Baedan 3: Journal of Queer Time Travel

by Baedan, Various, Anonymous

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 distrac- tions, 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.

Genres: Queer, Nonfiction, Politics, Theory

270 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2015

Reviews

[Matt Sautman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this journal up at a pop-up shop at MoKaBe's in the Tower Grove neighborhood of St. Louis. This journal is amongst the more radical left texts I have read, and while some parts of this journal are esoteric, the ideas contained in this are enthralling. "A Holey Curiosity," for example, engages in a form of queer temporality that analyzes open spaces in a text, while "Anal Terror" critically analyzes the sociocultural history of the anus and the anus's role as a referent. For anyone interested in queer temporality that is wanting a more recent text than Halberstam's In a Queer Place and Time or Muñoz's Cruising Utopia, this journal is well worth the read.

[xDEAD ENDx · Rating 5 out of 5]

I might write a more lengthy review once I sit and think about each piece, but overall this was very enjoyable. I'm not really well-versed in queer theory (aside from, like, Hocquenghem) or queer fiction (aside from, like, Genet), but the amount of thought put into this journal is amazing. Despite not knowing all the references, I was on board the whole time.

[hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

of course i’d be all about an obscure queer journal that cheers you on to revolutionize that pussy/bussy/gussy.