The Punk Scholars Network (PSN) was formed in 2012 by a group of interdisciplinary scholars in the UK. They wanted to create opportunities for scholarly discussion and debate about punk's past, present, and future. And they sought to support a variety of projects developed by professors, students, and non-academics who wanted punk music and culture to be foregrounded in their conference presentations and published research. Since 2012, PSN has expanded rapidly with affiliates forming around the globe. The annual UK conferences have been complemented by other regional conferences that maintain an international focus while also digging deeper into local punk histories and contemporary practices. The articles featured in this special series grew from a collaborative PSN Canada and PSN USA conference that was held at DePaul University in Chicago in 2023.

There are a range of debates about punk's genesis. Some identify raw garage rock in the 1960s (cf. the Crypt Records series, Back From The Grave). Others identify late 1960s/early 1970s bands like The Stooges, Velvet Underground, and MC5 as starting points. But most tend to claim The Ramones, The Clash, and the Sex Pistols as crucial starting points. These bands helped inspire a new burgeoning global underground that manifested in both unique and consistent ways across geographic boundaries. In other words, sounds emerged that people agreed were punk and scenes developed where people could do punk (i.e., perform a punk identity). Of course, punk studies includes more than a close analysis of punk music. Punk scholars are interested in the influence of punk on fashion, do-it-yourself music economies, social connection and isolation, political activism and identity politics, tensions between expanding local scenes and co-optation of those scenes, and many other sites of analysis. At its core, punk studies foregrounds a link between music and culture, both of which are extremely diverse. The articles that make up this special section represent the varied interests and experiences that shape punk culture and punk scholarship. And these articles are only one small representation of the rapidly expanding spheres of punk scholarship that can be found in books, journals (e.g., Punk & Post-Punk), podcasts (e.g., the Punkast series), and attached to art exhibitions.

Liminalities was created to provide a scholarly outlet for folks who are interested in moving beyond the limitations of more narrowly defined conceptions of scholarship (ink on pages). The journal was founded to open up opportunities for performance studies scholars and practitioners who work within a rapidly expanding multi-media environment and to present that scholarship to academic and general readers and audience members for free. We are excited to share this work in Liminalities. The journal continues to be a model for thinking beyond disciplinary limitations while also foregrounding the unique ways that different disciplines help us view cultural practices (broadly speaking). We like to think that punk scholars are swimming in similar waters, bringing unique disciplinary perspectives to the study of punk while understanding that looking beyond one's field offers important ways to do scholarship differently.

Endnote: The editors are listed in alphabetical order. Each editor contributed equally to the work required to see this section through the production process. We make note of this working relationship since university personnel committees often seek an explanation for authorship listings.

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» Ellen Bernhard is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Georgian Court University. Her research focuses on contemporary punk scenes and their relationships with popular culture and current events. Recent research addresses the connection between fans' early introductions to punk rock via commercial means (Punk-O-Rama compilations and Tony Hawk's Pro-Skater soundtracks) and contextualizes these introductions into an understanding of a current punk rock identity. Ellen is also interested in the rhetoric of punk and the genre's use of humor to critique and satirize. Her most recent article, "Conspicuous Co-Optation: Exploring the Subculture and Pop Culture Connection at Gainesville's Fest" was published in Punk & Post-Punk in 2023. Her book, Contemporary Punk Rock Communities: Scenes of Inclusion and Dedication was published by Lexington in 2019.

» Olivier Bérubé Sasseville holds a PhD in history from the Université du Québec à Montréal. Having devoted his master's thesis to the Groupe Union Défense, a far-right student movement in Paris (1968-1988), his research interests include social and political movements, far-right discourses and their renewal in the second half of the twentieth century, and the dynamics of new right-wing populisms in France and Western Europe. He is also interested in punk subcultures, DIY scenes and the margins. His doctoral thesis focused on the Ordre Nouveau movement (1969-1973), the last real neo-fascist attempt in France and a vector for the emergence of the Front National. He is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (Paris) and head of the Canadian chapter of the Punk Scholars Network.

» Daniel Makagon is a professor in the College of Communication at DePaul University. His teaching and research interests focus on urban communication, music industries and cultures, documentary studies, and ethnographic research methods. He is the author of Underground: The Subterranean Culture of DIY Punk Shows, Recording Culture: Audio Documentary and the Ethnographic Experience (with Mark Neumann), and Where the Ball Drops: Days and Nights in Times Square. He also writes regularly for Razorcake punk fanzine.

» Nico Rosario is a writer, photographer, and educator whose work meets at the intersections of creative arts, politics, culture, and education with a focus on youth and subcultures. She received her BA as a Riggio Honors Writing and Democracy Scholar at The New School; her undergraduate thesis (supervised by prominent cultural critic, Greil Marcus) chronicled the criminal history of expressive dance culture in New York. Nico's dissertation for the MA programme in Education in Arts and Cultural Settings from King's College London focused on the criminalization of rave and underground dance music culture throughout the UK since the introduction of the Criminal Justice Act in 1994. Upon completing an MA in Creative Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London, Nico relocated to Los Angeles, where she works in administration at Pasadena City College and is currently completing two long-form writing projects: a novel centered on underground dance culture and the art world, and a screenplay about straight-edge culture and militant veganism in '90s-era Salt Lake City.

» Jessica A. Schwartz is an associate professor of musicology at the Herb Alpert School of Music at the University of California-Los Angeles. Schwartz focuses on critical, creative, and poetic dissent in sonic histories and musical representations of imperial toxicity and military violence, as explored in Radiation Sounds: Marshallese Music and Nuclear Silences (Duke 2021), American Quarterly, and Women & Music. Schwartz, an experimental noise/punk guitarist and disability scholar, works on DIY/punk musicality projects and hosts the Punkast series (a podcast show). Schwartz is the Academic Advisor and co-founder of the Marshallese Educational Initiative (501c3).