The Weight of the Printed Word: Text, Context and Militancy in Operaismo

by Steve Wright

Overview

In The Weight of the Printed Word, Steve Wright explores the creation and use of documents as a key dimension in the activities of Italian workerists during the 1960s and 1970s. From leaflets and newspapers to books, internal documents and workers' enquiries; the operaisti deployed a wide variety of printed materials in their efforts to organise among new subjectivities of mass rebellion.

As Wright demonstrates, the practice of working with print was a central part of what it meant to be a workerist or autonomist militant during these years: one that throws light both on the meaning of political engagement, as well as the challenges posed by the use of technologies of communication and by emergent social subjects.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781642597806
Publisher:	Haymarket Books
Publication date:	09/06/2022
Series:	Historical Materialism
Pages:	584
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Steve Wright is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University. He has written widely on operaismo, including Storming Heaven: Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism (Pluto, second edition, 2017).

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements

Introduction: Print, Document Work, and Class Politics

1 What Are Militants? Ceto politico and ceto operaio

2 Texts Have Bodies Too: Towards a Materialist Approach to Document Work and Genre

3 Genre, Document Work and Militancy amongst the Operaisti: Some Preliminary Reflections

Part 1 The Workers’ Enquiry and Co-research

Introduction to Part 1

4 The Fiat Workers’ Enquiry of 1960–61: Setting the Scene

5 The Fiat Workers’ Enquiry of 1960–61: What Actually Happened?

6 The Meaning of the Workers’ Enquiry and Co-research in the Early 1960s

Part 2 Essays and Their Contexts

Introduction to Part 2

7 Cultural Production in the Italy of the ‘Economic Miracle’

8 The Essay and Its Discontents

9 The Role of the Review in Classical Workerism

10 The Book Trade and Academia

Part 3 Leaflets and Sundries

Introduction to Part 3

11 The Emergence of the Assemblea operai e studenti

12 The Assemblea’s Document Work

13 A Short Addendum on Pamphlets

Part 4 Potere Operaio

Introduction to Part 4

14 Debating Organisation in Print: Potop 1969–71

15 Other Elements of Potere Operaio’s Genre Repertoire

16 Two Brief Interludes: ‘In Praise of Illegal Work’ and ‘Sotto la Mole’

17 A Gamble That Failed: Potere Operaio del lunedì

Part 5 Internal Documents and Perspectives Papers

Introduction to Part 5

18 Internal Communication Concerning Potere Operaio’s Press and Organisation

19 ‘The Measures Taken’

20 Position Papers and Discussion Documents

Part 6 ‘Dites-le avec des pavés!’ Autonomist Newspapers and the Challenge of Radio

Introduction to Part 6

21 The Best Re(a)d Paper in Autonomia?

22 Senza Tregua – A Brief and Unhappy Existence?

23 ‘A Paper That Speaks, a Radio That Writes’: I Volsci and the Impact of Radio on the Printed Word

Part 7 Journals in a Minor Key

Introduction to Part 7

24 ‘The Firebrands of Porto Marghera’

25 ‘There Is No Housework in Marx’

Conclusion: Print, Document Work, and Class Politics

Glossary
References
Index