The Saga of the B-Side:

Historical Analysis through Social Media

Introduction

This is the project I wanted to do last year but could not articulate in the moment. A two-year--and, it could be accounted for in a much more comprehensive examination, for much longer--tension reached its critical collapse during my junior year at Hiram College at around the same time that I began subscribing to a small space located beneath a neighboring residence hall. The B-Side Cafe has existed in varying forms since the '90s, before which its history is unclear from surface-level observation.

        I had only surface-level observation when I became intrigued at a time when my academic path was forming and I needed to determine a project subject for my senior capstone in education and advocacy through narrative. The B-Side was, in its contemporary incarnation, a lounge for self-designated Punk, Anarchist, Communist, Nihilist students to gather any time, day or night, and drink coffee, smoke illicitly, do homework perhaps, talk, and create. The walls were covered in students' artwork and snarky thoughts. Replicas of Banksy's rats crouched in the back corner. A photograph of "Irma the Body" was enshrined directly across the entryway. A Capitalist Neo-Conservative named Brian Jones was the manager, who, with little help from the newer crowd of younger students, and transiently, was trying to maintain the B-Side's legacy on campus. A major premise of this legacy was the continual renewal of wall space for new art. Mainstays were avoided during regular white-washing of the B-Side's wall collection.

        I first went to the B-Side to view Gasland when the campus environmental coalition screened it. This student organization and the campus's Fine Arts Society--another student organization--used the space periodically for such events and meetings. The B-Side itself was not an incorporated student organization, but operated independently through its members. I didn't return to the B-Side, which held no appeal to me except mystery and exoticism until I was invited to watch a girl I was interested in perform at an open mic and student art exhibition. The walls had recently been painted white, per the usual two-year renewal. Shortly following the student open mic and art show, the white patches would be drawn over in Sharpie with pictures of grotesque bodies labeled "diarrhea boner" which were true to their titles in form.

        The B-Side's constituency was divided. The space's recent failure to uphold a certain mission and character, its periodic inaccessibility, and its self-perception as demonized by the administrative powers created such tension as to incite violent, angry, confused outbursts such as these. This was a crisis point for the B-Side.

        I was inspired to rescue the B-Side at this juncture by telling its story. I would draw the community together by reminiscing over its golden age. I would reintroduce order and cooperation, and thereby sustainability, in such a way that would forever alienate the fools who only wanted to create trouble.

        Not only did my thesis lack a cohesive awareness of its own theoretical use of the terms "community," "organization," "cooperation," "leadership," and "Story," but the project itself fell apart before I could even begin because of my complete inability to access the B-Side's constituents. I suppose I took the form of a law-man to them, not to be trusted, unfamiliar, a change agent. An outsider. A colonizer. And certainly I was all of those things, but I had the best of intentions. Wouldn't the B-Side be better, stronger, and more of a servant to its patrons if its history and nature were fully understood?

        I didn't end up proceeding with this storytelling project because my goals were limited by their superficiality. But in retrospect I can see a more interesting project developing. Most essential pieces of my memory of the struggle--which is admittedly limited--are still available on the B-Side's Facebook page. The wall is a digital archive of much of the internal debate and conflict. Where I might have gathered hours of stories from self-conscious subjects performing as representatives of the B-Side, I can now look back on publicly recorded conversations that occurred under private-seeming circumstances.

        Typically, history is proven in official records, first-person accounts from designated important people, evidence interpreted or translated by professionals. These sanctioned sources are comparable to the conception of New York City in, say, a subway map that tilts the landscape to make it appear vertical and orderly. It fits a certain need to have a standard, master, grand concept of New York City for any user's convenience. Any map of New York City deviating from this plan would correlatively take its concept from some deviant source material. The radical cartography^[1] of such a move could malign the map or elevate it to a counter-cultural expression, or both.

        I am using a less traditional source material for devising a literary historical fiction piece. The alternative source will certainly change both the content and implications of such a piece from if it were scripted in the usual way--through ethnographic interview, Hiram College's public records and media articles (of which there are notably none), or by looking through primary sources at the B-Side's physical location. By using the Facebook page to extract and the timeline to extrapolate dialogue for the closet drama, a different kind of historical fiction will emerge whose nature has yet to be analyzed and its meaning determined.

