxford Handbok of Music Making and
Leisure. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mok, Annie. 2010. Enculturation and Learning in Music: The Attitudes, Values and Beliefs of Four
Hong Kong Socio-Musical Groups. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of London.
Niknafs, Nasim, and Liz Przybylski. 2017. “Popular Music and (R)evolution of the Classroom
Apace: Occupy Wall Street in the Music School.” In The Routledge Research Companion to
Popular Music Education, edited by Gareth D. Smith, Zack Moir, Matt Brennan, Shara Ram-
barran, and Phil Kirkman, 412–424. Abingdon: Routledge.
Norton, David L. 1976. Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Parkinson, Tom, and Gareth D. Smith. 2015. “Towards an Epistemology of Authenticity in Higher
Popular Music Education.” Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education 14, 1: 93–127.
Rashidi, Waleed. 2012. “Punk Rock Docs: A Qualitative Study.” In Punkademics: The Basement
Show in the Ivory Tower, edited by Zack Furness, 66–85. Brooklyn, NY: Minor Compositions.
Ryan, Richard M., Veronika Huta, and Edward L. Deci. 2008. “Living Well: A Self-Determination
Theory Perspective on Eudaimonia.” Journal of Happiness Studies 9: 139–170.
Shaiken, Harley. 1977. “Craftsman Into Baby Sitter.” In Disabling Professions, edited by Ivan Illich,
Irving K. Zola, John McKnight, Jonathan Caplan, and Harley Shaiken. London: Marion
Boyars.
Smith, Gareth D. 2011. “Freedom to Versus Freedom From: Frameworks and Flexibility in Assess-
ment on an Edexcel BTEC Level 3 Diploma Popular Music Performance Programme.” Music
Education Research International 5: 34–45.
Smith, Gareth D. 2013a. “Seeking ‘Success’ in Popular Music.” Music Education Research Interna-
tional 6: 26–37.
Smith, Gareth D. 2013b. “Pedagogy for Employability in a Foundation Degree (Fd.A.) in Creative
Musicianship: Introducing Peer Collaboration.” In Collaboration in Higher Music Education,
edited by Helena Gaunt and Heidi Westerlund, 193–198. Farnham: Ashgate.
Smith, Gareth D. 2013c. I Drum, Therefore I Am: Being and Becoming a Drummer. Farnham: Ashgate.
Smith, Gareth D. 2015a. “Masculine Domination and Intersecting Fields in Private-sector Popu-
lar Music Performance Education in the UK.” In Bourdieu and the Sociology of Music and
Music Education, edited by Pamela Burnard, Ylva Hofstander, and Johan Söderman, 61–79.
Farnham: Ashgate.
Smith, Gareth D. 2015b. “Neoliberalism and Symbolic Violence in Higher Music Education.” In
Giving Voice to Democracy: Diversity and Social Justice in the Music Classroom, edited by Lisa
C. DeLorenzo, 75–84. New York: Routledge.
Smith, Gareth D. 2016a. “(Un)popular Music Making and Eudaimonia.” In The Oxford Handbook
of Music Making and Leisure, edited by Roger Mantie and Gareth D. Smith, 151–170. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Smith, Gareth D. 2016b. Be True to Who You Are: Eudaimonism and the Ethics of the Selfish.
Accessed March 20, 2017. www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-0XoatzTzM.
 “There’s Only One Way of Life” • 209

Smith, Gareth D., and Colin Durrant. 2006. “Mind Styles and Paradiddles—Beyond the Bell Curve:
Towards an Understanding of Learning Preferences, and Implications for Instrumental
Teachers.” Research Studies in Music Education 26: 51–62.
Smith, Gareth D., and Alex Gillett. 2015. “Creativities, Innovation and Networks in Garage Punk
Rock: A Case Study of the Eruptörs.” Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts 4,
1: 9–24.
Smith, Gareth D., and Atar Shafighian. 2013. “Creative Space and the ‘Silent Power of Traditions’ in
Popular Music Performance Education.” In Developing Creativities in Higher Music Educa-
tion: International Perspectives and Practices, edited by Pamela Burnard, 256–267. London:
Routledge.
Sofianos, Lisa, Robin Ryde, and Charlie Waterhouse. 2015. The Truth of Revolution, Brother: An
Exploration of Punk Philosophy. London: Situation Press.
Songlyrics. 2015. The Levellers One Way. Accessed December 28, 2015. www.songlyrics.com/the-
levellers/one-way-lyrics/.
Sonu, Debbie. 2012. “Illusions of Compliance: Performing the Public and Hidden Transcripts of
Social Justice Education in Neoliberal Times.” Curriculum Inquiry 42, 2: 240–259.
Torrez, Estrella. 2012. “Punk Pedagogy: Education for Liberation and Love.” In Punkademics: The
Basement Show in the Ivory Tower, edited by Zack Furness, 131–142. Brooklyn, NY: Minor
Compositions.
Turning Point USA. 2016. Professor Watchlist. Accessed March 20, 2017. http://professorwatchlist.
org/.
Waterman, Alan S. 1993. “Two Conceptions of Happiness: Contrasts of Personal Expressiveness
(Eudaimonia) and Hedonic Enjoyment.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64:
678–691.
Wermund, Benjamin. 2015. “UH Faculty Suggest Steering Clear of Some Topics If Students Armed.”
Houston Chronicle. Accessed February 28, 2016. www.chron.com/local/education/campus-
chronicles/article/UH-faculty-may-drop-topics-from-curriculum-as-6849002.php.
Woodford, Paul. 2005. Democracy and Music Education: Liberalism, Ethics, and the Politics of Prac-
tice. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Wright, Ruth (Ed.). 2010. Sociology and Music Education. Farnham: Ashgate.
 14
From Punk Ethics to the
Pedagogy of the Bad Kids: Core
Values and Social Liberation
TIAGO TELES SANTOS AND PAULA GUERRA

Forbidden entrance for those not amazed to exist.

—José Gomes Ferreira1

Introduction
A sense of crisis is often felt as a normative part of people’s everyday lives
(Streeck 2016). For this reason, the social, political and economic catalysts
that shaped the emergence—and probably the most visible era—of punk in
the 1970s seem to make more sense now than ever. Punk’s notoriety made it
into a cultural form that echoes through time with its characteristics resem-
bling those of Ozymandias in Shelley’s (1818/2008) sonnet; like “the king of
kings”, its ability to stand above the chaos makes it a perfect habitat for the
emergence of oppositional ways of thinking. This chapter presents and dis-
cusses a set of characteristics of punk that render it simultaneously a rich
object of study and a starting point for pedagogical modalities that enable
the social inclusion and empowerment of individuals lying on the margins of
society. Understanding punk as a cultural form defined by a set of values in
opposition to normative and mainstream cultural modalities—as a “space” of
freedom—we start by presenting our own perspective on punk; as a means
to mount a critique of formal models of education, focusing on inequalities
inherent in or associated with these models and addressing the “hidden cur-
riculum” (Apple 1999b), the ideological apparatuses of the state and new
forms of “pedagogy of the oppressed” (Freire 1970). We contend that for-
mal schooling does not work effectively for everyone in the same way; hence,
we propose that the core values of punk—and particularly its do-it-yourself
(DIY) ethos—might undergird the pedagogies of non-formal education to
provide individuals with skills, perspectives and attributes that enable them
to assume control over their own lives, and to find alternative strategies for
integration and empowerment.

210
 Pedagogy of the Bad Kids • 211

As such, we argue that punk has a critical role to play in the theory and prac-
tice of education as it enables and reiterates a critical opposition to the status
quo, permitting multiple resistance stances and contributing a counterhege-
monic voice through its informal and de-centralized networks and activities.
These have historically included a flux of music, fanzines and styles; the liveli-
ness of labels and stores; bands’ recording and releasing of their own music;
participation in social movements; the revival of community centres and vol-
unteering; and the engagement in professions centred on an ethos of resistance,
among other features and indicators. Taken as a whole, these have enabled punk
as a form-cum-movement to develop strategies for maintaining high degrees of
independence and evade the constraints of neoliberalism (Guerra and Quin-
tela 2014; Guerra 2014; Guerra and Silva 2015). Our approach is based on a
theoretical itinerary focused on the contributions of writers such as Foucault
(1986), Bourdieu (2007), Freire (2005) and Apple (1999a, 1999b). From this we
will draw ideas for reflection and discussion about individuality and difference
that are key aspects of punk (Sofianos et al. 2015, 23) while presenting what we
believe to be the core values of a punk ethos and ethic, and the way these might
be mobilized in school curricula and educational practices.

