Mail is media! This week we consider the post office as a vital, local civic and economic infrastructure — from its historical roles in delivering information necessary for people to participate in a democracy, providing basic civic services, and fostering the creation of local public spheres; to its potential future roles as a hub for the distribution of public information and the management of public digital infrastructures. We’ll also discuss your contributions to our Field Guide, as well as the format for your written proposals, which are due early next week.
Design Workshop, 1:45 to 2:45: Elaine Lopez will be joining us again to help us decide upon the overall format for our field guide and the structure for each of your contributions
End-of-Class Activity, 3:45 – 4:45: We’ll check out some mail art 📬 in the Kislak Center and, if time allows, the Fisher Fine Arts Library
To Read for Today:
- Read Caroline O’Donovan and Jacob Bogage, “A Rural Post Office Was Told to Prioritize Amazon Packages. Chaos Ensued,” The Washington Post (November 28, 2023) [~15min; if you’re blocked, access through the Library website].
- Read Casey Cep, “We Can’t Afford to Lose the Postal Service,” The New Yorker (May 2, 2020) [~25min; again, if you’re blocked, access through the Library website].
- Read Victor Pickard, “Instead of Killing the US Postal System, Let’s Expand It,” The Nation (May 7, 2020) [~10min].
- Read Sarah Anderson, “Defend the Postal Service, Defend Good Jobs for Black Workers,” Inequality (February 2, 2023) [~5min].
- Now, consider the creative possibilities for the post office as a conduit for local exchange and communication. Read Alexxa Gotthardt, “A Brief History of Mail Art, from Cleopatra to Miranda July,” Artsy (August 7, 2017) [~5min]. And if you’d like to see more examples, check out the Lomholt Mail Art Archive; you can browse through the Correspondence section or by clicking individual artists’ names in the Index section.
Supplemental Resources:
- Cameron Blevins, Yan Wu, and Steven Braun, “Gossamer Network.”
- Chris Forsyth and Daegan Miller, “Keep Direction by Good Methods,” Places (February 2021).
- Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America: A History (Penguin, 2017).
- Wendy M. Grossman, “The Vanishing Post Office (Part II),” Net.Wars (November 5, 2021).
- Richard John, Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Harvard University Press, 1998).
- Elizabeth Lindqwister, “What’s the Big Deal About the Post Office,” Stanford Magazine (March 12, 2021).
- ** Paris Marx, “Build Socialism Through the Post Office,” Jacobin (April 15, 2020).
- ** Monique Morrissey, “The War Against the Postal Service,” Economic Policy Institute (December 16, 2020).
- Michael Pollard and Lois Davis, “The U.S. Post Office Is a Public Service, Not a Business,” National Interest (April 5, 2021).
- Post Office Hub; “Postal TV” [video: 0:42 > ]
- “The Revolutionary Post,” 99% Invisible 244 (August 5, 2020) [podcast: 1:38 > 25:19].
- Philip F. Rubio, There’s Always Work at the Post Office: African American Postal Workers and the Fight for Jobs, Justice, and Equality (University of North Carolina Press, 2010).
- USPS, “A Day in the Life: Mail Carrier,” Mailin’ It: The Official USPS Podcast (February 7, 2023).
- Elizabeth Zuba, ed., Not Nothing: Selected Writings by Ray Johnson (Siglio, 2014).
- Ethan Zuckerman, “Ben Franklin, the Post Office, and the Digital Public Sphere,” Data & Society (March 1, 2016) [video: 24:27].
- Ethan Zuckerman, “We Make the Media – A Recent Speech at Freedom of Speech Online 2018,” Ethan Zuckerman (December 9, 2018).