The Baffler

The Baffler is an American 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.<ref name="chron">Template:Cite news</ref>

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

History

The magazine was first published by Greg Lane.Template:Citation needed Its motto was "the journal that blunts the cutting edge."<ref name="archives"/> It became known for critiquing "business culture and the culture business"<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and for having exposed the grunge speak hoax perpetrated on The New York Times.<ref name="grunge">Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Citation, also archived from the dead Baffler site. (Reprinted in Maximum RocknRoll #133 (June 1994) and later various websites.)</ref>

The magazine is credited with having helped launch the careers of several writers, including founding editor Thomas Frank, Ana Marie Cox, and Rick Perlstein.<ref name="archives">Template:Cite news</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Publishing became more regular and frequent after its relaunch and move to Cambridge in 2011. Timeline of publication:<ref>Timeline checked with BookFinder Template:Webarchive plus WorldCat, consolidated with various sources, including DustyGroove Template:Webarchive, BookMaps Template:Webarchive, LibraryThing Template:Webarchive.</ref>

Year	#	Year	#	Year	#	Year	#
1988	1	1996	8	2010	18	2017	34–37
1990	2	1997	9–11	2012	19–21	2018	38–42
1991	3	1999	12–13	2013	22–23	2019	43–48
1992	4	2001	14	2014	24–26	2020	49–54
1993	5	2003	15–16	2015	27–29	2021	55–60
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 Thomas Frank decided to revive the magazine.<ref name="observer">Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2014, it ended that contract and brought publishing operations in house.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2016, the magazine changed to a quarterly schedule and moved its headquarters to New York City.<ref name="The Baffler"/> Summers left in 2016 and Chris Lehmann took over the editorship of the journal. In 2019, Lehmann departed for The New Republic, and Jonathon Sturgeon became editor in chief.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The Baffler has also organized literary events and debates with its contributing editors. In 2014, Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, and David Graeber, an anarchistic anthropologist and a Baffler contributing editor, publicly debated the future of technology.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2017, The Baffler and CTXT, a Spanish independent online publication, began a collaborative editorial agreement.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

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. Template:ISBN
• Boob Jubilee: The Cultural Politics of the New Economy (Salvos from The Baffler). Edited by Thomas Frank and David Mulcahey. Norton, 2003. Template:ISBN
• 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. Template:ISBN
• No Future For You: Salvos from The Baffler. Edited by John Summers, Chris Lehmann and Thomas Frank. MIT Press, 2014. Template:ISBNTemplate:Efn

Podcasts

The Baffler has previously hosted the podcasts Whale Vomit, by Amber A'Lee Frost and Sam Kriss; News from Nowhere, by Corey Pein; and The Nostalgia Trap, by David Parsons.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

External links

• Template:Official website
• Excerpts from The Baffler at the Internet Archive (requires JavaScript for navigation)