Bædan 3: Journal of Queer Time Travel

We are very pleased to announce the third issue of the journal Bædan.

Bædan: journal of queer time travel marks a further attempt to pose and to flesh out a queer critique of civilization. Queer not only in the sense of coming from those outside and disruptive of the Family, but also in the sense of a critique weirder than its more orthodox cousins. We imagine the Bædan project as an effort to pose the critique of civilization otherwise, to begin from another place. In this issue (and beyond…) we have conjured a strange bestiary of thinking, trying to unearth and trace the tradition of anti-civilization thought in the literature of queerness and in queerness as immanent critique.

From the introduction:

Bædan: journal of queer time travel happened almost by accident. Very little of what we had intended for a third issue is included within these pages; instead, these texts are the remainder of a series of distractions, detours and wanderings away from where we thought we were going. In the last year and a half we fell into ruts, and we fought our way out. We found unexpected friends, and we lost others. We encountered old enemies, neither leaving unscathed. We pirated, burned, and searched. Again and again, we returned to certain questions. How did we get here? By means of what traps and misfortunes did we get ourselves into this mess? Is there a way out? We laughed at the questions, cried at the answers, and let the rest drift off into silence. We allowed our minds to stray, to err here and there, and one thing led to another. Our little obsessions and parentheticals took on a frenzied energy, and, when we paused a moment, we realized that out of our inquiries, correspondences, and translations another issue had quietly materialized—clandestinely smuggled itself into the world.

Our methodology in this issue could, at best, be described as wandering or errant. We began with a sort of intuitive reading; we softened our gaze so as to let certain figures, some old friends and some strangers, make themselves known to us. In this we searched for clues—synchronic coincidences, liminal events, weirdnesses—and let ourselves fixate on them. From there we went in spirals and lines of flight, exploring boundaries and other sides. By means of obsessive daydreaming and the perfect alchemy of stimulants and delirium, our project burst outwards in leaps and bounds. When we stepped back, we realized that between these disparate inquiries we had triangulated something unexpected: a gaping hole in spacetime. Wherever we poked and pressed, we found ourselves returning to the strange phenomena and transformations happening at the beginning of the 1970s (more on that later) and realized our historical research was leading us somewhere unknown. Time, suddenly, felt open, indeterminate, up for grabs. We were experiencing a sort of chronotaraxis: a distortion of time. This felt different than the chronophobia with which we usually look upon the “storm blowing from paradise”. We came to realize that we were playing with—to borrow a term—“queer time” and were in a sense, time traveling. And so, our chrononautic project, this journal of queer time travel, was born.

This issue contains:

  • An exploration and interrogation—with some help from Copi, Michel Foucault, and Samuel Delany—of the ‘coming out’ of the early gay liberation movement, and its relationship to identity and time.
  • A reading of the interweaving friendship and conspiracy between James Baldwin and Jean Genet with particular attention paid to the lessons they offer to those living and fighting today.
  • A new translation of “Anal Terror”, Paul / Beatriz Preciado’s mythical history of the emergence of the front homosexuel d’action révolutionnaire (FHAR) in France.
  • “The Antinomies of Sexual Discourse”, a critique of sexual liberation, published with an introduction in memory of our dearly departed Chris Chitty.
  • And a multiplicity of diverging correspondences inspired by and engaging with a polymorphous corpus including: Diane di Prima, Guy Hocquenghem, Zach Blas, the Dark Mountain project, Austin Osman Spare, Alejandro de Acosta, chaos magic, Afro-pessimism, black feminism, critiques of the human, queer theory, urban rioting, the epic of Gilgamesh, the Kurdish struggle for autonomy, very bad nihilism, encryption, utopia, holes, the occult, the ecstatic, the flesh.

This issue is 270 pages, set in Bodoni and Futura, with artwork throughout by Austin Osman Spare. Printed and bound in Seattle with covers printed by Eberhardt Press.

Copies are available from Little Black Cart.

Those located in or around Seattle or the Bay Area can contact us through the email address below.

As with our previous release, we are also making the texts of Bædan: queer journal of heresy (issue 2) available on The Anarchist Library.

We welcome critique, submissions, inquiries, friendship and enmity at our email address:
[the name of the journal][at]riseup[dot]net

baedan.noblogs.org

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Bædan 2: A Queer Journal of Heresy

We are very pleased to announce the release of the second issue of the journal Bædan, as well as the free distribution of the first issue through the Anarchist Library.

In many ways, Bædan – a queer journal of heresy picks up where Bædan – journal of queer nihilism left off. Much remains invariant: the form, a general disposition toward hostility, and of course fiery gestures against Gender and Civilization (and all the theories, views of history, and identities which hold them together). Bædan – a queer journal of heresy, does however, take leave of the first by exploring new inquiries and critiques. In this issue we take aim at all manner of radical dogmas, ideologies, and sciences, while also exploring the the worlds of poetics, archetypes, and myth. The new issue is also an engagement with a constellation of recent anarchist endeavors to explore the hell we all inhabit. We remain obviously inspired by conversations within the anti-civilization and nihilist milieu, by recent developments in anarchist thought, by correspondence and critique, and by the actions and words of comrades who are imprisoned or remain at large.

If the first issue of Bædan was a knife thrust wildly in the dark, the second is an effort to examine our enemies in a new light; enemies who bear scars yet endure. In a sense, this issue follows through our initial attack and pushes beyond our own horrors at the consequences of words. We write at a time when everything which seemed slightly possible two years ago has borne its rotten fruit; when queer recuperation has become more powerful and accepted than ever, while the fetish for technology has reached an unprecedented frenzy; when so many efforts at subversion languish under the tyranny of cybernetic identity and aesthetics (even our own etymologies have become identities!); when friends turn away out of fear of the unknown, turn toward all the comforts and certainties of the past (identity politics, traditionalism, religious morality, activism, et al). The old enemies rear their heads and the terrain is as bleak as ever. And yet we take seriously that adage: “There’s no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons.”

Bædan – a queer journal of heresy, over two hundred pages of original content including: a scathing critique of gender and domestication, an exploration of the poetry of Percy Shelley, a vindication of anality and the fecal decomposition of society, an experiment with anarchist rituals and nihilist archetypes, correspondence (friendly and otherwise), and a new translation of Guy Hocquenghem.

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Bædan – a queer journal of heresy is available from Little Black Cart.

Bædan – journal of queer nihilism can be found online at The Anarchist Library.

Bædan – a queer journal of heresy is also on GoodReads.

If you are in Seattle or the Bay Area you can also contact us directly for copies:

[the name of the journal][at]riseup[dot]net

– – — Continue reading Bædan 2: A Queer Journal of Heresy

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Bædan 1: Journal of Queer Nihilism

baedan-one-journal-of-queer-nihilism

.     issue one
.     August 2012
.     186 pages

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Contents

  • Bædan
    • The Anti-Social Turn
    • Queers Gone Wild
    • To Win All the Time
  • Identity In Crisis
  • Musings on Nothingness
    (And Some of Its Varieties)
  • Three Texts from Tout
    by Guy Hocquenghem

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Bædan – journal of queer nihilism can be purchased from Little Black Cart for $12.

Friendly and inimical reviews of Bædan – journal of queer nihilism are hosted by GoodReads.

The full text of Bædan – journal of queer nihilism is available for reading through The Anarchist Library.

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