This special issue probes our definitions and understandings of both the ‘radical’ and the ‘American’ in

North American print and periodical culture. As many of the subsequent papers demonstrate, notions of

radicalism as expressed in American periodicals often necessitate(d) looking beyond the nation state.

Similarly, this issue highlights the fluidity of ‘radicalism’ as a temporal and technological concept;

relatable not only to literary content, but also to graphic design, editorial control, foreign language

use, subscription policies, and other aspects of production, dissemination and reception. Thematically

and conceptually diverse, the articles collated here provide a judicious intervention into the developing

field of periodical studies

Bazin, V.

Currell, S.

West, E. J.

UCL Discovery

Radical AmericasSpecial issue: Radical PeriodicalsArticleReading the Radical American PeriodicalVictoria Bazin 1, Sue Currell 2, E. James West 3,*1 Senior Lecturer in American Literature, Northumbria University2 Reader in American Literature, University of Sussex3 Early Career Fellow in American History, Northumbria University* Correspondence: ejwestuk@gmail.comHow to Cite: Bazin, V., Currell, S., West, E.J. ‘Reading the Radical American Periodical.’ RadicalAmericas 3, 1 (2018): 18. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.ra.2018.v3.1.018.Submission date: 25 July 2018; Publication date: 29 November 2018Peer review:This article has been peer reviewed through the journal’s standard double blind peer-review, where both thereviewers and authors are anonymised during review.Copyright:c© 2018, Victoria Bazin, Sue Currell and E. James West. This is an open access article distributed under the termsof the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, whichpermits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source arecredited • DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.ra.2018.v3.1.018.Open access:Radical Americas is a peer-reviewed open access journal.AbstractThis special issue probes our definitions and understandings of both the ‘radical’ and the ‘American’ inNorth American print and periodical culture. As many of the subsequent papers demonstrate, notions ofradicalism as expressed in American periodicals often necessitate(d) looking beyond the nation state.Similarly, this issue highlights the fluidity of ‘radicalism’ as a temporal and technological concept;relatable not only to literary content, but also to graphic design, editorial control, foreign languageuse, subscription policies, and other aspects of production, dissemination and reception. Thematicallyand conceptually diverse, the articles collated here provide a judicious intervention into the developingfield of periodical studies.Keywords: American print culture; radicalism; State of the Field; periodical studies; American periodicalsReading the Radical American Periodical 1It is now a little over a decade since Sean Latham and Robert Scholes pointed to the emergenceof ‘periodical studies’ as a discrete field of scholarship within the humanities and social sciences.1While organisations and outlets such as the Research Society for American Periodicals and the VictorianPeriodicals Review long predate their 2006 article in PMLA, Latham and Scholes argued that theconvergence of different intellectual and technological trends in recent decades has contributed tothe blossoming of a new scholarly discipline.2 The paralleling ‘explosion’ in periodical research,the emergence of new outlets such as the Journal of Modern Periodical Studies and the continuedgrowth of more venerable outlets such as American Periodicals, would appear to substantiate suchclaims.3 Intersecting with the larger field of print culture, ‘periodical studies’ has provided scholars withnew challenges and bold solutions to existing paradigms for the study of American history, literature,visual culture and media studies. Alongside the ‘cultural turn’ in academia, much of this growth hasbeen fed by the development of digital technologies and digital archives, which have pushed us toreconsider periodicals not merely as containers of information about history, but as texts ‘requiring newmethodologies and new types of collaborative investigation’.4Yet even as the newfound accessibility of periodicals has helped to transform the field, scholarshave noted that the proliferation of digital archives and research technologies carries mixed blessings.5The process of periodical digitisation has not been wholly democratic, with large collections hiddenbehind paywalls or reserved for those working within the ivory tower of the ‘academy’. Another concernhas been the ways in which digitisation can serve to reinforce a scholarly focus towards