The Baffler

The Baffler
Editor Chris Lehmann
Frequency Bi-Monthly[1]
Founder Thomas Frank and Keith White
First issue  1988 (1988-month)
Company The Baffler Foundation
Country United States
Based in Charlottesville (1988–1990)
Chicago (1990–2010)
Cambridge (2011–present)
New York City (2015–present)[2]
Language English
Website thebaffler.com
ISSN 1059-9789
OCLC number 24838556

The Baffler is a magazine of cultural, political, and business analysis. Established in 1988 by editors Thomas Frank and Keith White, it was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois until 2010, when it moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2016, it moved its headquarters to New York City. The first incarnation of The Baffler had up to 12,000 subscribers.[3]

As of 2016, the magazine and its collections of essays are distributed through bookstores in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

History

The magazine was first published by Greg Lane. Its motto was "the journal that blunts the cutting edge."[4] It became known for critiquing "business culture and the culture business"[5] and for having exposed the grunge speak hoax perpetrated on the New York Times.[6] One famous and much-republished article, "The Problem with Music" by Steve Albini, exposed the inner workings of the music business during the indie rock heyday.[7]

The magazine is credited with having helped launch the careers of several writers, including founding editor Thomas Frank, Ana Marie Cox, and Rick Perlstein.[4]

Issues

The magazine published sporadically, first once a year then slightly more often, but that slowed down after the Chicago office of The Baffler was destroyed in a fire on April 25, 2001.[8] Publishing became more regular and frequent after its relaunch and move to Cambridge in 2011. Timeline of publication:[9]

Year # Year # Year # Year #
1988 1 1996 8 2010 18 2017 34–37
1990 2 1997 9-11 2012 19–21
1991 3 1999 12–13 2013 22–23
1992 4 2001 14 2014 24–26
1993 5 2003 15–16 2015 27–29
1995 6–7 2006 17 2016 30–33
Peter Thiel and David Graeber debate at the "No Future for You" event hosted by The Baffler, NYC, 2014.

The Baffler is sold through many different distribution channels, both as a book and as a magazine; in addition to the publication's ISSN, all but the earliest issues have an individual ISBN.

Relaunch and move

In 2009, founding editor Frank decided to revive the magazine.[10] It was relaunched with Volume 2, Issue 1 (#18) in 2010, with a new publisher, editors, and design.

In 2011, The Baffler moved its headquarters to Cambridge, and John Summers took over as editor. The magazine signed a publishing contract with the MIT Press, and after another redesign, began publishing three times a year.[11] In 2014, it ended that contract and brought publishing operations in house.[12] In 2016, the magazine moved to a quarterly schedule and moved its headquarters to New York City.[2] Summers left in 2016 and Chris Lehmann took over the editorship of the journal.

The Baffler has also organized literary events and debates with its contributing editors.

In 2017, The Baffler and CTXT, a Spanish independent online publication, began a collaborative editorial agreement.[13]

Collections and books

In addition to the magazine, The Baffler has published a few collections of its essays and other writings.

  • Commodify Your Dissent: Salvos from The Baffler. Edited by Thomas Frank and Matt Weiland. Norton, 1997. ISBN 0-393-31673-4
  • Boob Jubilee: The Cultural Politics of the New Economy (Salvos from The Baffler). Edited by Thomas Frank and David Mulcahey. Norton, 2003. ISBN 0-393-32430-3
  • Cotton Tenants: Three Families. Edited by John Summers. Melville House, 2012. Excerpts from a lost manuscript on Alabama tenant farmers by the writer James Agee. ISBN 978-1612192123
  • No Future For You: Salvos from The Baffler. Edited by John Summers, Chris Lehmann and Thomas Frank. MIT Press, 2014. ISBN 978-0-262-02833-2[14]

Podcasts

The Baffler hosts two podcasts, Whale Vomit by Amber A'Lee Frost and Sam Kriss and News From Nowhere by Corey Pein.

References

  1. ↑ https://twitter.com/maximillian_alv/status/936300461837160448
  2. 1 2 The Baffler (June 2016). "About". Retrieved June 21, 2016.
  3. ↑ Peter Monaghan (October 26, 2011). "'The Baffler' Will Reappear via MIT Press". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 2014-07-30.
  4. 1 2 Jennifer Schuessler (July 21, 2014). "The Baffler Puts Its Archive Online". New York Times. Retrieved 2014-07-30.
  5. ↑ Elizabeth Taylor (January 11, 1998). "Mixing Business With Culture". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2014-07-30.
  6. ↑ Leon Nefaykh (August 14, 2009). "Remember the Grunge Hoax?". New York Observer. Retrieved 2014-07-30.
  7. ↑ Albini, Steve (1993), "The Problem with Music", The Baffler, Chicago: Thomas Frank (5), ISSN 1059-9789, OCLC 24838556, archived from the original on 2007-09-28 , also archived from the dead Baffler site. (Reprinted in Maximum RocknRoll #133 (June 1994) and later various websites.)
  8. ↑ Ron Charles (July 21, 2014). "A quarter century of the Baffler". Washington Post. Retrieved 2014-07-30.
  9. ↑ Timeline checked with BookFinder plus WorldCat, consolidated with various sources, including DustyGroove, BookMaps, LibraryThing.
  10. ↑ Leon Nefaykh (June 24, 2009). "Color Me Baffled! Thomas Frank's Magazine Lives Again". New York Observer. p. 10. Retrieved 2014-07-30.
  11. ↑ Peter Monaghan (October 26, 2011). "'The Baffler' Will Reappear via MIT Press". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 2014-07-30.
  12. ↑ Peter Monaghan (October 28, 2014). "MIT Press and a Rebellious Journal Will Part Ways". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 2014-10-30.
  13. ↑ http://ctxt.es/es/20170906/Politica/14825/The-Baffler-CTXT-acuerdo-editorial-EE-UU.htm
  14. ↑ A French translation was published as Le Pire des Mondes Possibles by Editions Agone in 2015.
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