The People's Puzzle: crosswords and knowledge politics. GARP13

Everyday, millions of people lose themselves in the world of crosswords. This paper considers their motives for doing so and the effect crosswords have on their lives. It stems from my idea that the bars of the crossword grid represent Adorno's prison-like Culture Industry. By tracing the cultural politics pervading the relationships between those involved in the production and consumption of crosswords, I show crosswords to provide opportunities for freedom, escape, inspiration, innovation, mediation, subversion and critique, all existing alongside the potential for alienation, colonial domination and even a possible role in contemporary forms of Empire. Rather than presenting crosswords as a challenge to Adorno's Culture Industry model, I argue that all this potential is entirely compatible with it, so long as the Culture Industry is understood as complex rather than as simply a grim, all-encompassing, impenetrable and alienating social construction.