Community publishing" sounds like a relatively quaint thing. In fact, the quaintness is built into the term "community. " As Raymond Williams noted in his Keywords, "community" has always been a "warmly persuasive word" that "seems never to be used unfavorably" (76). Joseph Harris, who builds on and applies William's definition to composition classrooms, gives two warnings about the use of this "vague and suggestive" term (99-101). First, community can be any group, any discourse community, and thus floats as a relatively empty signifier. The second use of "community" distinguishes one group as insiders who have shared purpose, language, and experiences in contrast to others. While more descriptive, Harris notes how this concept of community often glosses over the internal tensions and differences we know to exist in all communities. In Tactics of Hope, Paula Mathieu looks for a term to describe her work outside the university, also expressing dissatisfaction with "community. " She settles for "street" because "its problems seem generative"(xiii). Most scholars and most of our students live in what they call communities, not in the streets; the street denotes a place outside the university that isn't always warm and favorable.

Angela Y. Davis is Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at the University of California Santa Cruz. In 1998 she founded Critical Resistance, an organization working to abolish the prison-industrial complex. Her activism and scholarship engages with Feminism, Marxism, and African American studies. Benjamin D. Kuebrich met with Professor Davis at Syracuse University to ask her about issues of pedagogy, rhetoric, and community literacy.