Arbeitskreis Kulturwissenschaftl. Zeitschriftenforschung

The use of magazines by the German far-right to integrate its ideology into acceptable political discourse goes back to the transformation of former National Socialist networks into the so-called New Right. Emphasis on the democratic function of the public sphere has caused far-right magazine publishing to be overlooked.

Cultural journals have played a crucial role in the formation of the public spheres in Europe and beyond. Yet their future form and sustainability is by no means clear. Looking at journals’ history helps understand where they are headed. Introducing a new Eurozine focal point in collaboration with the Working Group on Periodicals Research.

Struggle in the street was combined with otherworldly utopias in the low budget, small circulation architectural magazines of the 1960s and 1970s. Free of the constraints of finance and convention, the genre served as an international platform for experimental design and discourse and was instrumental in the progress of architectural modernity.

The Lebanese journal ‘Mawaqif’, published in various incarnations between 1968 and 1994, was one of the leading cultural journals of the Arab World. Its seventy-four issues reflect the intellectual upheavals brought by the Six-Day War, the Lebanese Civil War, and the Iranian Revolution, as well as far-reaching processes of modernization in Arab literary culture.

Magazines played an important role in German feminist discussion of the 1970s and ’80s. Among them, ‘Die Schwarze Botin’ stood out for its formal radicalism and intellectual originality. Critical of apolitical and affirmative tendencies in the women’s movement, it saw itself as a site both of theoretical reflection and of aesthetic experimentation. Katharina Lux on a forgotten document of New Left feminism.

In der Frauenbewegung der 1970er und 1980er Jahre spielten Zeitschriften eine wichtige Rolle für Diskussionen über Theorie und Praxis. Unter ihnen zeichnete sich besonders die ‚Schwarze Botin’ durch intellektuelle Originalität und ästhetische Radikalität aus. Katharina Lux beleuchtet in ihrem Beitrag dieses wichtige Medium der feministischen Neuen Linken, das gesellschaftskritische Reflexion mit experimentellem Schreiben verband.

There can be no doubting the historical influence of literary-intellectual magazines, but we still know little about how they were led and managed. Looking at some of the outstanding magazine editors of twentieth-century Europe, Matthew Philpotts argues that the key to success lies not just in individual talent and charisma, but also in strong editorial collectivity and social conditions favourable to publishing.