Subverting Academic Publishing: Zines, Art Books, and Beyond

Video time.

Academic publishing is broken. In this video, I unpack the gatekeeping, paywalls, and prestige games that dominate the world of scholarly publishing and share my journey from punk zines to a PhD to coming full circle with radical art book publishing. I talk about growing up reading Flipside, my disillusionment with academic journals, and how projects like The Encyclopedia of Radical Helping (with Thick Press) and my own zine What if the Idea of Community is a Political Fantasy? helped me rediscover creative, relational, and collective-driven ways of sharing ideas. Whether you're a writer, therapist, artist, or thinker tired of waiting for permission, this video is for you. Let’s reclaim publishing as a space for connection, imagination, and real-world impact.

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Have you joined the Liminal Lab by California Family Institute yet? What are waiting for? In the latest video, Jonathan Miranda returns with Part 2 of our exploration into Michael White’s Statement of Position Maps, taking us deeper into how these structured therapeutic conversations invite people to take a stand on the problems in their lives and begin to reclaim authorship of their own stories.

From there, we begin a new arc: Landscapes Part 1. Jonathan opens up a rich dialogue on Landscapes of Action and Consciousness, grounding this narrative therapy concept in a mini deep dive on Jerome Bruner’s influential paper, Life as Narrative.

This episode blends theory and practice for anyone wanting to deepen their narrative therapy toolkit or reflect more richly on the storytelling nature of human life.

Lots of great stuff for the cost of a Latte a month. Join us.

Peace.