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The Bohemian Horizon: 21St-Century Little Magazines and the Limits of the Countercultural Artist-Activist

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The Bohemian Horizon: 21St-Century Little Magazines and the Limits of the Countercultural Artist-Activist The Bohemian Horizon: 21st-Century Little Magazines and the Limits of the Countercultural Artist-Activist Travis Mushett Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2016 ©2016 Travis Mushett All rights reserved ABSTRACT The Bohemian Horizon: 21st-Century Little Magazines and the Limits of the Countercultural Artist-Activist Travis Mushett This dissertation examines the emergence of a cohort of independent literary, intellectual, and political publications—“little magazines”—in New York City over the past decade. Helmed by web-savvy young editors, these publications have cultivated formidable reputations by grasping and capitalizing on a constellation of economic, political, and technological developments. The little magazines understand themselves as a radical alternative both to a journalistic trend toward facile, easily digestible content and to the perceived insularity and exclusivity of academic discourse. However, the bohemian tradition in which they operate predisposes them toward an insularity of their own. Their particular web of allusions, codes, and prerequisite knowledge can render them esoteric beyond the borders of a specific subculture and, in so doing, curtail their political potency and reproduce systems of privilege. This dissertation explores the tensions and limitations of the bohemian artist-activist ideal, and locates instances in which little magazines were able to successfully transcend subcultural boundaries to productively engage in a broader politics. Table of Contents List of Graphs, Charts, and Illustrations ............................................................................ iv Acknowledgements..............................................................................................................v vv Dedication........................................................................................................................ viii Introduction..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: The Historical Situation ...................................................................................11 1.1 The Economic Situation...................................................................................15 1.1.1 Academia .......................................................................................16 1.1.2 Journalism......................................................................................19 1.1.3 Little Mags Take Note ...................................................................21 1.2 The Political Situation......................................................................................22 1.3 The Technological Situation............................................................................25 1.3.1 Cheap Web Publishing...................................................................26 1.3.2 A Hyperabundance of Content.......................................................27 1.3.3 Social Media ..................................................................................29 1.4 The Situation in Little Magazines....................................................................30 Chapter 2: A Bohemia or a Vanguard................................................................................34 2.1 The Bohemian Counterpublic..........................................................................36 2.1.1 Youth..............................................................................................39 2.1.2 Organized Around Literature and the Arts ....................................41 2.1.3 Radical Political Views..................................................................45 2.1.4 Elite Humanities Education ...........................................................49 2.1.5 Oppositional Relationship to the Mainstream................................53 i 2.2 Capitalizing on Counterculture and the Limits of Co-Optation Theory..........55 2.3 BuzzFeed, Vice, the New Inquiry? Cultural Radicalism’s Compatibility with Capitalism.........................................................................62 2.3.1 BuzzFeed and Vice: Monetizing Left Criticism.............................64 2.3.2 What Role the Critic?.....................................................................72 2.4 The Jacobin Exception ....................................................................................75 2.5 Conclusion .......................................................................................................83 Chapter 3: Occupy Little Magazines .................................................................................85 3.1 The New Inquiry & Jacobin: Giving Voice to “Ninjas” and “Recidivists” ....................................................................................................89 3.1.1 The New Inquiry’s Occupy: Anarchism, Art, Discourse, and Tactics .....................................................................................92 3.1.2 Jacobin’s Occupy: Socialism, Unity, and Strategy .....................106 3.2 n+1: A Political Turn.....................................................................................117 3.2.1 Following the Movement in Real Time.......................................120 3.2.2 A Forum, Not a Program .............................................................122 3.2.3 Intellectuals as Engaged Observers .............................................129 3.2.4 A High Point, and a Pivot Point...................................................133 3.3 The Rise of the Millennial Marxist................................................................138 3.4 Conclusion .....................................................................................................150 Chapter 4: Little Magazines and the Changing Political Economy of Intellectual Life..............................................................................................154 4.1 Commercial Media: Pragmatic Collaboration and the Death of the “Sellout”...................................................................................................156 4.1.1 The Flavors of Commercial Collaboration ..................................157 ii 4.1.2 The Obsolescence of the “Sellout” ..............................................164 4.2 Little Magazines and the (Post-)Academic Life ............................................175 4.3 Not a Resistance, but a Coping Mechanism ..................................................187 4.4 Conclusion .....................................................................................................196 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................199 References........................................................................................................................203 iii List of Graphs, Charts, and Illustrations Figure 1: An ink and watercolor illustration by Molly Crabapple.....................................98 Figure 2: Detail from Issue 1 of the Occupy! Gazette .....................................................119 Figure 3: Framing a debate in Issue 4..............................................................................123 Figure 4: Leftist economist as pop star............................................................................143 Figure 5: The New Inquiry web traffic numbers..............................................................146 Figure 6: The header of a Jacobin article as reprinted on Salon .....................................161 Figure 7: Bhaskar Sunkara appraises Slate’s credibility..................................................162 Figure 8: Viral image of a pro-LGBT Oreo cookie .........................................................172 iv Acknowledgements I first must acknowledge the inhabitants of the world that this dissertation analyzes. At this point, little magazines are part of both my mind and my life rhythms. The writers at the magazines I discuss—n+1, Jacobin, the New Inquiry, the American Reader, the Baffler, and more—have shaped the way I think. Even when I disagree with them—and sometimes those disagreements are inflected with all the passion of sibling rivalry—they have expanded my mind and forced me to clarify my own opinions. I owe them all a debt of gratitude. I also wish to thank the whole team at Blunderbuss Magazine—Niral Shah, Sara Nović, Sam Ross, Yvonne Martinez, Amelia Rina, Ellis Rosen, Hayley Thornton- Kennedy, Kevin Tang, Alex Howe, Lauren E. Wool, and Meredith Fraser. You, along with our readers and our brilliant writers & artists, have helped me understand what it is to live as a little magazine, rather than to just study them antiseptically like a slide under a microscope. I’m enormously proud of what we’ve built together, and I look forward to what we’ve yet to build. Among other topics, this dissertation addresses the tumultuous state of American higher education. Yet despite the challenging era in which we live, the academy is still populated by a surfeit of gems. These are brilliant people, engaged people, people who fight valiantly to preserve the life of the mind despite all the challenges that come with that decision. These people have my appreciation, and my gratitude. I mean faculty members like Todd Gitlin, who supported my work, shared his keen insight, and, in an
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