Autonomedia

Autonomedia

Status	Active
Founded	1984
Founder	Jim Fleming
Country of origin	United States
Headquarters location	Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City
Distribution	AK Distribution (US) Turnaround Publisher Services (UK)
Publication types	Books
Nonfiction topics	Anarchism, Autonomism, Marxism, critical theory, radical art and media
Official website	autonomedia.org

Autonomedia is a nonprofit independent publisher based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City. Founded by editor, designer and publisher Jim Fleming in 1984, it publishes works on anarchism, autonomist and Marxist theory, radical politics, feminism, art, media and counterculture.

Autonomedia has been associated with a number of currents in radical publishing since the 1980s. For approximately two decades it provided the publishing infrastructure for Semiotext(e), including its influential Foreign Agents series of translations of European critical theory. Its best-known publications include Peter Lamborn Wilson's T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism (1991) and Silvia Federici's Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (2004).

History

Jim Fleming moved to New York City in 1979 after postgraduate study in literary theory at the University of Iowa. After working for the small publisher J. F. Bergin and packaging books for Praeger, he began developing an independent publishing operation focused on radical politics and culture. Fleming incorporated Autonomedia as a nonprofit organisation in late 1983; New York University's archival description of the press dates its founding to 1984.

Fleming's interest in the Italian Autonomia movement and in post-Marxist European theory influenced the press's early development. Before establishing Autonomedia, he commissioned the first English-language book by Antonio Negri, Marx Beyond Marx, while working at J. F. Bergin. Autonomedia subsequently developed a catalogue encompassing anarchism, autonomist Marxism, feminism, radical art, experimental literature and media theory. The Fales Library at New York University, which maintains an archive of Autonomedia's websites, describes the press as specialising in radical theoretical works "especially in the anarchist tradition".

The press has generally operated on a small-scale and collective basis. In 2003, The New York Times reported that Autonomedia was staffed by volunteers, had published more than 200 books, and typically printed around 3,000 copies of each title. Fleming has described the organisation as having had an active editorial collective of around a dozen people during part of its early history, while he supported his own publishing work through other employment.

Relationship with Semiotext(e)

Autonomedia played an important role in the development of Semiotext(e) from an academic journal into a book publisher. Semiotext(e) had been founded at Columbia University by Sylvère Lotringer and others in the 1970s as a journal concerned with semiotics, philosophy and contemporary French thought.

After the original graduate-student collective around the journal began to disperse at the end of the 1970s, Fleming began working with Lotringer and encouraged the development of a book series. Fleming and Lotringer subsequently co-edited Semiotext(e)'s Foreign Agents series, which introduced or popularised English translations of writers including Jean Baudrillard, Paul Virilio, Félix Guattari, Jean-François Lyotard and Antonio Negri. Chris Kraus later joined the editorial group and established the Native Agents series.

Between the early 1980s and 2000, Autonomedia provided much of the publishing infrastructure for Semiotext(e)'s book programme. Fleming has estimated that he and Lotringer published around forty books under the Semiotext(e) imprint during this period. Frieze has described Fleming as a co-editor of Semiotext(e) for nearly two decades and as an important figure linking it to the Autonomedia publishing collective.

The relationship ended around 2000, when Semiotext(e), under Lotringer and Kraus, became an independently managed publisher and later entered a distribution arrangement with MIT Press.

Publishing programme

Autonomedia's catalogue has encompassed a range of radical political and cultural traditions. New York University's Fales Library identifies subjects including anarchism, Marxism, feminism, cyberfeminism, ecology, political theory, radical art, counterculture, drugs, fiction, poetry and philosophy among its publications.

One of its most widely circulated books is T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism by Peter Lamborn Wilson, writing as Hakim Bey. Published by Autonomedia in book form in 1991 after versions of the texts had circulated in underground publications, the book developed the concept of the "temporary autonomous zone" as a form of social and political autonomy outside formally institutionalised structures. In 2003, The New York Times described it as Autonomedia's best-known publication. At the time of Wilson's death in 2022, the newspaper reported that the book had sold more than 50,000 copies.

