Reading as Communal Luxury: On the formation of a Resistant Subject Group

This provocation argues for the importance of reading groups, and forreading books, as a mode of resistance against the instrumentalizationand individualization of academic labour in today’s neoliberaliseduniversities. Against the dominant ‘information processing’ paradigm ofreading, we argue that reading groups function as invaluable moments ofsocial reproduction in the ‘undercommons’ of contemporary highereducation. Combining Harney and Moten’s concept of the undercommonswith Ross’ analysis of communal luxury, we argue that reading groupscan articulate a radical, performative demand for the right to collectivecultural creativity. Reading groups can steal back a small degree ofacademic autonomy, not over academic labour, but over the socialreproduction that makes such labour possible in the first place. Thisargument is interspersed with intermezzo reflections on our collectiveexperiences as members of a ‘viral reading group’, meeting since thestart of Covid. We conclude our provocation with a manifesto for readinggroups as a way of contesting the hegemony of instrumental rationality inmanagement learning and education, for academics and for students, andas a place where the two can meet to plan and study, within and beyondthe institutional limits of contemporary higher education.