You can teach what you want to learn.
–Bernard Tschumi, commenting on Peter Cook's speech at GSAPP, Columbia University, on February 27, 2017.
Isogloss Workshop is an annual event initiated by Isogloss Collective, a New York-based critical writing and independent publishing group, and co-organized by Accent Society. It will be held online on Fridays and Saturdays (New York time; Beijing time every Saturday and Sunday), through ZOOM, from January 3 to February 22, 2025. 16 courses will be held over 8 weeks, 3 hours for each course, totaling 48 hours.
The workshop will be held once a year. The first workshop will use Chinese as the main language, with only a few courses use English. We welcome any friends who are interested in critical writing, magazine publishing and collective practice to sign up!
Program Outline
The Isogloss Workshop focuses on independent magazines that exist outside the mainstream media industry. These publications are typically initiated by individuals or small groups, centered around niche interests, characterized by unique styles, independently distributed, with limited circulation and short lifespans. However, they serve as vital mediums for uniting communities and fostering the development of literature, art, and thought.
Through lectures and seminars, the workshop conducts digital archaeology on the history of independent magazines and explores how individuals with limited resources can use writing and independent publishing to connect with like-minded peers, build communities, and create historic moments of collective emergence.
Click here to learn more about the program syllabus.
Organizing Format
This is a mutual learning workshop, which regards all participants as learners, and is committed to breaking the boundary and distance between teaching and learning––and achieving knowledge production and sharing through speech, discussion, and interactive questions-and-answers with equal opportunity. The workshop will recruit around 40 fulltime participants as research fellows, and will be divided into four groups to carry out research and present at the suggestion of the research advisors. There are an unlimited number of workshop participants, and there are no assignments, but you are welcome to participate in the discussion.
The fee will be used to pay the remuneration for 7 speakers, 12 reviewers, 12 groups of sharers and 4 groups of research advisors (the ratio of the total number to the research fellows is close to 1:1), and the rest will be used in the author remuneration fund for the upcoming Isogloss Review.
Community Building
Media sponsors for the Workshop include ARTDBL (Shenzhen), China Books Review (New York) and Cultbytes (New York). Reviews written by research fellows will be published by the above media and in the Isogloss Review.
Research fellows will be granted membership into Isogloss Commune, which covers a wider range of people than the core Isogloss Collective. They will not only be able to join the WeChat group of the learning community to share research and learning resources, but can also browse all ZOOM recording archives of the workshop, and enjoy the benefits of future community activities including other mutual learning programs. Research fellows who have performed well in review writing and group studies will be accepted as members of the Isogloss Collective and as contributors of the Isogloss Review.
The Isogloss Review relies on communal efforts rather than commercial investment for its founding and growth. Members of the Isogloss Commune are welcome to support the Isogloss Review through a “pay as you wish” model.