Freedom and Resistance: Punk as a Space of Possibilities

Style is a subtle way of transferring the confusion and violence of life to
the mental stage of an unit of significance . . . We can’t take the messed
up disorder of life. Therefore we pick it up, reduce it to two or three
topics that are relatable. Afterwards, through an intellectual operation,
we say that these topics can be found in a common topic.
(Helder 2013, 7)2

We are mindful that any attempt to “define” punk is problematic. Instead, we

offer the caveat that, notwithstanding our generalizations and discussion of
“core” meanings, we do not wish to ascribe a definitive meaning to punk. Rather,
we offer a subjective conceptualization arrived at by way of our experiences
and inclinations (in the Heideggerian sense of that word). In our understand-
ing, punk is structured by an attitude of transformation, of (re)creation of the
world through re-appropriation of materials and meanings, transforming them
into new and essentially different products. Through DIY, the mechanisms of
dependence are subverted, creating escape routes, spaces open to experience,
actual and symbolic communities, comprising both practices and meanings.
According to Dunn (2008), the attractiveness of punk as a form of political and
personal expression resides in the offer of resources for agency and empower-
ment through disalienation, a DIY ethos and an anti-status-quo disposition, a
disposition that, according to James (2009), is a deliberately rude infraction of
aesthetic and social norms.
212 • Tiago Teles Santos and Paula Guerra

Punk is a space of and for resistance. According to Foucault (1997), the act of
resisting is not detached from power; there is no exteriority, no absolute exte-
rior to power. In this way, power relations depend on a multiplicity of points
of resistance that fulfil the role of the adversary, the place of the target. For
Charlesworth (2000, 17), “the world is a particular world, come to be known
in a particular way: a way that makes possible the realisation of life projects”.
This “particular world” is based on the being-in-the-world and on a set of non-
cognitive attitudes that refer to what Merleau-Ponty (2004) defines as the world
of perception, or, in other words, the world that is revealed to us through our
senses in our daily lives. This world of perception, despite being referred to as
an illusion by Merleau-Ponty (2004), is the one that we know, the one upon
which we act and from which we receive information. It is this world that forms
and transforms our lives, and upon which existence is defined. In this con-
text, space is social and is a central element in the definition of the universe of
possibilities—the limits of the thinkable (Castoriadis 2000).
For Lefebvre (2010), social space is a product of a sequence and set of opera-
tions that cannot be reduced to the place of one object or product among others;
social spaces contain multiple products that collectively frame their interrela-
tions. According to Bourdieu (2010a), if physical space is defined by the order
of the coexistences, social space is defined by mutual exclusion, or distinction,
of the positions that constitute it while it structures the juxtaposition of social
positions. It is this inescapable struggle for distinction between individuals and
groups—resonating with and actualizing Foucault’s understanding of power—
that shapes the social world. The significance of this concept is that space serves
as a locus for everything else; what is comprised in the world is “a body to
which there is a world, which is included in the world, according to a form of
inclusion irreducible to the simple material and spatial inclusion” (Bourdieu
1998, 199). To this point we have two different, complementary perspectives
regarding space and the world, one presenting the world from the perspective
of individual, perceived experience, and the other situating individuals in the
field (Guerra 2015).
Written into the world of their own description, in a reduced reality of
significations and frameworks, how is it possible for individuals to deal with
the dissonance between identities and wills, and the context in which they are
inscribed? The myth of Tiresias worked, for Schutz, as a springboard to exam-
ine the way in which the thoughts of men and women anticipate future events
and, moreover, to operate as a distinction between the kingdom of the social
world that stands beyond human control and the one upon which individuals
can act (Schutz, in Auyero and Swistun 2009). Nevertheless, unlike Tiresias,
confronting the world that is imposed on them and which escapes their control,
a world on which their existence depends, human beings create anticipations
in the shape of fears and hopes. At this point we propose that punk can serve
as a shelter that enables individuals to take the present into their own hands, to
 Pedagogy of the Bad Kids • 213

change the course of their lives by their own will while reclaiming no future,3
instead creating and enacting a different future (Santos 2012; Guerra and Ben-
nett 2015).
In this way, punk offers opportunities for people to recognize collective
cultural and political desires as their own (Thompson 2004). This operates in
contrast to the identity crisis facing contemporary society, which, according to
Fromm (1999), reflects the crisis produced by its members’ becoming instru-
ments without individual personalities, whose identities are reliant on their
participation in corporations. One of punk’s structuring characteristics, one
that makes it a stronghold for hope, is its perpetual refusal to stop imagining
the world as other than it is (Thompson 2004). Neoliberalism is neither natural
nor necessary—this is a guiding principle for many punks who cannot fully
imagine how a better world might be, but who refuse to accept that this one
cannot change (Thompson 2004).
In this sense, we might see punk as a large family, with different people and
weird uncles, that accepts, protects and often (although not always) welcomes
its different elements. Punk is informed by points of view, experiences, trajec-
tories, ideals, expectations and contexts, orbiting around one another to form
collective and shared experiences. Coming from different social, generational
and geographical backgrounds, individuals can share a culture of resistance—
resistance to the status quo and to politics, and, above all, resistance against
the impacts of both in everyday life. In a society in crisis, that is shattering at
both social and personal levels, one can share a culture of opposition, a culture
that can either exist only at the level of discourse or can be actualized. Here,
the strength and modality of one’s relationship with punk can be the key to
understanding this ambiguity. For those who maintain a strong connection and
high levels of participation, the discursive strength is reflected in their daily
lives and everyday practices. When the level of participation and contact with
the scene, or identification with punk’s everyday life and mode of functioning
are reduced, the practical impact of the ideals diminishes also, resulting in a
platonic affiliation, a kind of non-actualized relationship where one becomes
more detached from day-to-day practice but still identifies with a concept or
an idea (Santos 2012).
Nevertheless, punk is also made from these antitheses and antagonisms. If
its ideological matrix opens the door for a crowd, sometimes punk only has
room for a few. In this way, there are individuals for whom punk became its own
antithesis, meaning that punk adopted some of the mechanisms that structure
the same world it criticizes (Silva and Guerra 2015). Otherwise, in a context of
crisis (both personal and global, perfunctory or more sustained), the familiarity
that punk seems to offer its “militants” is a result of its ability to frame different
feelings and the possibility for individuals to be “punk” while being different
from other punks. Punk thus becomes a space able to guarantee shelter, and
to be a support base for those who, for one reason or another, feel different or
214 • Tiago Teles Santos and Paula Guerra

displaced (Santos 2012). This is possible because of punk’s deep embrace of the
logics of social and political positioning through negotiation between individu-
als’ or groups’ identities and the dominant order, dissent and opposition to such
order, and a celebration of self-initiative as the DIY philosophy (Guerra and
Silva 2015; Sofianos et al. 2015).
Punk has been declared dead,4 but punk survives. It took time to reveal
itself, and soon after faked its own death. However, punk was here long before
it acquired its name.5 It is therefore possible to look at punk based on the idea
that it “existed before it existed”, as an attitude that prefigured its definition and
that enabled it to survive its own “death”, maintaining the “punk attitude” at its
core. In the words of Clark:

Gone the hair, the boutique clothes, the negative rebellion [. . .]. Gone the
name. Maybe it had to die to receive its own life insurance. When punk
was declared dead it left as a legacy to its successors—punk itself—a new
subcultural discourse. [. . .] By freeing itself from its own orthodoxies—its
costumes, musical rules, behaviours and thoughts—punk incorporated the
anarchism to which it aspired.
(Clark 2003, 234)

We would contend, therefore, that punk malleability serves as a habitat for

a different kind of pedagogy. Foucault (1986, 2002) presents heterotopias as
peculiar spaces that at once relate to and deviate from everyday life. They figure
disorder and are made up of “fragments of a large number of possible orders”
juxtaposed “without law or geometry” (Foucault 2002, xix). For Foucault,
heterotopias (unlike utopias) are disturbing because they secretly undermine
language and disable the possibility of discourse (Foucault 1986, 2002). They
are not only the breakdown of a particular system of signification; rather they
transgress the very distinction between signifier and signified, namely words
and things. In this sense, to look at punk as place, as a safe haven or a shelter
for difference, makes it a kind of symbolic heterotopia—existing in the world,
disturbing the status quo through means of resistance based on a shattering of
signifiers and a (re-)appropriation of signs.

