Get To Know The Baffler

This post is simply a link to a resource that we think furthers the case for the liberal arts tradition. In case you do not yet know it, get to know it here:

The epigraph stamped on The Baffler no. 1, from Arthur Rimbaud’s “Morning of Drunkenness,” introduced it as a punk literary magazine. It was the summer of 1988. The founders, Thomas Frank and Keith White, were recent graduates of the University of Virginia. They named their magazine as a joke on academic fads like undecidability, then in fashion. The Baffler was born to laugh at the baffling jargon of the academics and the commercial avant-garde, to explode their paralyzing agonies of abstraction and interpretation.

This magazine would move in the opposite direction. It would strive for the lucidity of independent critical intelligence. It would “blunt the cutting edge” of the creative class gurus, financial journalists, entertainment moguls, cyber-entrepreneurs, and postmodern theorists who were said to be delivering the country from the pesky struggles and conflicts of the Cold War and singing a sweet and blissful lullaby they called the “end of history.” Where there wasmoney to be made…

And about the current issue, whose cover is above they have this to say:

No. 24 The Jig Is Up!

Hey, it’s our play issue, in which David Graeberhopscotches over the robotic universe of contemporary science and winds up inventing a new law of reality. Barbara Ehrenreich calls for a science that can explain why fun is fun.John Summers reports from “The People’s Republic of Zuckerstan”—once known as the liberal community of Cambridge, Massachusetts, now a playground for startup science and tech professionals. Gene Seymour rescues science fiction from the warped real-world utopias of certain plutocratic cybervisionaries. Andrew Bacevich dances on the grave of Tom Clancy, the recently departed hack thriller writer. Ian Bogost analyzes the addiction economy lurking behind cutting-edge free-to-play videogames, while Rhonda Lieberman walks us through the trophy rooms of leisure-class art hoarders.

And that’s only the half of it. Look here for head-spinning salvos by Chris LehmannSusan FaludiWilliam T. VollmannGeorge Scialabba, andHeather Havrilesky on history, politics, feminism, and literature. Anne Elizabeth Moore makes sport of Vice magazine. Alex Pareene practices journalism on the New York Times’ DealBook. Fiction by Paul Maliszewski andJ. Wagner; short prose by Jaron LanierGabriel Zaid, and Erik Simon; poetry by Thomas Sayers Ellis; and hilarious graphic art by Brad Holland,Mark Dancey, and David McLimans, who gave us the cover. Not to win or lose the game, but to be free the system of winners and losers—that’s the spirit.

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  1. Pingback: A Scientist, On Play | Raxa Collective

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