or reliance ona relative narrow subset of periodicals – often nationally-syndicated and widely circulated newspaperssuch as the New York Times and Chicago Tribune, or regional papers oriented towards the tastes of middleand upper-class white communities. Digitisation has provided invaluable access to marginalised formsof American print but has arguably prompted a ‘return to the centre’ for scholars of periodicals. In anera of archival plenty, accessibility risks trumping intellectual curiosity about dissident or oppositionalperiodicals, with their ‘distinctive, radical, and sometimes unruly ideas’.6Self-identified or externally prescribed ‘radical’ periodicals – broadly defined here as outletscommitted to ideas, concepts and content outside of the political or cultural mainstream – have often beenshort-lived, badly made, covertly disseminated and enthusiastically destroyed – factors that mean they donot readily lend themselves to archival accessibility.7 More broadly, the interests and ambitions of ‘radical’periodicals were often at odds with mass circulation, one of the most reliable measures of periodicalpreservation. As Elizabeth Miller has argued, the editors of many anarchist periodicals produced duringthe late nineteenth century believed that ‘large-scale mass-oriented print was no way to bring aboutrevolutionary social change’.8 Writing on the margins of accepted opinion, individuals and organisationshave often been unwilling to broadcast their publishing endeavours and have hindered the efforts ofresearchers to unearth such information. In his 1963 survey of ‘Radical Periodicals in America’ for theYale University Library Gazette, William Goldwater complained that his interest in the topic was regularlystymied by editors who denied involvement with ‘the very periodicals which list them as editors’.9Despite, or perhaps because of, such challenges, the relationship between radicalism and Americanprint and periodical culture has continued to attract the curiosity of many researchers. It was this connectionthat drew together a diverse band of scholars at the University of Sussex in May 2016 for a one-daysymposium on ‘Radical America: Revolutionary, Dissident and Extremist Magazines’. The symposium,organised by the Network of American Periodical Studies, provided space for extended discussion intothe production, dissemination and reception of ‘radical’ American periodicals from the late nineteenthcentury to the twenty-first century, addressing questions of archival access and inaccessibility, the impactof individual editors and periodicals, and the legacy of broader literary movements, networks, institutions,and communities.10 This special issue of Radical Americas marks a continuation of our discussionsregarding these themes – on the experimental, dissident, objectionable, and otherwise marginal organswhich often slip between the cracks of scholarly analysis, even as our interrogation of American periodicalsand print culture continues to gather steam.In different ways, the papers gathered here probe our definitions and understanding of both the‘radical’ and the ‘American’. In keeping with the transnational turn in American Studies, the Network ofRadical Americas 3(1): 18 2American Periodical Studies defines ‘America’ not on national but on continental terms.11 As many ofthese papers demonstrate, notions of radicalism as expressed in American periodicals often necessitatedexpanding beyond the nation state. Similarly, this special issue highlights the fluidity of ‘radicalism’as a temporal and technological concept. Within the context of periodical studies, we might apply ourunderstanding of radicalism not merely to literary content, but also to graphic design, editorial control,foreign language use, subscription policies, and other aspects of production, dissemination and reception.It should not be a surprise to learn that periodicals may be readily identifiable as ‘radical’ outlets because of theirracial or gender politics whilst simultaneously featuring deeply conservative editorial or production practices.While notions of radicalism and American print culture have often been equated with leftist periodicals, it isalso important to recognise the impact of fascist, segregationist and extremist organs on the right.12In his article on the Cronaca Sovversiva, Adam Quinn explores the connection between anarchismand American immigrant communities during the early decades of the twentieth century. Pushing backagainst the reductive characterisation of the Sovversiva by federal authorities as an outlet for dangerousanarchist thought, Quinn demonstrates how the periodical also played a less sensational but no lessimportant role as a community interest paper. The result was an outlet that