Weight of the Printed Word

Steve Wright is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University. He has written widely on operaismo, including Storming Heaven: Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism (Pluto, second edition, 2017).

“What will doubtless make The Weight of the Printed Word a crucial resource for radical research in the present is its rigorous refusal to reconcile fundamental antagonisms of the political and intellectual history it reconstructs.”—Arlen Austin, Viewpoint Magazine

• PrefaceAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Print, Document Work, and Class Politics1 What Are Militants? Ceto politico and ceto operaio2 Texts Have Bodies Too: Towards a Materialist Approach to Document Work and Genre3 Genre, Document Work and Militancy amongst the Operaisti: Some Preliminary ReflectionsPart 1 The Workers’ Enquiry and Co-researchIntroduction to Part 14 The Fiat Workers’ Enquiry of 1960–61: Setting the Scene5 The Fiat Workers’ Enquiry of 1960–61: What Actually Happened?6 The Meaning of the Workers’ Enquiry and Co-research in the Early 1960sPart 2 Essays and Their ContextsIntroduction to Part 27 Cultural Production in the Italy of the ‘Economic Miracle’8 The Essay and Its Discontents9 The Role of the Review in Classical Workerism10 The Book Trade and AcademiaPart 3 Leaflets and SundriesIntroduction to Part 311 The Emergence of the Assemblea operai e studenti12 The Assemblea’s Document Work13 A Short Addendum on PamphletsPart 4 Potere OperaioIntroduction to Part 414 Debating Organisation in Print: Potop 1969–7115 Other Elements of Potere Operaio’s Genre Repertoire16 Two Brief Interludes: ‘In Praise of Illegal Work’ and ‘Sotto la Mole’17 A Gamble That Failed: Potere Operaio del lunedìPart 5 Internal Documents and Perspectives PapersIntroduction to Part 518 Internal Communication Concerning Potere Operaio’s Press and Organisation19 ‘The Measures Taken’20 Position Papers and Discussion DocumentsPart 6 ‘Dites-le avec des pavés!’ Autonomist Newspapers and the Challenge of RadioIntroduction to Part 621 The Best Re(a)d Paper in Autonomia?22 Senza Tregua – A Brief and Unhappy Existence?23 ‘A Paper That Speaks, a Radio That Writes’: I Volsci and the Impact of Radio on the Printed WordPart 7 Journals in a Minor KeyIntroduction to Part 724 ‘The Firebrands of Porto Marghera’25 ‘There Is No Housework in Marx’Conclusion: Print, Document Work, and Class PoliticsGlossaryReferencesIndex