A Genealogy of Refusal : Walking away from crisis and scarcity narratives Main Menu Crisis narratives frame our response Bartleby at the Wall How can fiction and popular culture inform the way we promulgate or refuse crisis & scarcity narratives in librarianship? Proud Descendants who "Prefer not to" Some recent gems from Bartleby's lineage A Kinship Diagram of Workplace Refusal Dark side of parody More Satire When Expectations Cross the line Why don't librarians "Just say No"? Do we prefer to suffer in silence because its a vocation and not "just a job" Feminized Labour Saying Yes all the Time Superhero Librarians It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a librarian! I am not your hero Murderbot: the alternate patron saint for librarians The invocation of crisis narratives is relentless No individual solution to our problems Debunking myths that hold us back to enable collective ways of moving forward What refusal can we take up? A Cosmic Gift Manifest NO Becoming fluent in hearing and saying No Asset Framing Bibliography Works cited, featured, mentioned and consulted for Genealogy of Refusal project Glossary of Key Concepts Multiple Paths A compendium of paths through the Genealogy of Refusal content: a choose-your-own-adventure approach to this companion piece. Genealogy of Refusal Timeline We welcome contributions Learn how to contribute to this project About the Authors Multimedia project for the The Canadian Journal of Academic Librarianship Special Issue on Refusing Crisis Narratives

Satire is rich

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Satire is rich because “everyone” knows what we’re laughing about?

Workplace Satire is a rich playground of ideas.  What can we "brew" for librarians by stirring Satire's cauldron?

When the Librarian ignores Tammy stripping down and instead cautions the group to be quiet saying "Shhh this is a library" in the Jammy episode of Parks and Rec, everyone knows what the joke is. Even a naked woman's hysterical strip tease can't interrupt or trump a librarian's duty to say Shhhhh?
 


Parks and Recreation: Ron and Jammy (American TV Series). Season 7, Episode 2. Jan 13, 2015.

Refusal resonates with everyone. Todd Rungren describes I Don’t Want to Work as " the most lucrative song I have ever written."


explaining how ". . it got adopted by a lot of sports fans… then it got picked up for various commercials and movie promo— things like that. And then Carnival Cruise decided they wanted it to be their entire identity. For several years, they were paying me ridiculous money to use it. And then they started sinking a lot of ships. So they decided they should change their image *laughs*… I don’t make as much money currently off of it as I used to, but it’s available *laughs*…But, I like to say it was some kind of cosmic gift I was given(Nolasco, 2019).  This video of Notre Dame's undergraduates accompanying Rungren on "I Dont Want to Work" illustrates how refusal resonates with everyone and across generations . 

[Irony?  - grab a stat about how x% of ND undergrads will be employed etc]. University life has long been ripe ground for satirists and the buclic setting of the college campus makes it a great stage for presenting satire and dystopian futures.

In The BigU by Neal Stephenson whether you dress it in a letterman's jacket or slip it into a co-ed's overtight T-Shirt the college campus becomes a stage for:





 

Stephenson, Neal. 1984. The Big U. New York: Vintage. https://www.biblio.com/9780394723624.

Parks and rec Parks and Recreation (American TV Series). 2009. Parks and Recreation (American TV Series). NBC.   shush

also... I was watching Parks & Rec over the xmas break and there are so many examples of constructed crises and refusal to work in that show! Ron Swanson?! HAH. Must be something about Indiana
 

Reference Tramp: She always answered “yes “ 

Bookmobile badgirl  she gave it away free all over town 
 

Nolasco, Stephanie. 2019. “Todd Rundgren Explains Why He’s Never Taken the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Seriously.” Text.Article. Fox News. Fox News. December 13, 2019. https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/todd-rundgren-rock-roll-hall-of-fame.

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