During the 1990s, Autonomedia published work associated with several strands of anarchist and autonomist thought. These included the Midnight Notes Collective's Midnight Oil: Work, Energy, War, 1973–1992 (1992), Ron Sakolsky and James Koehnline's anthology Gone to Croatan: Origins of North American Dropout Culture (1993), and John Zerzan's Future Primitive and Other Essays (1994).

The press also became associated with writing about art, technology and media activism. It published a sequence of books by the artist collective Critical Art Ensemble, beginning with The Electronic Disturbance (1994), followed by Electronic Civil Disobedience & Other Unpopular Ideas (1996), Digital Resistance (2001) and Molecular Invasion (2002). Autonomedia also published Readme! ASCII Culture and the Revenge of Knowledge (1999), an anthology associated with the international nettime network.

In 2004, Autonomedia published Silvia Federici's Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation. The book offers a feminist reinterpretation of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, connecting primitive accumulation, reproductive labour, enclosure and the European witch hunts. It subsequently became one of Federici's most widely discussed works and has appeared in numerous translations and later editions.

Autonomedia has also published the English-language edition of bolo'bolo, the utopian political text by Swiss writer P. M., and works by writers including Bob Black, Richard Kostelanetz, Michael Muhammad Knight, Antonio Negri, Félix Guattari, Ron Sakolsky and Matthew Shipp.

Imprints and collaborative publishing

In addition to books issued directly under the Autonomedia name, the publisher has provided infrastructure for independent editorial projects and imprints.

Minor Compositions was established in 2009 as an Autonomedia imprint devoted to autonomous politics, avant-garde aesthetics and related forms of cultural and political theory. Publications released through Minor Compositions and Autonomedia include Stefano Harney and Fred Moten's The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study (2013).

Autonomedia has also collaborated with other radical and independent publishers on individual books and series, including Ardent Press and Common Notions.

Other activities

Autonomedia has undertaken publishing and media projects beyond conventional books. Since the 1990s it has produced the annual Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints, illustrated by James Koehnline, which assigns each day to figures associated with radical political, artistic and intellectual traditions.

The publisher was also involved in the InterActivist Info Exchange, an online news and discussion platform developed with the InterActivist Network. The site published news, reviews, events, announcements and political analysis and operated through Autonomedia and InterActivist web domains during the 2000s and 2010s. Archived versions of Autonomedia's websites from 2007 to 2017 are held by the Fales Library and Special Collections at New York University.

Selected publications

Hakim Bey, T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism (1991) Midnight Notes Collective, Midnight Oil: Work, Energy, War, 1973–1992 (1992) Ron Sakolsky and James Koehnline (eds.), Gone to Croatan: Origins of North American Dropout Culture (1993) Critical Art Ensemble, The Electronic Disturbance (1994) John Zerzan, Future Primitive and Other Essays (1994) P. M., bolo'bolo (English editions) Critical Art Ensemble, Electronic Civil Disobedience & Other Unpopular Ideas (1996) nettime (eds.), Readme! ASCII Culture and the Revenge of Knowledge (1999) Critical Art Ensemble, Digital Resistance: Explorations in Tactical Media (2001) Critical Art Ensemble, Molecular Invasion (2002) Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (2004) Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study (2013; Minor Compositions/Autonomedia) Matthew Shipp, Black Mystery School Pianists and Other Writings (2025)

See also

Semiotext(e) Minor Compositions AK Press Anarchist literature Autonomism Independent media Small press

External links

Official website Autonomedia Archived Websites at NYU Special Collections

Category publishing companies based in New York City Category organizations in the United States Category book publishing companies Category publishing companies Category companies established in 1984 Category press publishing companies Category in New York (state) Category publishers