Commodifying the Facebook Comment

        Most contemporary attempts to elevate the Facebook comment or Twitter message to a primary resource are curations of these to be observed, consumed, evaluated as artifacts. But by transcribing them outside of their original context is, in any case, to replicate and produce them as objects outside of the self with varying meanings and values depending on context^[2]. In certain cases, the need to acknowledge this and address it in the form is undermined by the objective of the piece--to objectify the messages as having some single value, most often shameful, inappropriate or unacceptable. However, in my piece's context, I am not interested in assigning value or passing judgement or declaring a right or wrong outcome to the situation. My interest is in showing the forum that did in fact happen over the situation and potentially pointing out some of its failures.

        For this reason, I need to point out the extent to which I am utilizing the Facebook comment as an artifact is not the limit to its potential utility. Rearranging, reassigning, or completely disoriented, or a myriad other possibilities exist that other artists / historians could use  these for. I have, for example, for simplicity and elegance, created caricatures out of the prime contributors to the B-Side page's conversation and a chorus out of the accumulation of sparing voices. Another author might choose to attribute each word and phrase to a single person, or another to use the words from the page completely independently of original commenter. The author’s purpose will determine the choice.

The Compositional Code

        Jacques Attali begins Noise, with a definition of music as that which gives structure to noise^[3]. The noise of social media is certainly a new and more complicated forum of transmitting messages and circulating ideas globally than the world has seen^[4]. The organization of multiple and multiplying thoughts and points of view now available to the public en masse is daunting, but it also opens opportunities for new ways of determining reality or interpreting it. With the ubiquity of social media platforms where ideas can be freely and permanently staged, “subjugated knowledge^[5]” is suddenly accessible from those in neo-colonial situations.

        The framework of a neo-colonial situation is replicated formally in the B-Side scenario. A space is claimed by and for the “socially inept^[6]”  within the context of a mainstream society of undergraduate students which the users of the space pose themselves as somehow differently valued. My purpose is not to determine the extent to which the claim is accurate, but by self-fulfilled prophecy or by intuition the position of colonizer is given the “administration” figure

and the colonized position is given the B-Side. Ownership of the space is constantly a touchy topic, as patrons claim smoking as an important cultural characteristic and right although their real estate places them below student residences, meaning their smoke is not only illegal for safety codes but also inconvenient to those who share vertical space. Noise violations are also a consistent problem, but for which the B-Side patrons would accept no responsibility, blaming instead “the shitheads who live in [the residence hall above]^[7]”.

        Continuing the contention over ownership, colonization, and distrust of any outside agents is the cooperation of B-Side management with the local resident hall director, who takes a personal interest in the B-Side during the first year of its difficulties. Communication increases between the representative agents of the B-Side and the resident education office respectively, which conveys images of gentrification coupled with anxiety over it. The B-Side constituency becomes defensive and wary.

        My rendering of this narrative as factual is simply a condensing of the discussion during this timeframe on the B-Side’s group page on Facebook. The noise of multiple simultaneous conversations of varying intensity and self-consciousness happen to form a startlingly coherent timeline. Other histories will be more difficult to trace using only time-sensitive social media messages that fall under a certain hashtag^[8], but the reward for conscientious digging and sorting will be a pluralistic analysis of a given issue. Observance of course should be given to the potential motivations and political stances of those whose voices are most present in any comment section or community page, as it should be to those who are present but not vocal. Nonetheless, the characters that do present themselves in these dramas are real and by making their thoughts available to be read also make themselves worthy of being read into. The same can be said for those who remain silent but visible, insofar as they are members of a given internet group, followers of a certain message sender, retweeters, sharers…

        By composing these myriad messages and lacks thereof into a closet drama / found poem / choral arrangement, I am performing a freeing act of suggestion that a new way of reading history may emerge. Attali clarifies the composing code as “a new noise being heard^[9]” wherein conventional production roles are abandoned to allow for greater productive and creative range (there are more producers and each producer has only self-limitations to allow for when producing).

        Although Attali’s definition of the composing code of producing only allows for the community’s personal use of the product, the fact that there is little or no distinction between production and consumption means to me that there is a derivative point to be entered into and explored. The B-Side community was local, but even in its physicalized form, it had no recognition of the extent of its community as going beyond those who were merely invested in it as a place to be used and enjoyed. Mentioned before, the community of the B-Side also included administrators, residence hall directors, co-residents, and staff. I mention this to show the extent of the B-Side’s scope, outside even of those who claimed to have a full understanding of it, including some who never attended Hiram College, or alumni who no longer lived within visiting distance. Each production cycle was harvested for some purpose--either to frame a discussion or indicate a change. I am using a production cycle now as an entry point to examine a critical point in the B-Side’s history, with the framework of a composed narrative out of found statements and conversations held publicly. As an examination, I am aware of its shortcomings and am not claiming it to be comprehensive, true, or even accurate. The speakers themselves may take issue with my appropriation of their words. I can only say that the words became public property when they were published online, in an open group, with their names attached to them, and that my using them to articulate my interpretation is entirely my responsibility.