was both subversive andmundane, mixing potentially ‘explosive’ material with repetitive and seemingly ‘inert’ weekly listings,adverts and community news.If fears of anarchism helped to frame the federal response to Eastern and Central European migrationduring the first decades of the twentieth century, then an overlapping but ideologically distinct anxietyregarding the ‘specter of socialism’ is at the heart of Rachel Schreiber’s analysis of Four Lights. As an‘adventure in internationalism’ and an outlet for socialist feminism, Four Lights provides a critical insightinto the transnational ambitions of many radical periodicals. Published for an initial print run of less thana year, Four Lights also illustrates the short shelf-life, but long half-life, of organs published outside of theperiodical mainstream, providing an early model of intersectional feminist critique and anticipating themass activism of American women’s peace organisations during the second half of the twentieth century.We return to the subject of anarchism and immigrant newspapers in Morris Brodie’s analysis ofDepression-era periodicals such as the Spanish language Cultura Obrera, the Italian Il Martello, theRussian Delo Truda, and the German/Yiddish Freie Arbeiter Stimme, one of the longest-running anarchistperiodicals of the twentieth century. As Brodie demonstrates, anarchist periodicals published in Americaduring the 1930s allowed radical activists and intellectuals to maintain diasporic connections and provideinformation about developments in the ‘old country’. However, the pressure to temper their politicalcommentary was coupled with a growing realisation that English was the ‘language of the future’ both forimmigrant communities and the anarchist movement in America.If the 1930s provided fertile ground for the dissemination of anarchist periodicals, it also fostereda strand of conspiratorial anti-communism which provided the groundwork for the emergence of earlyCold War conservative organisations such as the American Progress Foundation and its flagship periodicalAmerican Progress. In his incisive examination of the Progress, John Huntington uncovers the key roleplayed by conservative periodicals in an era of liberal dominance. For conservative activists such as WillieStone, the Progress became an influential mouthpiece for anti-communism, conspiratorial anti-statismand libertarianism, overshadowed by more celebrated outlets such as William Buckley’s National Review,but arguably more prescient in anticipating the embrace of scandal and conspiracy theories by right-wingprovocateurs and media outlets during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.13Just as Huntington’s assessment of American Progress can be situated within a broader body ofscholarship on the ‘conservative resurgence’ which has emerged over the past three decades, so too canE. James West’s exploration of ‘Black Power Print’ be placed within the rapidly growing field of ‘BlackPower Studies’. Focusing on the cover artwork and graphic design of a new wave of ‘Black Power’periodicals which emerged during the 1960s, West demonstrates how the cover design of black magazinesserved to both reinforce and complicate their self-proclaimed importance as outlets for black nationalistand black radical thought. Connecting more obscure organs such as the Liberator and Soulbook to theiconic artwork of Emory Douglas and the Black Panther, the author pushes for a reconsideration of therelationship between black radicalism, graphic design and periodical studies.Reading the Radical American Periodical 3In the final contribution to this special issue, Sinead McEneaney complicates popular readings ofthe New Left in 1960s America by addressing systemic patterns of sexism and misogyny within the‘underground press’. As McEneaney argues here, the failure of periodicals such as the Berkeley Barb andthe San Francisco Oracle to confront their regressive gender politics – even as they presented themselvesas ‘radical’ organs for New Left activism – provides a critical window onto the broader failures ofthe decades interwoven countercultural movements. Addressing the limitations of the counterculture’s‘radical imagination’, this article demonstrates how many New Left activists appeared willing to embracemainstream gender norms, whilst simultaneously pushing back against ‘the man’ in other respects.Declarations and conflict of interestsThe author declares no conflicts of interest.Notes1 Sean Latham and Robert Scholes, ‘The Rise of Periodical Studies’, PMLA 121 (2006): 517–31.2 The Research Society of Victorian Periodicals was founded in 1968, while the Research Society forAmerican Periodicals was founded in 1991.3 Cynthia Lee Patterson, ‘Magazines as Historical