The Battle for Education

A new world is being shaped. While this assertion might not be novel, the
size of the impacts of this change is today more visible than ever. The political
world “has been gradually turning into itself, absorbed by its internal rival-
ries and problems” (Bourdieu 2010b, 627), reflecting in its structure the weight
of individualism. Over the past few decades we have observed the collapse
of ideologies and the reshaping of the Western cultural world (Giroux 2014,
2016). This crisis is de-humanizing (Zerzan 2007), shaping an individualistic
 Pedagogy of the Bad Kids • 215

and selfish society (Apple 1999a) wherein the pillars of stability are shattered
and global uncertainty reigns, accompanied by shifting political events that
invoke some of humanity’s worst memories: fear and loathing of the other, the
resurfacing of populist right-wing movements, the decaying value of knowl-
edge and information, and of values like truth and honesty. These are complex
times, lived in a society inhabited by “people visibly unhappy: alone, anxious,
depressed, destructive, dependent—people who are joyful to kill the time we so
eagerly try to save” (Fromm 1999, 17).
School and education play a key role in this project, one that we discuss with
two cases and from two points of view: the internal and the external. According
to Bourdieu and Passeron’s work (1978), the schooling system can be under-
stood, despite its professed goals of equality and social mobility, as the centre
of social reproduction mechanisms, operating in order to sustain the order of
things, with all the inequalities that it involves. Discussing pedagogic action,
they posit that the dominant cultural forces tend to remain in a dominant posi-
tion, defining and imposing the value of the economic and symbolic market
upon the dominated classes. In this way, pedagogic action is always constituted
as symbolic violence as it works to impose and inculcate certain significations
and exclude others by selection (Bourdieu and Passeron 1978; see also Illich
1971). According to Bourdieu:

It is probably due to an effect of cultural inertia that we still take the

schooling system as a factor for social mobility, according to the ideology
of the “liberating school”, when, conversely, everything tends to demon-
strate that it is one of the most efficient factors of social conservation, as
it offers an apparent legitimacy to social inequalities.
(Bourdieu 2007, 41)

For the most and least favoured in this system to remain as such, it is necessary
and sufficient that school ignores, at a curriculum level and in its methods,
techniques and evaluation criteria, the cultural inequalities between individuals
from different social backgrounds (Bourdieu 2007, 53). Bernstein (1996) helps
us understand the grounds for these affirmations in his analysis of pedagogi-
cal discourse. Codes, classifications and frameworks fulfil an important role
in education. While the code is a “regulative base, acquired tacitly, that selects
and integrates relevant meanings, ways of realisations and evocative contexts”
(Bernstein 1996, 143), the classification and framework are used, respectively,
to describe the power and control relations of what is taught and learnt and the
ways in which these relations influence how the teaching/learning process is
conducted. Bernstein further demonstrates that children from different social
origins develop different codes, or forms of speech: children from a working-
class background usually demonstrate the use of a restricted code, a discourse
deeply imbricated in their own specific cultural context. Their particular world
216 • Tiago Teles Santos and Paula Guerra

is perceived as guided by evident norms and values that, consequently, are not
usually expressed in their language. Here, language is useful to communicate
practical experiences but not so useful to discuss abstract ideas, processes or
relationships. Middle and upper class children’s socialization, by contrast, usu-
ally permits the acquisition of an elaborate code, a style of language where the
meaning of the words can be individualized in order to adapt to the demands
of particular situations. It enables children to deal with the unexpected and to
become more adaptable to different situations (Bernstein 1996). We see with
Bourdieu and Passeron that the schooling system’s pedagogic action is derived
from the dominant classes. Bernstein reveals the basic level at which disadvan-
tages operate.
Following Bernstein, Abrantes (2010), writing about the Portuguese reality,
argues that while the existence of multiple intelligences can be acknowledged,
the school only acknowledges a limited range:

Sociological analyses suggest that the primary socialisation of youth from

the elite and the new middle classes, is not only more varied but it also pro-
motes the types of intelligence valued by the school, whereas the popular
classes’ parents are characterised by the scarcity of educational resources,
developing in their children types of intelligence that are very useful in
other contexts but rarely acknowledged by the educational system.
(Abrantes 2010, 139)

This internal structure of inequality is not a problem or an “error” but is based

in an ideology that is gaining in prevalence, credence and normativity among
Western societies. Writing in the 1970s, Louis Althusser (1971) presents the
concept of Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) in which he inscribes the educa-
tion system. ISAs function by force of ideology, by shielding and promoting one
group of people to the detriment of others in order to preserve the position of
the dominant ideology and reproduce the conditions of production (Althusser
1971). Structuring both public and private institutions, these apparatuses oper-
ate in relation with those who repress, in order to ensure reproduction not only
of the system’s

“skills” but also the reproduction of its subjection to the ruling ideology
or of the “practice” of that ideology, with the proviso that it is not enough
to say “not only but also”, for it is clear that it is in the forms and under the
forms of ideological subjection that provision is made for the reproduc-
tion of the skills of labour power.
(Althusser 1971, 89)

Paulo Freire’s (2005) work is in alignment with Althusser in this regard. Freire’s
banking concept of education describes the process of depositing knowledge by
 Pedagogy of the Bad Kids • 217

the teacher into the student in a non-communicative relationship. For Freire,

this is the antithesis of education, as students, instead of being active learning
agents, become repositories of information and lose their sense of humanity
that comes only with “creativity, transformation, and knowledge”, and “through
invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hope-
ful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each
other” (Freire 2005, 72). For Freire, this is an intentional process that serves
the interests of the oppressors as they “care neither to have the world revealed
nor to see it transformed” (Freire 2005, 73), aspiring thus to annul the students’
creative power. Freire echoes, in his critique, Ivan Illich (1985), who begins
by drawing a distinction between education and schooling, between learning
skills and knowledge:

Many students, especially those who are poor, intuitively know what
the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and
substance . . . The pupil is thereby “schooled” to confuse teaching with
learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with compe-
tence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination
is “schooled” to accept service in place of value.
(Illich 1985, 16)

In spite of these critiques, school has (little) room for knowledge and educa-
tion. However, it has become clear that education is under new management
and the neoliberal ideology pervades this ISA (Parkinson and Smith 2015).
Michael Apple explains that “the calls for a focus on ‘hard’ rather than ‘soft’
subjects and a call to return to ‘real curricula’ and to rigorously police the teach-
ing of them, are visible both in government and in the media” (Apple 2013, 211;
Department for Business Innovation and Skills 2016). Making use of rhetorical
devices, profit making is gaining ground in education, transforming the state
and its forms, and commodifying schools, students, knowledge and policies
(Allsup 2015; Apple 2013, 211). Apple (2013, 2016) suggests it is possible to
observe the emergence of a new “hegemonic bloc” constituted by four move-
ments: neoliberalism, pressuring for a dependency between education and
corporate models; neoconservatism, demanding a common and consensual
culture; new managerialism, committed to audit cultures and “very reductive
forms of accountability and testing in schools”; and “authoritarian populist”
religious movements, assuming “ultraconservative positions in education and
the larger society” (Apple 2016, 130). This development is felt especially in the
reform of education and social services:

Conservative modernization is a complex and at times unstable formation

of various groups that looks backward culturally, seeks to reassert cultural
authority, and looks forward to bring education in line with a very limited
218 • Tiago Teles Santos and Paula Guerra

set of economic goals. It has created an umbrella that not only involves an
alliance of a number of powerful groups but also is extremely creative in
the ways in which it connects with people’s common sense.
(Apple 2016, 129)

Through the use of what Apple describes as “corporate style accountability pro-
cedures” (2016, 130) and an uncritical point of view to the work of teachers and
to curricular knowledge, this new model for education and school—visible in
the charter schools and vouchers market in the USA, the academy schools in the
UK, even in the public school system in Portugal—focuses on producing a new
type of student and citizen similar to those presented by Fromm. Individuals are
“malleable rather than committed, flexible rather than principled—essentially
depthless” (Ball in Soudien et al. 2013, 455), “within the interstices of perfor-
mativity through audits, inspections, appraisals, self-reviews, quality assurance,
research assessments, output indicators and so on” (Ball in Soudien et al. 2013,
455). Also, within this process of instituting “thin” forms, neoliberalism desta-
bilizes its opposition through a process of disarticulation and rearticulation
(Ball in Soudien et al. 2013), or opposition (Žižek 2002), emptying words of
their original meanings—of their substance—and filling them with new ones.
Neoliberalism thus renders opposing it very difficult, through reinforcement of
the new language that substantiates and supports it:

Thus, through long-term and creative ideological work in the media and
elsewhere, “thick” meanings of democracy grounded in full collective
participation are replaced by “thin” understandings where democracy is
reduced to choice on a market and to constantly providing evidence that
one has successfully made the right decisions . . . These new understand-
ings are accompanied by major shifts in identity. Subjectivities are slowly
but ultimately radically transformed.
(Soudien et al. 2013, 458)

For a Punk Pedagogy

We are not in a church, so we should not be worried about heresy.
(Apple 2013, 209)