Potential Use Value of the Found Closet Drama

        I have no specific instructions for how this form may influence any distinct forms of historical or literary analysis. But I have an idea of how I would put it to action if I were to stage it instead of leaving it as a closet drama. I would draw it out as a forum piece for a Theatre of the Oppressed session. I believe analysis of the B-Side’s situation could shed light on many current issues of gentrification, considering its structural relation to neo-colonial contexts in which the colonizer “absorb[s] other cultures and economies into the colonizer’s political orbit^[10]”.

        In contemporary major cities all over the world, urban areas claimed as ethnic safe zones (Harlem, for example, where a thriving Black arts scene was established in the twentieth century) are being reclaimed by the colonizing forces that once left them up for grabs as bad real estate. A similar situation occurred with the B-Side, although I claim no direct comparison, considering the B-Side’s current state of disrepair and its microscopy relative to Manhattan. I only mean that similar emotions may have arisen during both situations and others in which a space has varying and contested meanings to two or more groups.

        To expand this correlation possibly too far, the Nigerian example from Amkpa’s chapter illuminates the use of Boalian theatre techniques for community development and clarification of neo-colonial power dispersion. In his words:

...the moments when the reality of domination becomes starkly coherent for the oppressed who consequently begin to imagine strategies of limiting domination as well as transforming themselves into a broader humanity within which they are subjects, not objects, of social reality. It is simultaneous with the moments of oppression, not after it.^[11]

Although this description does match the B-Side’s struggle for self-determination at the time when the drama is set, the responses vary from Amkpa’s description in that at no time did any contributors to the conversation suggest any “new modes of representation within which a proactive sense of citizenship is fantasized and imagined”. Fitting for the age group involved, instead petulance was the overwhelming response. Indeed, this is the reason why the closet drama might serve as ideal anti-forum material, wherein a learning crowd in a similar situation might conceive of their own proactive senses of citizenship with which they could take agency as members of a perceived colonized group.

        RIP 5-pointz

But allow me to shrink the scale so as to make the claims slightly less pie-in-the-sky. I began my introduction by mentioning the potential this new source material has to open up evaluations of historic situations. Where in the past, newspaper articles sharing on-record interviews with the important actors in a situation would be the archives to be examined while recording the situation’s history, now there are possibilities to see what the plurality of voices have to say about the issue, in real time.

Take for example this conversation via Twitter message that attempts to get at the heart of the white-washing of 5-pointz, the “Graffiti Mecca” found in Queens:

        Many reasons--good ones--keep these Twitter conversations out of mainstream media outlets like the Wall Street Journal--the original Twitter contributor that sparked this wild debate. But then, recognize that the only media outlets whose missions are to inform the public on contemporary issues and events that covered the 5-pointz demonstrations and petitions that occurred in advance of the white-washing on November 19, 2013  were small-profit web magazines and community newspapers:

        The semantics and grammatics of the language used in these tweets also reveals a level of discrimination in the choice of media to be examined for academic or otherwise serious historical and political analyses. The obvious benefits of having an actor’s own words are not always overshadowed by their own dialect, but these codes do not do the actor any favors in getting their side of the developing story to the public. Although, in fact, these semantics are likely to keep these actors compelling and relevant in these new, ubiquitous forms of social media.

        The parallels of the open art space allowed by lease-owners, the ownership of space being contested, the white-washing and ensuing public outcry are not lost to me. But I find more insistently relevant and disturbing the formal similarities in which the problems of the communities were contained to only those who immediately identified as invested members of the communities. Although action was taken in both cases by those who felt colonized and wanted a more powerful, legitimized stance in the relationship with those who owned proprietary rights, the resulting struggle was mostly internal. In the B-Side’s case, different feelings on entitlement and activism led to different, conflicting responses to the need for change. For 5-pointz, the action did not demand the attention of outside actors who could have become allies for the cause, and because of this, those potential allies, like Jon_Hersh now distrust the cause for not having been proactive in a visible way.

