A Genealogy of Refusal : Walking away from crisis and scarcity narratives

Fellow Geneaologists, Unite!

Why bother doing a  genealogy of refusal from Fiction and Science Fiction  and popular culture ?  If we want to confront the options for workfplace refusal iit helps if we acquaint ourselves with some common stories and the worlds they've explored, exploited, and created.  We can begin our own exercise in professional foresight by examining dystopian, utopian, satiric and humorous workplace scenarios.


Just as Bartleby lives on (and has been taken up by film makers, artists, literary theorist, and even RPGs), libraries and librarians don't exist apart from the culture we curate. We exist in that self-same idiosyncratic, imperfect, self-reflective culture of books, film, comics, music, history and theory.

This genealogy is launching point for understanding the librarian's role in crisis narratives in the workplace. It lets us connect the librarian's role not just to the characteristics accredited through the award of an MLS or other degree or credential, but also to other memorable characters in popular culture, and to labor and feminist work.arcity in libraries it helps if we have a common narrative history to refer to that exists "outside" the profession.


Now talk about
  1. Doctorow - power of SF

  2. Vonnegut - speculative fiction and SF genre putdowns 

Vonnegut, Kurt. 1986. 48th PEN International Congress — Censorship in the U.S.A — 1/15/1986. https://soundcloud.com/penamerican/panel-censorship-pen-congress-1141986.

Vonnegut, Kurt. 1990. Hocus Pocus.

Frayne, David. 2015. The Refusal of Work: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Work. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/928883464.
 

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