Centre for dissent on Broad Street

A bookshop has been set up with the aim of humiliating the University. Akme Expression opened on Broad Street last week. It sells only two texts, both penned by its owner, Andrew Malcolm, and it aims to be not just a bookshop but also a Gallery of Shame for Oxford Unviersity.

Malcolm's quarrel with Oxford University Press started when OUP refused to publish his 200,000-word Platonic dialogue, Making Names, back in 1985. He brought a lawsuit and won, with the High Court concluding that the OUP treated him unfairly. In the accompanying settlement, Oxford agreed that its agents would not publish "derogatory statements, letters or articles" about Malcolm's book. But Alan Ryan, now Warden of New College, later wrote a letter to the Times Higher Education Supplement, calling the book "coarse and jeering". Malcolm sued, but lost, ans was ordered to pay £12,500 towards the University's legal fees. The ostensible purpose of the shop is to raise this money.

Although Oxford had promised not to denigrate Malcolm in public it appears they neglected to ask him to reciprocate. The walls of the shop are filled with posters criticising the University and OUP. The posters carry headlines such as "OUP attacked for erosion of standards". By contrast, there are few books in the shop. Malcolm would not confirm how many copies of his two titles, Making Names and The Remedy, he had sold. He does confirm, however, that "the other purpose of the shop is to draw attention to a number of Oxford scandals."

Malcom has plans for the outlet beyond bookselling. The basement will soon house "a joke university" and a humorous gallery "for people to come and have a laugh". Malcolm also hopes to stage readings and sell books written by what he calls "exiled" Oxford poets, who cannot now get their work published by OUP.

OUP spokeswoman, Caroline Scotter-Mainprize, said that the department's purpose "is to further the charitable aims of the University - which are learning and scholarship." She added, the work of the "exiled " poets "was creative writing rather than scholarly writing". The University and OUP have refused to be drawn into a war of words with Malcolm, stating only that "We respect the right of individuals to air their views publicly."

AKME EXPRESSION, MAY-JUNE 2002 THE LEGAL BACKGROUND and Malcolm's Lectureship offer THE BROAD STREET SHOP featuring the Gallery of Shame, Akme University, St. Frideswide's grotto, Akme Ball etc. Reports: LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS Oxford Times 21/6 THES 26/4, Oxford Times 26/4, Guardian 30/4, Oxford Star 2/5, Oxford Student 2/5, Cherwell 3/5, Publishing News 10/5, Private Eye 17/5, Guardian 25/6, South China Morning Post 11/5, Change (US H.E. journal), Philosophers' Magazine, Autumn. Alan Ryan quits, ranting: THES 31/5, Cherwell 7/6, other quotes Rave review of Making Names in Oxford Student 30/5: "One of the most powerful statements of the human condition written in the past century."