From Moritz: This project began with a misunderstanding. When I first encountered the term “culture jamming” as a student at the University of Munich, I linked it to my understanding of “jamming” as a form of “playing with,” as in a musical jam session. (Since I’m a musician myself, this association seemed obvious, and it turned out that I shared this “misunderstanding” with others working with the concept.) I soon learned that “culture jamming” also had a very different, more critical meaning for many scholars of popular culture.
The original idea behind this volume was to assemble a reader of key texts on culture jamming. In 2010, I began to track down various authors who had published work on the topic, starting with Mark Dery. Mark kindly answered my e-mails—a cold approach by some German guy he’d never met—and agreed that if I found a publisher, he would participate. So, my first thanks go to Mark for having been supportive of the idea from the very beginning.
A second lucky coincidence was that among the scholars I approached was Marilyn DeLaure, who would become my co-editor and friend. I just happened to be traveling through California shortly after reaching out to Marilyn in early 2011, so we were able to meet in person at the beautiful University of San Francisco campus. Marilyn’s key role in developing the project can’t be emphasized enough. She suggested we put out a call for new scholarly essays, created the idea for the Culture Jammers’ Studio section, and was not only an excellent proofreader (taking care of more than just my ESL issues) but also a great manager of the project as a whole. What I once considered my personal intellectual baby has become ours over the years, and I’m sure that without this transatlantic collaboration, this book would never have taken shape.
Nor would this book exist without the ongoing support of my wife, Alex Fink; my greatest personal thanks, therefore, go to her. I also would like to thank my friends Franz Halas and Flo Sedlacek, who always believed in the realization of this project, even when I doubted it would ever come to an end.
From Marilyn: Though I had no idea what I was getting into when I said “yes,” I’m grateful that Mo invited me to join him as co-editor for this project way back in 2011. What a journey it has been! Thanks to David Silver, Brent Malin, Joan Faber McAlister, Brian Ott, Donovan Conley, Maximilian DeLaure, and Bruce Gronbeck for feedback on various drafts of the introduction. (I’m fortunate to have had Bruce as my doctoral adviser and steadfast champion; I’m sorry he’s not here to see this book in print.) Finally, I am grateful for the support from friends and family over the years—especially Joan, Nicole, Kari, Sarah, the Two Jens, Melissa, and most of all Max, Naiya, and Oriana.
From both of us: We appreciate the patience and good will of our many contributors as we’ve alternately told them to “Hurry up!” and then “Wait . . .” We thank Ciara McLaughlin at New York University Press for some good suggestions at the very early stages, and especially Alicia Nadkarni for her enthusiasm for the project, and for guiding us through the publication process. The Faculty Development Fund at the University of San Francisco offered generous support for this book, including the funding of three outstanding research assistants: Steven Slasten, Isabella Neterval, and Emma Elliott. Additional thanks go out to Henry Jenkins for his sage advice, as well as our anonymous reviewers whose critique helped improve the final manuscript.