Final Thoughts

        The piece, you will read, is composed into five acts. The actors are allegorical and smaller, less present source voices have been conglomerated into a chorus. This structure follows a somewhat Classical / Renaissance formatting, allowing for a typical plot movement and streamlined dialogue. While writing, I noticed the structure emerge, much to my fascination and pleasure, since I began to notice a tragic tone occurring. My characters are plagued with simultaneous enthusiasm, charisma, and inertia. The climax occurs in the third act, after which confused, anxious, and silent undercurrents of internal conflict emerge in lengthy speech-making, which falls out when the rhetoric is exhausted.
        Once I finished the piece, I was amazed at how closely it followed some of my feelings about the 5-Pointz situation, and how much more sympathetic I felt towards those members of the B-Side’s community who may have been involved in or condoned the Sharpie vandalism / artwork. Transcribing the extensive comments made me irritable, but once I finished the fifth act, I just felt sorry for everyone involved. It appeared to me, at the distance I had achieved in time and point of view, that the incoherence of the community and its goals were the obvious cause of the critical collapse--that there was no right or wrong side--that there were many more sides than two--that the collapse was no party’s exclusive fault.

I would like to leave the reader with the idea that a master narrative can be formulated out of any event if the author is alone and their sources similar in production style. This is counter-productive to an authentic reading of history as forever incomplete, since such a master narrative can mask itself as essential and all-encompassing. By reaching into the newly-made landscape of mass production of individuals’ personal thoughts and feelings, historians and artists can render more colorful and self-aware portraits of events in need of examination. As follows, the immediate accessibility of all of these messages may lead to a further democratization not only of these disciplines’ methods, but of the disciplines themselves. Already, journalism is becoming an amateur game with narrative journalists’ blogs covering the netscape. By-night artists’ works are becoming massively consumed through Tumblr, DeviantArt, and similar platforms. Eventually, even the most elite-seeming discipline in the Humanities will be open for amateur intervention and uncredentialed participation. History will become a never-ending exploration of social, economic, political forces and a tireless effort to communicate subjectivity.  

The Saga of the B-Side

ACT I: Rally Cry

BJ: (alone) The B-Side, serving large amounts of bad coffee, pretentious music, and second-hand smoke to socially inept students since 1993. Hours: 6PM-2AM daily, later by chance.

(as VOICES enter) The B-side Reunion was a massive success. It's been a shithole since 1993, but it's OUR fucking shithole, Goddamnit! It's our only lasting legacy at Hiram College, since the two guys started it in 1993. If I can help it, the B-Side will remain a part of Hiram's campus culture for another shining decade!

VOICES: (one entering) It sure would be nice if the B-Side wasn't locked all the fucking time.

BJ: The B-side is open.

VOICES: (another entering) Yeah, the B-Side has been locked because "some" people are irresponsible and shit is disappearing!!

BJ: The coffee is on, hot, fresh and bad, as always!

VOICES: (another entering) We used to leave our laptops out there! Now???

BJ: Serving large amounts of bad coffee, pretentious music, and second-hand smoke to socially inept students since 1993.

STALWALSH: (grabbing BJ by the shoulders) The B-Side has changed!

BJ: The B-Side will be closed until further notice.

ACT II: Nothing Happens

MR. SMITH (AS IN, THE ONE WHO WENT TO WASHINGTON): Hey everyone! The resident hall director and I have been chatting a bit, and we decided that we all should maybe get together and do some work on the B-Side to get it ready to open before winter break. Who is down for this? And if so, when are you guys free? Leave me some comments so we can set something up!

VOICES: I have no life, so let me know! Just let me know when you're doing this, I love hard work! You have my axe. And my sword!

BJ: I just got us an awesome Jukebox to continue listening to our pretentious jams the old-fashioned way. And there's a big floor to tear up and paint, let's get started!

ZOPTIMIST: I am excited for the B-Side to reopen and cannot wait to have coffee, friends and good conversation. The B-Side is a special place that we cannot afford to lose. Let's make this count!

BJ: whoever was painting splattered white paint all over my vintage Jukebox. Feel my wrath. I'm just kidding, but seriously, be more careful.

KLOPF: You need some Oops or Goo Gone. That'd clean the place right up.

PRODIGAL: Hey, let's open the B-Side with an Open Mic! It would be a great way to inaugurate the new, healthy, happy B-Side.

VOICE: What do you care? You dropped out. You're not in the club no more. Just kidding, but seriously, you probably wouldn't come anyway.

