Tag Archives: subtext

subtext Wants You

Having recently produced an heir, one of the subtext collective will soon be taking some much-deserved parental leave. We wish them the very best with their little sub-editor, but this does leave us with very few (named) editors during a time of high drama in both the HE world and beyond.

We consider subtext, along with fresh-faced contemporaries like subtext and historical antecedents like subtext, to be maintaining a historic but important link to a rosier, more irreverent time in academia; a time when the relationship between academics and management was more ‘critical friendship’ and less ‘commercial in confidence’.

At its peak in May 2006 our little band of troublemakers numbered ten and we find that snark, like misery, loves company. We are asking for more of you lovely readers, contributors, letter-writers and detractors to join us!

You will:

  • have as keen an eye for institutional malfeasance and dodgy double-dealing as you do for correct punctuation and tpyos;
  • be interested in holding the University management, Students’ Union and institutions of power in general to account, despite their best efforts to avoid it; and
  • have a sense of humour.

Hours flexible. Pay nil. Politics negotiable.

subtext is a Diamond Open Access publication and you can choose whether you wish to be credited or anonymous. Though our primary audience is Lancaster University staff, our readership of tens/hundreds/thousands/millions includes alumni, emeriti, students and locals and we welcome applications from all of these groups.

If you’re interested, or would just like to know more, drop us an email at subtext-editors@lancaster.ac.uk and we’ll be in touch.

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.

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.