Power & Philately: Myth-Making
With Miniature Works of Art
Part of the fragile framework holding together a country’s mythos, postage stamps have long served as tools of myth-making and nation-building propaganda.
This weekly publication, triumphantly titled Power & Philately: Myth-Making With Miniature Works of Art, explores a peculiar facet of stamps, postal history and related artifacts through the lens of propaganda. Each edition features deeply researched original content with in-depth analysis covering history, politics, culture, sociology and art—all through the lens of stamps. Written, edited and published by long-time journalist Jesse Robitaille, who’s also a member of the invite-only Philatelic Specialists Society of Canada, a former director of the Royal Philatelic Society of Canada and a regular contributor to Canadian Stamp News, Power & Philately occasionally features guest commentary and interviews with key figures from around the world.
I’ll always bows to this supreme subject matter, but my application of the overarching theme – philatelic propaganda – remains fairly loose as I engage a more general readership. With stamps as the backdrop, Power & Philately focuses more on the political persuasions dictating our lives than the remarkable bits of paper used to facilitate global communication for more than a century.
In addition to weekly posts, Power & Philately plans to expand to other content, including a guest-focused podcast, educational courses and videos plus other multimedia content digging deeper into these intriuging topics.
Who knows what the future holds?
For now, Power & Philately serves as a self-gratifying side project allowing me to further hone my journalism skills while provide the philatelic community with rousing original content—all for free.
Subscribe & share
As the age-old saying goes, “Every stamp tells a story.”
When you subscribe to Power & Philately, you receive an utterly luscious story in your inbox each week with full access to the publication’s archive, dating back to January 2023, plus the one-of-a-kind Substack community, whose positivity and general good vibes stand second to none against the backdrop of the vitriolic hellscape known as “the internet.”
No payment is ever necessary to read Power & Philately. Nevertheless, many righteous readers have opted to pay for donation subscriptions ($5 a month or $50 a year), and some of my most spectacular supporters have even joined the founding member plan as “esteemed financiers” ($100 a year), each of whom receives in the mail a special gift related to philately or propaganda—or both.
Whether you subscribe, share or donate, your support ensures this project’s survival. If no one reads it, I’ll (probably) stop writing it, and we’ll all move on to other schemes. But even a handful of readers – let alone a like or a share from one of you – will provide enough dopamine to render me chained to this damn keyboard for another sweet moment of fleeting happiness. For this kindness, I will thank you in advance.
About the author
With engaging flair and a bit of panache, Canadian writer Jesse Robitaille has a knack for making complex subjects fun, clear and deliciously digestible.
A 10-year journalist and editor, Jesse regularly contributes news and opinion content to two biweekly national print publications, Canadian Stamp News and Canadian Coin News, along with other more mainstream media platforms.
As a full-time freelancer, Jesse has also created print and digital news-related content, including long-form features, blog posts and ghostwritten stories, for dozens of other major publications and clients in Canada, the United States and Europe. Aside from journalism, creative non-fiction and other related content strategy and creation, he specializes in public relations and professional communications materials; advertising copy; website design, development and administration; social media management; plus other engaging content such as newsletters, contests and surveys.
Jesse Robitaille is a member of the invite-only Philatelic Specialists Society of Canada and previously served as a director of the Royal Philatelic Society of Canada, the editor of the Ontario Numismatic Association’s Ontario Numismatist, the secretary of the asset-based community development group Fitzgerald Neighbours, the long-time bassist of the touring band Street Pharmacy, and an infantry soldier in the Canadian Forces.