After exploring education’s transformations, its problems, and situating it amid

ideological struggles for power and domination, we now have the basis to dis-
cuss the prospect of a critical punk pedagogy that may work in opposition in
order “to illuminate the ways in which educational policy and practice are con-
nected to the relations of exploitation and domination—and to struggles against
such relations—in the larger society” (Apple 2013, 207). To this end we need to
reaffirm ourselves as public sociologists who work “in close connection with a
 Pedagogy of the Bad Kids • 219

visible, thick, active, local, and often counter-public”, establishing “a dialogue,

a process of mutual education”, again aiming “to make visible the invisible, to
make the private public, to validate these organic connections as part of our
sociological life” (Burawoy 2005, 265).
As we have shown through Apple’s and Ball’s contributions, in Western soci-
eties, education is being systematically converted into a product, commodified
in a framework where the only culture “that is worth approaching is the ‘entre-
preneurial culture’ and the flexible dexterities, knowledge, dispositions and
values necessary to economic competition” (Apple 1999a, 47). Understanding
and responding to this situation, punk “can function as a space where indi-
viduals can experiment, create and interrogate” (Dines 2015, 24). This creative
process is at the core of what Freire (2005) poses as concern for humaniza-
tion; attained only by what he defines as “true generosity” (Freire 2005, 45). For
Freire, the radical—who we cast as the punk—is an individual fully committed
to grasping and transforming reality: “This individual is not afraid to confront,
to listen, and to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the
people or to enter into dialogue with them” (Freire 2005, 39). It is this attitude
that characterizes the emergence of punk pedagogies.
According to Dines (2015), punk pedagogy, despite being a notion capable of
raising eyebrows, finds its own space among two particular possibilities: it can
be seen as a form of pedagogy inspired by the critical pedagogy school, the DIY
ethos and the oppositional attitude of punk; or as a pedagogy based on punk as
a subject matter, as part of a curriculum. Both discourses and punk lyrics can be
considered subject matters in a curriculum focused on punk. Nonetheless, our
goal is to use them to illustrate punks’ ideology of opposition, their radicalism
(using Freire’s expression) in embracing a form of pedagogy that breaks free
from the constraints of the schooling system and that emerges, in turn, as a free
space, as a symbolic heterotopia. Inspired by critiques of education presented
earlier, and working as a response to the ongoing neoliberal transformations
that are occurring, punk pedagogy is here seen as a space in which:

Values are enabled within practice; where authoritarian affinities, devel-

opment of consciousness and the questioning of power per se, becomes
part and parcel of the learning process. In this instance, one looks deeper
into the experimental of punk, exploring processes of subcultural mem-
bership, personal and group consequence, and ideology. Punk is not seen
in the abstract but instead through the heuristic. It becomes the living
counterpart to the subject matter of the curriculum, as a complex space
where (sub)cultural practice becomes reciprocal.
(Dines 2015, 28)

Guerra and Silva’s study of Portuguese punk texts analysed the lyrics of 264
punk songs, gathered from interviewees. From the 130 most cited songs,
220 • Tiago Teles Santos and Paula Guerra

41.5 percent vented sentiments of “denouncement, protest, demarcation”, 20

percent of “anger, revolt”, 11.5 percent of “rage, hatred”, and 10 percent of both
“evasion (fun, pleasure, experimentation)” and “friendship, brotherhood”
(Silva and Guerra 2015, 122). The banner songs of the Portuguese punk scene,
then, speak of:

Criticism and dissidence, but also of restlessness and personal search,

and about the group’s strength and its music. They adopt a confronta-
tional attitude, attacking several pillars of the “system”, provoking with
words and gestures, defying values and conventions, parodying rules,
institutions and common sense.
(Silva and Guerra 2015, 118)

In “Há que violentar o Sistema”, the Aqui d’el-Rock hymn, the band sings:
“Think/ And guess/ What is what/ That being old/ As shitting/ Is new/ Or
still to be invented/ Worse than good/ Better than bad/ That for changing so
much/ Keeps the same/ (The system)/ So/ There’s a need to force the system”6
(in Silva and Guerra 2015, 105). Crise Total, in their song, “Assassinos no
Poder”, another one of the most-cited, sing, “And now what to do/ Assassins
in power/ Society’s to blame/ For what’s about to happen/ Assassins in power/
Assassins in power/ Everything we want/ Will go down the drain/ If we won’t
take out/ The assassins from power”7 (in Silva and Guerra 2015, 107). These
excerpts highlight the oppositional potential of punk and a strong political
stance. Both these bands are associated with the emergence of Portuguese
punk, and their songs accompanied the history of the scene.8 In others we
can observe the strong spirit of union and community, like in the following
excerpt from X-Acto’s song “Somos uma só voz”: “Everyone equal, only one
voice!/ From every race, only one voice!/ From every sex, only one voice!/
You can have the right clothes/ You can have the right albums/ But if it is not
from the heart, then it is not hardcore!/ Don’t stop, never shut up, never stop
to resist/ And if it’s not about respect, then it is not hardcore!” (in Silva and
Guerra 2015, 118).
Freire (2005) proposed a “problem posing” education as a “revolutionary
futurity”, one that helps individuals to transcend themselves via knowledge and
awareness of the world (Freire 2005, 84). This “problem posing” education, “as a
humanist and liberating praxis, posits as fundamental that the people subjected
to domination must fight for their emancipation” (Freire 2005, 86). Education
only succeeds as a relationship that overcomes authoritarianism through the
becoming of both the teachers and the students as subjects of the educational
process, and through the use of dialogical action focused on cooperation, unity,
organization and cultural synthesis (Freire 2005, 86).
How can this be achieved in the scope of a punk pedagogy? We agree with
Woods’s assertion that the critical pedagogues’ “aim [is] to empower students
 Pedagogy of the Bad Kids • 221

through emancipating them from ideologies and discriminatory practices”

(Woods, cited in Dines 2015, 28). The DIY ethos is of the utmost importance
in this regard. It is through this that punk’s emancipatory power enables it to
thrive and survive as a pedagogical pillar based on the teachings of Paulo Freire,
one that “reinstates personal responsibility instead of relying upon the domi-
nant ideology of teacher as transmitter” (Dines 2015, 24). In this regard, the
free school—an educational space, autonomous from the state’s education sys-
tem and focused on self-development and non-compulsory learning—is a good
example of how a punk pedagogy might find its place. According to Dines,
such schools provide a space shaped by “the notion of creativity, freedom of
expression and the development of critical thinking?” (Dines 2015, 23). In his
work, Shantz (2012) focuses on The Free Space, a space “intended as a venue
for committed anarchists, novices and non-anarchists alike to come together
and share ideas about the prospects, difficulties and strategies for creating new,
anti-authoritarian social relations” (Shantz 2012, 128). In summary, a punk
pedagogy should be liberating. The outsider positionality and capabilities of
punk enable the development of an educational process that can both happen
inside of punk and draw from it to the outside. A punk pedagogy is not, in this
sense, for the punks. It is an educational process that uses their attributes, diver-
sity and ethos to create a collective, solidary, radical and educational alternative
to the individualistic schooling hegemony.

Conclusion
By approaching punk as a free space, we aim to pave the way for discussing
punk pedagogy inscribed in punk, and its characteristics; moreover, we have
attempted to discuss a pedagogy that draws its tenets from punk in order to
constitute itself. Punk’s oppositional nature and its disaffiliation, its ethos and
its networks, its texts and discourses, its influences and what it influenced,
make it a melting pot for new things to come. In a world in transformation,
whose key structures are evolving to become unrecognizable, destroying the
places whence punk emerged, punk seems like it can be/become one of the “old
world’s” safe havens, preserving an ethos that contains ideals of freedom and
equality, community and empathy (Santos 2012; Guerra and Bennett 2015).
Punk is a form of music and a bearer of aesthetic, cultural, political and
symbolic meanings that have withstood innovation and dissent. It mapped
new undergrounds and spread itself through the streets while shouting that
anyone could be a part of it. Punk, for the UK at least, was a cultural and aes-
thetic movement that sprang from dynamics of the post-war consensus and its
eventual breakdown. From Rab Butler’s Education Act of 1944, the formation
of the Welfare State and the challenges of decolonization, anti-imperialism
and the Cold War, punk emerged as a unique underground phenomenon.
It is a singularity positioning itself on the fringe of, or as an outlier to, the
222 • Tiago Teles Santos and Paula Guerra

institutionalized, neoliberal system. Punk’s constant defiance of the institu-

tionalized order is built on a systematic questioning and deconstruction of
that order’s core tenets, and its own accommodation of individuals’ search for
personal coherence (Santos 2012; Guerra and Quintela 2014; Guerra 2014;
Guerra and Silva 2015). Punk is also a scene, a network that connects partici-
pants with different roles and positions, tools and means. It also has—and, we
have argued, is—spatiality and territoriality, inscribed within social (physical
and, more recently, virtual) and symbolic spaces whose dimensions it continu-
ously subverts, challenges and rewrites. As a corollary of its characteristics,
punk birthed and framed a series of underground cultures and DIY practices.
Rather than proposing a reformulation of the educational system, we have
drawn from the works of Althusser, Illich and Freire to propose the idea of
the emergence of a new punk pedagogy that exists apart from Ideological
State Apparatuses, and tries to avoid colonization, oppression and symbolic
violence. In Freire’s phrase, the rules of the oppressor will not suffice nor per-
mit the definition of the oppressed. One cannot free herself from domination
or value inculcation while playing by the rules that dominate and inculcate
her. Despite being a predominantly male subculture, punk professes the val-
ues of equality, respect, sharing and radicalism that are also fundamental to
fulfilling the objective of lifting the veil that obscures reality. In this manner,
punk may also be—or can at least become—a pedagogical space or, more
accurately, a space for an empowering, liberating contemporary pedagogy,
adaptive to the crises of late modernity.

