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WHITHER SUBTEXT?

In 13 years, 180 issues, 8 specials and a suspension notice, 28 individuals have at some point shouldered responsibility for producing subtext. None of us are getting any younger. People move on, storm off, succumb to ailments, or retire.

We haven’t recruited new, longstanding editors in some time, and now is the time for us to start looking. If you are interested, then do get in touch with us at subtext-editors@lancaster.ac.uk so that we can have a conversation.

The fickle finger of fate could send any of us packing at a moment’s notice. In 2010, the collective was reduced to three individuals. This, not being enough to produce subtext, led to a hiatus lasting several months. Would staff and students of the university be informed and empowered to speak out against the tsunami of scandal, incompetence and occasional lunacy that engulfed Lancaster in 2017-18 without subtext? For an answer to that, see our recaps below.

MEOWING

In our piece on the forthcoming REF we reported that FASS apparently likes impact from ‘mew’ projects. A small but dedicated number of subscribers asked subtext to explain. Our first thoughts were that this was simply an acronym. Marketisation Educational Work. Multinational Experimental Writing. Multi-agency Economy Waffle.

Research was clearly needed, so we knuckled down and spent almost two minutes on the Googles in search of the answers. In turns out that those folk in FASS are really at the cutting edge in terms of the up-to-the-minute state of the art research trends. Mew projects are the very latest in cross disciplinary developments involving cyberspace research, sociology, spirituality and anthropological work. ‘Mew is … pink, bipedal … with mammalian features. Its snout is short and wide, and it has triangular ears and large, blue eyes. It has short arms with three-fingered paws, large hind legs and feet with oval markings on the soles, and a long, thin tail ending in an ovoid tip. Its fur is so fine and thin, it can only be seen under a microscope. Since Mew can make itself invisible at will, very few people have knowingly seen it, leading some scientists to declare it extinct and most to assume it to be a mirage.’ claim various Pokémon websites.

Or has FASS teamed up with Mew Developments, a chartered building company which has been delivering superior building projects in and around the Lyme Regis area for over 20 years?

Excited by the new ‘disruptive’ turn taken by FASS, we were somewhat deflated to discover that it was merely a typo on their webpage – it should have read ‘new’ projects!

SUBTEXT – THE POEM: 17/18

Panic in granadaland
better sorry than safe
dragging us into a black and white photograph
their tongues are silver forks. There’s a lack of wisdom, you can hear it on their breath
empowering your opinion with impartial information.

For the avoidance of subtext
a frontier without borders, a subtext without regulatory alignment
complicated actuarial subtext
ambitious managed divergent subtext
the stable genius of a shithole subtext
giving our graduates the tools to make subtexting happen.

Building a subtext that works  or everyon
the future ain’t what it used to be
be realistic and demand the impossible
accelerate… but remember speed kills.