Study Objects’, in The Routledge Handbook ofMagazine Research, ed. David Abrahamson and Marcia Prior-Miller (New York: Routledge, 2015), 66.4 Latham and Scholes, ‘The Emergence of Periodical Studies as a Field’, 517–18.5 Ryan Cordell, ‘What Has the Digital Meant to American Periodical Scholarship?’, American Periodicals26 (2016): 2–7.6 James Danky, quoted in James Baughman, ‘A Necessary Relation: Protest and American Print Culture’,in Protest on the Page: Essays on Print and the Culture of Dissent Since 1865, ed. James L. Baughman,Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen and James P. Danky (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2015), 6.7 For a deeper discussion of periodical radicalism and radical print culture see James L. Baughman,Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen and James P. Danky, ed., Protest on the Page: Essays on Print and theCulture of Dissent Since 1865 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2015); Kevin Gilmartin, PrintPolitics: The Press and Radical Opposition in Early Nineteenth-Century England (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1996); Ian Morris and Joanne Diaz, ed., The Little Magazine in Contemporary America(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015); Elliott Shore, Ken Fones-Wolf and James Danky, ed.,The German-American Radical Press: The Shaping of a Left Political Culture, 1850–1940 (Urbana:University of Illinois Press, 1988); Christopher Tinson, Radical Intellect: Liberator Magazine and BlackActivism in the 1960s (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017).8 Elizabeth Carolyn Miller, Slow Print: Literary Radicalism and Late Victorian Print Culture (Stanford:Stanford University Press, 2013), 2.9 William Goldwater, ‘Radical Periodicals in America, 1890–1950’, The Yale University Library Gazette37 (1963): 133.10 Victoria Bazin and Sue Currell, ‘Radical America: Revolutionary, Dissident and Extremist Magazines’,Journal of Modern Periodical Studies 7 (2016): 163–66.11 ‘About,’ Network of American Periodical Studies, accessed April 2, 2018, https://periodicalstudies.wordpress.com/about; Shelley Fisher Fishkin, ‘The Transnational Turn in American Studies’, AmericanQuarterly 57 (2005): 17–57; Ian Tyrell, Transnational Nation: United States History in Global Perspective(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).12 Baughman, ‘A Necessary Relation’, 6.13 Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenlum, ‘The New Conspiracists’, Dissent 65 (2018): 51–60.ReferencesBaughman, James. ‘A Necessary Relation: Protest and American Print Culture’. In Protest on thePage: Essays on Print and the Culture of Dissent Since 1865, edited by James L. Baughman,Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen and James P. Danky, 3–10. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2015.Radical Americas 3(1): 18 4Bazin, Victoria, and Sue Currell. ‘Radical America: Revolutionary, Dissident and Extremist Magazines’.Journal of Modern Periodical Studies 7 (2016): 163–66.Cordell, Ryan. ‘What Has the Digital Meant to American Periodical Scholarship?’. American Periodicals26 (2016): 2–7.Fishkin, Shelley Fisher. ‘The Transnational Turn in American Studies’. American Quarterly 57 (2005):17–57.Gilmartin, Kevin. Print Politics: The Press and Radical Opposition in Early Nineteenth-Century England.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.Goldwater, William. ‘Radical Periodicals in America, 1890–1950’. The Yale University Library Gazette37 (1963): 133–77.Latham, Sean, and Robert Scholes. ‘The Rise of Periodical Studies’. PMLA 121 (2006): 517–31.Miller, Elizabeth Carolyn. Slow Print: Literary Radicalism and Late Victorian Print Culture. Stanford:Stanford University Press, 2013.Morris, Ian, and Joanne Diaz, ed. The Little Magazine in Contemporary America. Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 2015.Muirhead, Russell, and Nancy Rosenlum. ‘The New Conspiracists’. Dissent 65 (2018): 51–60.Patterson, Cynthia Lee. ‘Magazines as Historical Study Objects’. In The Routledge Handbook of MagazineResearch, edited by David Abrahamson and Marcia Prior-Miller, 65–85. New York: Routledge, 2015.Shore, Elliott, Ken Fones-Wolf, and James Danky, ed. The German-American Radical Press: The Shapingof a Left Political Culture, 1850–1940. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988.Tinson, Christopher. Radical Intellect: Liberator Magazine and Black Activism in the 1960s. Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press, 2017.Ian, Tyrell. Transnational Nation: United States History in Global Perspective. Basingstoke: PalgraveMacmillan, 2007.Reading the Radical American Periodical 5

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