Notes
1. Writer and Portuguese poet (Porto, June 9, 1900–Lisbon, February 8, 1985). Authors’ translation.
2. Herberto Helder was a Portuguese poet, considered the “greatest Portuguese poet” of the second
half of the twentieth century. Authors’ translation.
3. No future was one of the most significant banners in punk’s emergence, one immortalised by the
Sex Pistols’ eponymous song.
4. After its 1977 boom, punk suffered from a process of institutionalization and commodification
that led to it being declared dead by some of its prominent figures. Standing against the system
and institutions this process was perceived as a hard blow to its core tenets. Regarding this mat-
ter see Crass’s seminal song “Punk is Dead” from their 1978 album The Feeding of the 5000.
5. Greil Marcus (1989) posits punk as a contemporary label for an ethos or cultural phenomenon
that is traceable across several centuries of Western history.
6. Our translation.
7. Our translation.
8. Punk arrived in Portugal soon after the country’s Carnation Revolution that paved the way for
democracy. Answering to what some perceived as a dull everyday life and a lack of cultural alterna-
tives, punk was well established among youth. Nonetheless it was not until the mid-1980s and the
beginning of the 1990s that it boomed and you could see a relevant number of bands and fanzines
emerging. It is still a broad movement in Portugal where it was never much institutionalised—apart
from a couple of bands that came from a punk background but soon became something else—and
keeps on offering a counter-hegemonic and anti-system alternative.
 Pedagogy of the Bad Kids • 223

References
Abrantes, Paulo. 2010. “Desigualdades Sociais na Educação Básica.” In Desigualdades Sociais
2010—Estudos e Indicadores, edited by Renato Miguel do Carmo, 135–143. Lisbon: Editora
Mundos Sociais.
Allsup, Randall E. 2015. “The Eclipse of a Higher Education or Problems Preparing Artists in a
Mercantile World.” Music Education Research 17, 3: 251–261.
Althusser, L. 1971. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Apple, Michael W. 1999a. Educação e Poder. Porto: Porto Editora.
Apple, Michael W. 1999b. Ideologia e Currículo. Porto: Porto Editora.
Apple, Michael W. 2013 “Between Traditions: Stephen Ball and the Critical Sociology of Education.”
London Review of Education 11: 206–217.
Apple, Michael W. 2016. “Introduction to ‘The Politics of Educational Reforms’.” Educational Forum
80: 127–136.
Auyero, Javier, and Déborah Alejandra Swistun. 2009. Flammable: Environmental Suffering in an
Argentine Shantytown. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ball, Stephen J. 2012. Global Education Inc.: New Policy Networks and the Neoliberal Imaginary.
Abingdon: Routledge.
Bernstein, Basil. 1996. A Estruturação do Discurso Pedagógico: Classe, Códigos e Controle. Petrópo-
lis: Editora Vozes.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1998. Meditações Pascalianas. Oeiras: Celta Editora.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 2007. Escritos de Educação. Rio de Janeiro: Vozes.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 2010a. A Distinção: Uma Crítica Social da Faculdade do Juízo. Lisbon: Edições 70.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 2010b. The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society. Cam-
bridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron. 1978. A Reprodução: Elementos Para Uma Teoria do
Sistema de Ensino. Lisbon: Editorial Veja.
Burawoy, Michael. 2005. “For Public Sociology.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 56:
259–294.
Castoriadis, Cornelius. 2000. Figuras do Pensável: As Encruzilhadas do Labirinto. Lisbon: Instituto
Piaget.
Charlesworth, Simon J. 2000. A Phenomenology of Working Class Experience. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Clark, Dylan. 2003. “The Death and Life of Punk, the Last Subculture.” In The Post-Subcultures
Reader, edited by David Muggleton and Rupert Weinzierl, 223–236. Oxford: Berg. Cap.
Department for Business Innovation and Skills. 2016. Success as a Knowledge Economy: Social
Mobility and Student Choice. London: Department for Business Innovation and Skills.
Dines, Mike. 2015. “Learning Through Resistance: Contextualisation, Creation and Incorporation
of a ‘Punk Pedagogy’.” Journal of Pedagogic Development 5: 20–31.
Dunn, Kevin C. 2008. “Never Mind the Bollocks: The Punk Rock Politics of Global Communica-
tion.” Review of International Studies 3: 193–210.
Ferreira, David. 2012. Interview With Es.Col.A da Fontinha. July 7. Accessed June 5, 2016. https://
theoccupiedtimes.org/?p=5743.
Foucault, Michel. 1986. “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias.” Diacritics 16: 22–27.
Foucault, Michel. 1997. Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth: The Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954–
1984. Vol. 1. New York: New Press.
Foucault, Michel. 2002. The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences. London: Rout-
ledge.
Freedman, William. 1986. “Postponement and Perspectives in Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’.” Studies in
Romanticism 25: 63–73.
Freire, Paulo. 2005. The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Fromm, Erich. 1999. Ter ou Ser? Lisbon: Editorial Presença.
Giroux, Henry A. 2014. The Violence of Organized Forgetting: Thinking Beyond America’s Disimagi-
nation Machine. San Francisco: City Lights.
Giroux, Henry A. 2016. America’s Addiction to Terrorism. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Guerra, Paula. 2010. A Instável Leveza do Rock. Génese, Dinâmica e Consolidação do Rock Alterna-
tivo em Portugal (1980–2010). PhD diss., University of Porto, Porto.
Guerra, Paula. 2013. “Punk, Ação e Contradição em Portugal. Uma Aproximação às Culturas Juve-
nis Contemporâneas.” Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 102/103: 111–134.
224 • Tiago Teles Santos and Paula Guerra

Guerra, Paula. 2014. “Punk, Expectations, Breaches, and Metamorphoses.” Critical Arts 28: 195–211.
Guerra, Paula. 2015. “Keep It Rocking: The Social Space of Portuguese Alternative Rock (1980–2010).”
Journal of Sociology 51: 615–630.
Guerra, Paula, and Andy Bennett. 2015. “Never Mind the Pistols? The Legacy and Authenticity of
the Sex Pistols in Portugal.” Popular Music and Society 38: 500–521.
Guerra, Paula, and Pedro Quintela. 2014. “Spreading the Message! Fanzines and the Punk Scene in
Portugal.” Punk and Post Punk 3: 203–224.
Guerra, Paula, and Augusto Santos Silva. 2015. “Music and More Than Music: The Approach to
Difference and Identity in the Portuguese Punk.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 18,
2: 207–223.
Helder, Herbert. 2013. Os Passos em Volta. Lisbon: Assírio e Alvim.
Illich, Ivan. 1971. Deschooling Society. London: Marion Boyars.
Illich, Ivan. 1985. A Sociedade sem Escolas. Petrópolis: Editora Vozes.
James, Kieran. 2009. “ ‘This Is England’: Punk Rock’s Realist/Idealist Dialectic and Its Implications
for Critical Accounting Education.” Accounting Forum 33: 127–145.
Laing, Dave. 2015. One Chord Wonders: Power and Meaning in Punk Rock. Philadelphia: Open
University Press.
Lefebvre, Henri. 2010. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell.
Marcus, Greil. 1989. Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 2004. The World of Perception. London: Routledge.
Parkinson, Tom, and Gareth D. Smith. 2015. “Towards an Epistemology of Authenticity in Higher
Popular Music Education.” Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education 14, 1: 93–127.
Santos, Tiago T. 2012. “Bad Kids. Para uma compreensão dos universos simbólicos e materiais de
existência: referências punk na cidade do Porto.” MA dissertation, University of Porto, Porto.
Shantz, Jeffery. 2012. “Spaces of Learning: The Anarchist Free Skool.” In Anarchist Pedagogies: Col-
lective Actions, Eheories, and Critical Reflections on Education, edited by Robert J. Haworth,
124–144. Oakland, CA: PM Press.
Shelley. 1818/2008. “Ozymandias.” In Rosalind and Helen—A Modern Eclogue With Other Poems.
Abdul Press.
Silva, Augusto Santos, and Paula Guerra. 2015. As Palavras do Punk. Lisbon: Alêtheia Editores.
Sofianos, Lisa, Robin Ryde, and Charlie Waterhouse. 2015. The Truth of Revolution, Brother: An
Exploration of Punk Philosophy. London: Situation Press.
Soudien, C., Michael W. Apple, and Sheila Slaughter. 2013. “Global Education Inc: New Policy Net-
works and the Neo-liberal Imaginary.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 34: 453–466.
Streeck, Wolfgang. 2016. “On the Dismal Future of Capitalism.” Socio-Economic Review 14, 1:
164–170.
Thompson, Stacy. 2004. Punk Productions: Unfinished Business. New York: State University of New
York Press.
Tucker, Brian L. 2008. Punk and the Political: The Role of Practices in Subcultural Lives. MA dis-
sertation, Ohio University.
Zerzan, John. 2007. Futuro Primitivo. Porto: Deriva Editores.
Žižek, Slavoj. 2002. Welcome to the Desert of the Real. London: Verso.
 Index