BJ: Alright, I'm going to get to work seriously on making the Jukebox functional. And we got paint that actually matches the color of the kitchen floor. I'm bringing floor scrapers and a paint roller. Be ready to start ripping up tile this week.

KLOPF: The floor doesn't have concrete sealer or anything on it does it? Cause if you're painting latex over sealer it's going to reject and peel off.

ZOPTIMIST: BJ, let me know when you will be doing things--date and time--so that I can help.

BJ: Klopf, there's no sealer. And the paint I put down over the concrete last year help up just fine!

KLOPF: Just a thought. What about asbestos?

MR. SMITH: Talked to the vice dean today. Good news, no asbestos!

BJ: The kitchen tile was definitely asbestos based…

MR. SMITH: The vice dean said we're in the clear. I trust him. Haha.

BJ: Either way, it's not a big deal. We're going to be tearing up some ugly vinyl floor tile in the next week so we can have things ready to open before winter break. Be prepared to handle asbestos!

SILENCE UNTIL FOLLOWING WINTER BREAK

VOICE: What happened to that filthy place we used to hang out in? Something is missing!

ACT III: The Open Mic

BJ: Hey everyone, there was an open mic and art show! Look at this picture that proves it happened!

(A picture of a white wall with one painting on it and BJ's Jukebox appears)

KLOPF: Reminds me of the old shows we used to have down there, and getting moshed into the ceiling by the old standbys.

BJ: We touched up the paint job too, so feel free to start refilling the empty spots!

PRODIGAL: Who are you people and why have you moved into my cave? By the way, thanks for not notifying anyone of the open mic. It would have been cool to be kept informed.

SILENCE AND EMPTY STAGE

MASKED ENTITIES: (enter and draw over the picture of the white wall with one painting on it. A swastika and anarchy symbol must appear.)

ACT IV: The Speeches

MR. SMITH: (alone) B-Side folk,

Hey there. As I'm sure you've all noticed, the B-Side is currently closed due to some of the crappiness that ensued shortly after the painting of the walls. There were many emails sent out about the fact that it was to be painted, and I personally would like to apologize for those of you who were in fact upset by the new paint job. Although, in our defense, this is something that happens to the walls every few years. Some of the work on the walls, regardless of how silly or magnificent, needed to go. This was the plan, created by the original founders of the B-Side, used to open up room for new artists as well as for new ramblings to be written and found.

Some of the new artwork found on the walls could be considered vandalism (according to school rules) because, frankly, that's just how it is. Hiram, nor do I, approve of Swastikas or some of the other vulgarity that is now on the walls. Furthermore, some of the artwork that was classic, almost twenty years old, was painted on and somewhat destroyed. if there were negative feelings about the painting of the walls, it should've been a time of discussion instead of a time to act out about it. However, some of the work that has been done will be left up if it is not completely inappropriate, because that is what the people of the B-Side, apparently, decided how they wanted to present the space.

So, it was my, BJ's, and the residence hall director's idea to keep it closed for a short period of time until we decided what to do about the walls.

VOICES: Why would they paint Swastikas? That's not art! If campus security sees those Swastikas, the B-Side is gonna close definitely.

COUNTER-CULTURE MAN: Please read a wikipedia article about the Swastika. They're not that big of a deal.

MR. SMITH: Let's remember what the Swastika is most commonly used to represent, and also the message that people send out when they use them in the context they were in fact used in.

STALWALSH: I hardly think that people are trying to turn the B-Side into a Nazi club. What ever happened to humor?

COUNTER-CULTURE MAN: Exactly like Stalwalsh said: if you take everything on those walls seriously, some of us still might be looking for Charles Barkley reciting Shut Up and Dance or better yet, drawing on their dicks with Sharpie marker, trying to get it off by "fucking." Let people do as they please with the walls, since that's how it's always been. If someone didn't like something, they could paint over it or alter it to their choosing.

STALWALSH: Here's my perspective:

My problem with the B-Side this year isn't how dirty the walls or the dishes are, in either sense of the word "dirty." The problem is the mentality that the B-Side is somehow in need of a change from what it has always been. I think what makes the B-Side great is that it allows a certain group of people to gather and share with each other. We have our own tastes and humor, and the B-Side really cultivates those things. Hiam doesn't need another sterile work environment, it has enough of those.

