Re/Marks on a Proposal

About three years ago I began writing a proposal for the book that has become Re/Marks on Power. It arrives in just two months.

The book prospectus I submitted to the MIT Press, back in June of 2022, asked me to "List briefly what you consider to be the outstanding, distinctive or unique features of the work." A typical request when pitching a new book.

Revisiting my proposal, it's refreshing to see that features I identified as distinct did, indeed, carry forward into the final version of Re/Marks on Power: How Annotation Inscribes History, Literacy, and Justice.

For example, I wrote that my book would include:

• Original archival research that traces the presence and importance of annotation across historical, political, and social contexts.
• A definition and conceptual model of "re/marks" that explains how to understand annotation as a critical, syncretic, and civic literacy practice relevant to learning both inside and outside of school.
• Case studies that intentionally connect annotated primary sources and historical documents with examples of annotation in contemporary popular culture and social media.
• Case studies that address timely political topics, including immigration, racial justice, public memory, and social activism.
• An embrace of interdisciplinarity that synthesizes among scholarly perspectives and empirical research given shifting expressions of readership, agency, and critical literacy.
• Fieldwork and interviews with scholars, educators, artists, and public intellectuals to help present annotation as creative, communal, and critical expression.
• Participation in citational justice, by centering stories, social concerns, images, and thinkers whose contributions have been either intentionally marginalized or inadvertently disassociated with annotation scholarship.
• Extensive use of visual media, including historical documents available in the public domain, images from artists, as well as my own original figures and images from fieldwork.

If those features speak to you or pique your interest, you can pre-order Re/Marks on Power from your preferred retailer today. Or wait until publication day, this coming April 15, for the open access version will be included in MIT Press' Direct to Open program.

Know an annotator who should be featured in Reading Re/Marks? Send me a note!