Abrantes, Paulo 216 Bambaataa, Afrika 132

academic identity 174 Bangs, Lester 113
Adbusters 19 Bannister, Matthew 103
Adorno, Theodor 16, 46–47 Barnett, Ronald 15
Ahmadinejad, Mahmood 32–33 Barre, T. J. 81
AIGA Journal 19 Barthes, Roland 16, 19–21
AIZ (magazine) 23 Bayard, Marc 100–101, 205
Albertine, Viv 101 Bayley, Roberta 92
Albini, Steve 58 BBC Radio 1 92
Allmusic.com 104 Becker, Howard 32, 162
Allsup, Randall 3, 9, 109, 161, 163, 167 Bedtime for Democracy (album) 135–136
Alternative Tentacles (record label) Behzad 35, 38
135, 137 Belgrano, Matt 96
Althusser, Louis 48–49, 216 Benjamin, Walter 16
anarchism 1, 3, 16 Bennett, Andy 31
anarchist agency model 16 Bernstein, Basil 215–216
Anarchist Free Skool (Shantz) 175 Bessant, J. 75
Anarcho-Improv 31, 37–40; as non-linear Bestley, R. 22, 74
dynamical systems theory 37 Bey, Hakim 38, 175
Anarcho-Punk 31, 76 Bheemaiah, K. 81
Anderson, Chris 123 Biafra, Jello 130, 135, 137
anger/passion, punk and 4 Birkett, Derek 78
Anti-Nazi League 16 bitcoin, as blockchain technology 80
Antliff, Allan 202–204 Black Flag 74
Apple, Michael W. 157, 211, 217–218 Bladen, Charles 177, 186, 188
Aqui d’el-Rock 220 Blandy, Doug 148
Armaline, William T. 152 “Blitzkrieg Bop” (Ramones) 128
art worlds 32 blockchain technology, entrepreneurial
“Assassinos no Poder” (Crise Total) 220 learning and 73–86; described
Astley, Tom 130 79–80; dominant discourses,
Atwood, Margaret 204 countering 75–78; enterprise
autodidactism 187, 198–199 pedagogy as punk pedagogy
autoethnographic approaches to zines 78–79; introduction to 73–75;
145–147 live project using 79–84
Averett, Paige 146 Blondie 100, 129
Blood on the Tracks (Dylan) 191
Bad Brains 114 “Blowin’ in the Wind” (Dylan) 191
Bag, Alice 132 Blueprint 19

225
226 • Index

Blues metaphor 177 Kennedys case study 134–138;

Bomrani 35 defined 129–130; Public Enemy
Boon, Richard 18 case study 138–140; in punk
Bourdieu, Pierre 16, 26, 48, 195, and hip-hop 128–130
211–212, 215 commodification of knowledge 50–52
Bourdieu and Sociology of Music Congdon, Kristin G. 148
Education (Burnard) 199 conscientizacao (critical consciousness)
Branson, Richard 75 111–112
Breton, André 25 conscientization, of musical meanings 164
British Movement 16 Constructivism 25
Brody, Neville 21 contradictions 46–47
Brooks, Van Wyck 95 Cook, Peter 199
Brown, Dove 122 Coon, Caroline 91–92
Brown, Jerry 136–137 Cope, J. 78–79
Bubbles, Barney 21 Corré, Joe 101–102
Buchan, Wattie 96 “Country, Bluegrass, Blues, and
Burkett, Mike 66 Other Music for Uplifting
Burnard, Pamlea 77, 199 Gormandizers” (CBGBs) 113
Butler, Judith 186–187 Cramps 96
Butler, Rab 221 Crass 74–78, 85, 102, 105
Buzzcocks 18, 74, 80 Crass Records 78
Crass Reflections (Gordon) 120
“California Über Alles” (Dead Kennedys) Cribb, Alan 178, 188
136–137 Crise Total 220
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament critical public pedagogy 51
(CND) 23 critical thinking 15–16, 202–203; punk
canon formation 98–99 graduate students and 46–49
Captive Words: Preface to a Situationist cross-campus entrepreneurship 78–79
Dictionary (Khayati) 25 cryptocurrency 80
“Career Opportunities” (Clash) 119 Cubesville, Rich 144
The Cartel 75–77 Cubism 25
Catch 22 (Heller) 199 Cultural Thaw 35
CBGB 92, 100, 113 cypherpunks 80
Charlesworth, Simon J. 212 Czezowski, Andy 92
“Chimes of Freedom” (Dylan) 191
Chinn, Kendall “Mr. Chi Pig” 122 Dada movement 22, 25
Chuck D 138–139 Dale, P. 74
Church, J. 62 Dammers, Jerry 78, 85
Clark, Dylan 214 Damned 100–101
Clash 74, 96, 99–100, 102, 119 Dead Kennedys 74, 129–130; comedic
Clem, Jay 73 dissidence case study 134–138
College of Media and Entertainment 93 Debord, Guy 25
comedic dissidence, pedagogy of Delamont, Sara 145
128–140; collective-based Della Fave, Antonella 195
movements and 130–134; Dead DeLorenzo, Linda C. 206

democratic school music education
156–168; introduction to
156–157; potential of punk
in 157–160; punk as escape
route and 166–168; punk as
problem music and 160–163;
schooling as institution/student
relationship 163–166
Derrida, Jacques 21
design: defined 13; research about 14;
research into 14; research
through 14
design education 13–27; détournement
and 24–25; introduction to
13–14; parody and 24; pastiche
and 24; philosophy of punk
and 15–19; postmodernism
and 19–22; punk graphic
design 22–23; punk visual
tropes, resourcefulness of
26–27; recuperation and 25–26;
researching 14–15
Desperate Bicycles 74, 76
destructiveness, punk and 4
détournement 24–25
deviantization processes 161–162
Dewey, John 131, 159, 195–196
Dictators 128
Dierendonck, Dirk van 195
Dines, Mike 5–6, 44–45, 51–52, 164, 193,
201, 205, 219
Dion, Celine 57–58
Direct Action 121
Dischord Records 66, 78
DOA 114
do-it-yourself (DIY) ethic 4, 17–18; in
hip-hop 132; History of Punk
course and 115–116; in Iran
music 35–36; KISMIF and 44;
music and 74; punk as 73–76;
zine creation and 151–152
dominant discourses: countering
75–78; critics of 75; of
entrepreneurship 75
Donovan 191
Index • 227
Drakopoulou Dodd, S. 76
Drayton, William (Flavor Flav) 138
“Drugs Are Good” (NOFX) 160
Duncombe, Stephen 144
Dunn, Kevin 176, 180, 187, 211
Durrant, Colin 193, 197–202
Dylan, Bob 191
Eagleton, Terry 16, 47, 51
Edmonton Free School 109–110
education, punk’s role in theory and
practice of 210–222; battle
for education and 214–218;
critical punk pedagogy and
218–221; freedom/resistance
and 211–214; introduction to
210–211
Edupunk 174–175
Eliot, T. S. 98
Elliott, David 158–159
Ellsworth, Elizabeth 165
Emigre 19
End of the Century (documentary) 102
enterprise pedagogy as punk pedagogy
78–79
entrepreneurial learning: cross-campus
78–79; defined 78; shifts in
78–79
entrepreneurship, punk record labels and
77–78
Erricker, Clive 176–177
Eruptörs, The 78, 192
eudaimonism concept 191–206;
Aristotle’s definition of 195;
autodidactism theme 198–199;
critical thinking and 202–203;
Durrant’s teaching approach
and 197–202; experience and
200–202; impetuosity reflex,
taming 191–194; individual
freedom/agency and 203–204;
introduction to 191–194;
performativity theme 198;
punk pedagogy and 194–197,
205–206
228 • Index

experience 200–202 FUSE 98 19

experience of enlightenment 175 Futurism 25
experiential learning 187
Exploited 96 Galgano, Michael 95
Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity Gandin, Luís A. 157
in the Global Economy Gang of Four 105
(Sassen) 111 Garland, Ken 19
Eye 19 Garrett, Malcolm 21, 27
Gartner, W. B. 76
Fab Five Freddy 129 Gauntlett, David 148
Factory 75 Genesis: Grasp (Hell) 128
fanzines 144; see also zines Gewirtz, Sharon 178, 188
Farrakhan, Louis 139 Ghamari-Tabrizi, Behrooz 37
Fast Product 75 Gibson, Josh 119
Ferreira, José Gomes 210 Giger, H. R. 135
Ferrer, Francisco 45 Gillett, Alex 77–78
Fever Pitch (Hornby) 103 Gilmore Girls 96
Fields, Jim 102 Giroux, Henry A. 44, 51, 94–95, 109, 111,
Filth and the Fury, The (Temple) 102 123, 165, 202, 205
First Things First Manifesto (Garland) 19 gonzo pedagogy 177
Flavor Flav 132, 138–139 Gordon, Alastair 26, 74, 120, 175
Flipside fanzine 122 Gosling, Tim 31, 39
folkbildning tradition 115–116 Graffin, Greg 58
Form 19 Gramaglia, Michael 102
Forman, Murray 132 Gramsci, Antonio 48–49
Foucault, Michel 21, 122, 211–212, 214 Grandmaster Flash 139
Foxley, Rachel 196 graphic design 13; academic study of
Frankenchrist (album) 135 14; computer-based tools for
Frederickson, Lars 96 13–14; postmodernism and
free schools 45 19–22; punk 22–23; thematic
Free Space, The (Shantz) 221 approaches to postmodern 21;
Freire, Paulo 44, 52, 95, 109, 111–112, as visual language 14–15
117, 187, 211, 216–217, Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, The
219–221 (movie) 77
French Revolution 1 Green, Lucy 38, 159, 198
Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables Green Day 58–59, 99
(album) 129 Greiman, April 21
Friedman, Dan 21 Groom, Jim 174
Fromm, Erich 213 Guardian 102
From Westway to the World (Letts) 102 Guarino, Michael 135
“Fuck Authority” (Pennywise) 160 Guerra, Paula 118, 219–220
Fugazi 59
Fugs 135 Haas, Lük 120
Furness, Zack 5, 46, 74 Hall, Stuart 119