The problem the the administration has with the B-Side, I believe, also has nothing to do with our filthy drawings or floors. their problem, to put it simply, is that they think we're a bad crowd. they think that by attacking the B-Side they're going to solve Hiram's behavioral problems. The B-Side definitely catches more shit than any other club, and in my opinion it's a lazy tactic on the part of campus security and the administration as a whole. They don't care what is actually happening at the B-Side. They have been and will continue to use any and every excuse to shut the B-Side down, because it makes them feel like they're doing their jobs. They think we're an easy target, and we are, but only because the newer crowd and new management (no offense to Mr. Smith or BJ) is willing to cater to them.

MR. SMITH and BJ: How are we not supposed to take offense to that?

BJ: The B-Side basically existed as a place where anything goes for most of the school year two years ago. A reputation developed during that time that I've spent two years digging us out of. If I hadn't attempted to open up dialogue with administration, the B-Side would have not reopened in the fall last year. This is fact.

STALWALSH: To me, the B-Side has changed. As far as I can tell, this is because of the new security and management, and even more generally, there's a new attitude surrounding it. Before, the friends, thoughts, music, and coffee mattered more than the furniture, the walls, or how people saw us. I'm not blaming you, BJ, it isn't your fault. But the B-Side is important to me, and I feel the need to try and salvage and preserve what it used to be. Honestly, the B-Side should be more important to the actual administration. it houses some of their best students.

BJ: To address a couple things about your argument, dealing with the painting of the walls:

Traditionally, up until three years ago, the B-Side walls were painted over every year to two years, so that people would have the ability to make new art. The reason it hadn't been done sooner is that there wasn't the time or resources to do it. Painting the walls was not some move to erase history or piss people off, or sterilize the B-Side for the benefit of the administration. it was to allow a new generation of people to make the B-Side theirs. The vandalism that occurred after painting wasn't art. It mainly consisted of anarchy symbols, swastikas, destruction of 20+ year old art that had been saved, books glued to walls, poorly drawn people shitting and boners that took up entire walls, more or less a passive aggressive, childish, NO, FUCK YOU DAD!!! reaction to change. it wasn't even remotely comparable to what was there before.

In the end, the B-Side isn't a place we have some inalienable right to. It's a room in a campus building that we're allowed to use. It always has been. I don't like the scrutiny we suffer any more than anyone else, and I think a lot of it is unwarranted, but simply having a NO, FUCK YOU DAD attitude about it will end up with the place being shut down for good. We have to compromise. It was fun, hell, I enjoyed it a lot of the time, but the days of ignoring the administration and doing anything we wanted was not going to last. Mr. Smith and I have tried hard for close to two years to keep the B-Side alive so that future HIram first-years can discover it, make friends there, drink bad coffee, listen to cool music, and have those great discussions, just like we did.

ACT V: RIP

BJ: I'm thinking about making a final attempt to resurrect the B-Side this coming school year. Stay tuned for further updates.

SILENCE

BJ: Rest in Peace, B-Side Cafe. 1992-2013. A Victim of Hiram College's newfound obsession with Security Theater, and administrative red tape. You will be missed.

NEWBY: You know it's in terrible condition? The roof is caving in and there was a flood this year. But I believe plans for renovation are being looked into.

SILENCE

BJ: I can now confirm that the B-Side never flooded. It was a lie. I'm taking an afternoon off to rescue my Jukebox. It doesn't deserve to sit forlorn in an empty room under a campus building.

Works Cited Page

@5PointzNYC (Nov. 18) In Twitter. Retrieved December 3, 2013, from https://twitter.com/5PointzNYC

Amkpa, Awam. “Reenvisioning theatre, activism, and citizenship in neo-colonial contexts.” (161-172) in Cohen-Cruz and Schutzman, A Boal Companion.

Attali, Jacques. "Noise: The Political Economy of Music (Theory and History of Literature)." (1985).

B-Side Group Page. (n.d.). In Facebook. Retrieved December 3, 2013, from https://www.facebook.com/groups/62382161296/   

Marx, Karl. Capital. “The Two Factors of a Commodity: Use-Value and Value (The Substance of the Value and the Magnitude of Value.”

Responses to @WSJ post. (Nov. 23). In Twitter. Retrieved November 23, 2013, from https://twitter.com/TheeErin/status/405353561543806976

Zehle, Soenke, and Ned Rossiter. "Organizing networks: Notes on collaborative constitution, translation, and the work of organization." Cultural Politics 5.2 (2009): 237-264.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Can the Subaltern Speak? (1988).