Hannah, Gerald 121
“Há que violentar o Sistema” (Aqui d’el-
Rock) 220
Hara, Sukhvinder 81
Hardy, Don 73
Hargreaves, David J. 160
Harling Stalker, Lynda 150
Harry, Debby 129
Hatred of Democracy (Rancière) 167
Haworth, Robert H. 176, 178
Heap, Imogen 83, 85
Heartfield, John 23
Hebdige, D. 73
Hell, Richard 113, 128
Heller, Joseph 199
“Here’s to the State of Mississippi”
(Ochs) 119
Hesmondhalgh, D. 74–75
heterotopias 214
Higgins, Lee 193–194
higher education, being punk in 173–188;
autodidactism/amateurism and
186; concerns of participants
180–182; educational values
and 183–185; experience/praxis
and 187–188; institutional
education, punk and 174–178;
introduction to 173–174;
performativity and 185–186;
punk culture/practice in
classroom, drawing from
182–183; study participant
overview 178–180; in United
Kingdom 178
Higher Education: A Critical Business
(Barnett) 15
higher education (HE) system,
marketization of UK’s
62–66
higher popular music education
(HPME) 192
High Fidelity (Hornby) 103
Highlander Folk School 112
Hindle, K. 78
Index • 229
hip-hop: development of 132; punk
comparisons with 132
History of Punk, The (course) 109–127;
Edmonton Free School and
109–110; foundation for
110–111; introduction to
109–112; launch of 109–110;
participatory learning, attitude
for 112–117; punk as topic and
learning method in 118–122;
punk community and 115–117;
safe learning environment,
creating 111–112; summary of
122–125, 127
Hodgson, Godfrey 113
Holmstrom, John 92
Hornby, Nick 103
Horsley, Stephanie 140, 205–206
Horton, Myles 112
Hot Topic 96
“How We Gonna Make the Black
Nation Rise” (Brother D with
Collective Effort) 138
Hughes, Robert 25
identity schisms 174
Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs)
216, 222
ideology 47
“Idle No More” (Rellik) 119
Idle No More movement 118, 123
Ignorant Schoolmaster (Rancière) 129
Illich, Ivan 2, 217
immediate social context 174
impetuosity reflex, taming 191–194
individual freedom/agency 203–204
Industrial 78
Institute of Contemporary Music
Performance (ICMP) 193, 200
institutional education, punk and
174–178
“Institutionalised” (Muir and Mayorga)
173
Internationale Situationniste 25
230 • Index

International Relations (IR) 176 “Lessons to Be Learned from Paulo

Iranian Intergalactic Music Festival 30 Freire as Education Is Being
Items 19 Taken Over by the Mega Rich”
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us (Giroux) 109
Back (Public Enemy) 139 Lettrists 25
Letts, Don 92, 97, 102
James, Kieran 211 Levellers, The 1, 196–197, 204
Jay-Z 75 libertarianism 1
Jenifer, Darryl 114 Lines, David 2–3
Johnson, Boris 101 live projects: benefits of 79; using
“John Wesley Harding” (Dylan) 191 blockchain technology 79–84
Jones, C. 79 Livermore, Larry 66
Jr. Gone Wild 122 Lookout! Records 66
Lynch, Kathleen 196
Kahn-Egan, Seth 4, 45, 152 Lyotard, Jean-François 50
Kaltefleiter, Carline K. 204
Kaye, Lenny 92, 113 MacKaye, Ian 59–60, 66, 68
Keating, Zoe 85 MacLeod, Dewar 131
Keedy, Jeff 19–21 Mailer, Norman 198
Keil, Charles 194 Malott, Curry 49, 175–177
Keithley, Joey “Shithead” 114 Mama Riot 144
Kennard, Peter 23 Management and Creativity (Bilton) 77
Khas-o-Khâshâk 32–37 Mantie, Roger 194, 199
Khayati, Mustapha 25 Marcus, Greil 46, 73, 94, 104
KISMIF (Keep It Simple, Make It Fast) Marginson, Simon 64
43–44 Marx, Karl 51, 109
Klein, Sheri 148 “Master Race” (Dictators) 128
Knabb, Ken 25 Maximum Rocknroll (radio show) 116
knowledge, commodification of 50–52 Maximum Rocknroll fanzine 119–120
Kolb, David 151, 187 May, William F. 188
Kreber, Carolin 174 McCain, Gillian 92
Krims, Adam 132 McDonald, Mike 122
Kristal, Hilly 92, 113 McDowell, Alex 21
McLaren, Malcolm 77, 101
Ladson-Billings, Gloria 197, 200 McLaren, Peter 5, 165
Laing, Dave 73–74, 78 McLaughlin, Shirley 177, 186
“La mort de l’auteur” (Barthes) 19 McNeil, Legs 92
Landscape #XX (painting) 135 Mekons 105
“Learning Through Resistance: Mencken, H. L. 66
Contextualisation, Creation Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 212
and Incorporation of a Punk Middlesex University 73; see also
Pedagogy” (Dines) 5 blockchain technology,
Led Zeppelin 199 entrepreneurial learning and
Lefebvre, Henri 212 Miklitsch, Robert 3–4
 Index • 231

Millennial Generation 63 new wave designers 24

Miller, Daniel 78, 80, 85 New York Post 1
Mills, Russell 21 Ng, C.K.F. 79
Miner, Dylan 17, 47, 176–177 Niknafs, Nasim 201, 204
modern art 25 Noble, Ian 22
Modern Life is War 91 Nocella, Anthony J., II 204
Mohan, Krishna 195 NOFX 59, 66, 96, 160
moral entrepreneur 162 No More Rules (Poynor) 20
Morton, Chris 21 Nooshin, Laudan 34–35
music education, in Iran 30–41; Normal, The 80
Ahmadinejad election and North, Adrian 160
32–33, 35; Anarcho-Improv Norton, David L. 195
31, 37–40; do-it-yourself Notting Hill Carnival riot 105
(DIY) ethos in 35–36; Iranian
revolution and 37; Khas-o- The O.C. (tv show) 97
Khâshâk reference and 32–37; Ochs, Phil 119
Khatami presidency and O’Connor, A. 77
34–35; overview of 30–32; Ogbor, J. 75
Raam’s story 30–31, 38–39; O’Hagan, Sean 102
radical imagination and 40–41; O’Hara, Craig 45, 114–115
revolutionary songs 34; Tehrani On Critical Pedagogy (Giroux) 109
music and 36–37 One Little Indian 78
Music Education: Navigating the Future One Tree Hill (tv show) 96
(Randles) 199 “One Way” (Levellers) 196
musicing 158 organization, punk graduate students and
Music Learning Profiles Project 199 53–54
Mute 78 Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Mycelia for Music 83–84 Countries (OPEC) 113
myth of pedagogy (Rancière) 166 Orwell, George 137
Oxford Handbook of Music Making
National Front 16 and Leisure (Smith and Mantie)
Neck 192 199
negative dialectics 46
Neilson, David 81 pain, punk and 4
neoliberal hegemonic ideology 47–48 Parkinson, Tom 193, 202
neoliberalism 2, 40, 109, 131–132, 213 parody 24
Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education Paroxysm 119
(Giroux) 109 Passeron, Jean-Claude 215
Nettl, Bruno 37 pastiche 24
“Never Mind the Tagmemics, Where’s the Patti Smith Group 113
Sex Pistols?” (Sirc) 4 pedagogic authority 199
New Hormones label 74 pedagogies of insurrection 175
New Musical Express (NME) 192 Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire) 95,
New Rhetoric, A 119 109–110, 112, 129
232 • Index

“Pedagogy Pissed: Punk Pedagogy in the and 2–3; neoliberalism and

First-Year Writing Classroom” emergence of 131–132; as
(Kahn-Egan) 4 ontology 194; philosophy of
Peel, John 92 15–19; political philosophies of
Penaluna, A. 79 1; as space of and for resistance
Pennywise 59, 160 212; students, punk graduate
performativity 198 students and 45–46; studies
Perry, Mark 92 15–19; survival of 214
per-zines 147 punkademics 46, 197
Peterson, Richard A. 31 Punkademics: The Basement Show in the
Pettibon, Raymond 27 Ivory Tower (Furness) 5, 44
philosophy of punk 15–19 punk attitude 45
Philosophy of Punk, The (O’Hara) 117 punk bricolage model 23
physical space 212 punk by association 100
Pinnacle 75 punk entrepreneurship 57–70; amah
Pittaway, L. 78–79 story of rent-seeking 57–59;
Plant, Sadie 25 financial crisis, 2008 62; free
Please Kill Me (McCain and McNeil) 92 market connection to 66–70;
pleasure principle, punk and 4 higher education system and,
postcard punk 96 UK’s 62–66; in Hong Kong
Postman, Neil 131 57–60; in London 60–66; punk
postmodernism, graphic design and rock and 59–60
19–22 punk graduate students 43–54; alienation
Powers, Ann 98 and, suppressing feelings of
Poynor, Rick 20 52–53; commodification of
Pridmore, Jason 150 knowledge and 50–52; critical
Prinsloo, Paul 148 thinking and 46–49; defined
problem posing education 220 46; emotional/psychological
Propagandhi 59 conditions among 54;
Przybylski, Liz 201, 204 introduction to 43–44;
Public Enemy 129; comedic dissidence organization/togetherness and
case study 138–140 53–54; punk pedagogy as self-
Public Image Ltd 77 empowerment 44–45; punk
punk: as an approach 13; characteristics students and 45–46; social
of 1–2, 213; conceptualization knowledge and 52
of 211; defining principles of punk lens in teaching 110, 122–125
4; in democratic school music Punk London (celebration) 101–102
education 157–160; as DIY PUNK magazine 92, 128
73–75; education systems and punk pedagogies: blockchain technology,
2; as epistemology 194; as a entrepreneurial learning
free space 221–222; Furness and 73–86; defining 45;
definition of 46; graphic design education and 13–27;
design 22–23; ideology and enterprise pedagogy as 78–79;
1–2; institutional education entrepreneurship 57–70;
and 174–178; music education eudaimonism and 194–197;

for graduate students 43–54;
history of 3–6; introduction
to 1–3; music education and
30–41; practice of 194–197,
205–206; reasons for adopting,
as principle and/or praxis 205;
Torrez on 5
“Punk Pedagogy: Education for
Liberation and Love” (Torrez)
4–5
“Punk Pedagogy or Performing
Contradiction: The Risks and
Rewards of Anti-Transference”
(Miklitsch) 3–4
Punk & Post Punk (Bestley) 130
Punk & Post-Punk (journal) 6, 15
punk record labels, types of 74–78
Punk Rock, So What! (Sabin) 101
Punk Rock: An Oral History (Robb) 92
punk rock history, teaching 91–106;
course description 92–93;
early versus present day punk
and 95–97; versus Neoliberal
University 93–95; organization
of material for 97–102;
overview of 91; studying past
and present 102–105; as upper
division elective 92
Punk Scholars Network 9, 15, 44, 175, 179
punk students: defined 45; punk graduate
students and 45–46
punk studies 44
punk subculture 16–17
punk visual tropes, resourcefulness of
26–27
Raam 30–31, 38–39
Radicalization of Pedagogy: Anarchism,
Geography and the Spirit of
Revolt, The (Springer) 3
Ramone, Johnny 114
Ramones 58, 74, 99–100, 102, 113, 128
Rancid 76, 96
Rancière, Jacques 129, 157, 161–162
Rashidi, Waleed 193
Index • 233
Rastafari 114
Reagan, Ronald 131
Reddington, Helen 73
Refill label 74
“Reflections on the Peripheral:
Punk, Pedagogy and the
Domestication of the Radical”
(Dines) 5
Reid, Jamie 23–24, 27, 92
Reimer, Bennett 158
Rentschler, R. 75
research about design 14
research into design 14
research through design 14
Residents, The 77–78
Resolution Foundation 63
Reynolds, Simon 73
Richard Hell and the Voidoids 100
Ridenhour, Carlton (Chuck D) 138
Riot Grrrl movement 114, 144, 147
Robb, John 92, 97
Robertson, Bronwen 34–35
Rock Against Racism 16
Rock Against Reagan Festival 135
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and
Museum 98
Rollins, Henry 67
Rombes, Nicholas 99
Rose, Tricia 129, 132, 139
Rotten, Johnny 99, 103
Rough Trade 75–77, 80, 92
Roxy nightclub 92
Rubin, Rick 138
Sabin, Roger 101
Sassen, Saskia 111
Savage, J. 73–74, 77, 80
Schumpeter, Joseph 75
Schur, Edwin 162
Schwartz, Jessica A. 6, 94, 106
Scritti Politti 80
self-empowerment, punk pedagogy as
44–45
Sex Pistols 24, 45, 74, 77, 96, 99–103
Shantz, Jeffery 148, 175–176, 221
234 • Index

Shaull, Richard 112 Suicidal Tendencies 173

Shelley, Percy Bysshe 210 Suresh Canagarajah, Athelstan 146
Shelley, Pete 18 Surrealism 22, 25
Shocklee, Hank 138 Swedberg, R. 76
Shock of the New, The (Hughes) 25 Swiss punk 20
Sideburns fanzine 74
Silva, Augusto Santos 219–220 Talking Heads 100, 113
Silverman, Marissa 159 Tan, S. S. 79
Sirc, Geoffrey 4 Taussig, Michael 130
Situationist International 21–23, 25–26; teaching: comedic dissidence 128–140;
détournement and 24 democratic school music
“Skank Bloc Bologna” (Scritti Politti education 156–168; History of
single) 80 Punk, The 109–127; punk rock
Slits 101, 105 history 91–106; zine making
Smith, Gareth D. 77–78, 199 144–153
Smith, Kyle 1 Teaching as a Subversive Activity
Smith, Patti 100, 128 (Postman) 131
Smith, Winston 27 Television 100, 105, 113
Sniffin’ Glue fanzine 92 Temple, Julian 102
Socialist Workers Party 16 Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ)
social knowledge, punk graduate students 38, 175
and 52 thick democracy concept 157
social space 212 This Is Spinal Tap (movie) 132
Sofianos, Lisa 1, 194 Thomas, David R. 179
Soft Revolution, A (Postman and Thomas, Dylan 191
Weingartner) 131 Thompson, Hunter S. 177, 198
“Somos uma só voz” (X-Acto) 220 Thompson, John B. 47
Sonic Youth 96 Throbbing Gristle 78, 105
Soudien, C. 218 Tidd, J. 75
Spartan 75 togetherness, punk graduate students and
Spiral Scratch (EP) 18, 74, 80 53–54
Springer, Simon 3 Torrez, Estrella 4–5, 16–17, 44, 47, 79, 81,
SST 78 140, 152, 176–177, 193–194,
Stations of the Crass (album) 75 196–197, 200–202
Step Forward Records 75 Travis, Geoff 76–77, 92
Stephney, Bill 138 Trowell, Ian 18
Sterling, Linder 23
Stiff Little Fingers 96–97 Vans Warped Tour 96
Stiglitz, Joseph E. 60 Vaucher, Gee 23, 27
stigma contests 162 Vegan’s Guide to People Arguing with
St Pancras label 80 Vegans, The 144
Strummer, Joe 99
Styrene, Poly 92 Waits, Tom 60
Subhumans 121 Wall, Sarah 145
Suburban Press 24 Wan, Amy J. 147

Ward, Colin 36
Warren, John T. 146
Wasserman, Kevin “Noodles” 122
Watts, Alan 133
Weingart, Wolfgang 20–21
Weingartner, Charles 131
Westerlund, Heidi 161, 167
Westoxification (gharbzadehgi) 34
Westwood, Vivienne 92, 101–102
“White Noise Supremacists”
(Bangs) 113
“‘Who Is An Entrepreneur?’ Is the
Wrong Question” (Gartner)
76
Williams, Joanna 70
Williams, Raymond 16
Winnipeg Folk Festival 115
Winter, R. 174
Wire 102
Woodford, Paul 206
World Economic Forum 85
world of perception 212–213
Wright, Ruth 115
Index • 235
X-Acto 220
Xerox punk labels 74–75
X-Ray Spex 92, 102
Yang, Andrew 147, 152
Yankovic, Weird Al 132
year zero 21, 73, 97, 101
Yo! Bum Rush the Show (Public Enemy) 138
Young, D. 78
Youssefzadeh, Ameneh 34
zines: autoethnographic approaches
to 145–147; creation, in
teaching/learning context
148–151; defined 144; gaining
understanding of, example
of 150–151; history of 144;
introduction to 144; making
144–153; potential of, in
classroom 147–148; as punk
pedagogical tools 151–152;
reflection purposes example of
149–150