On Seeing Zac Efron Nude: Winner of CRUSH Poetry Contest

Earlier in March, we announced on Facebook a CRUSH POETRY CONTEST, inspired by the publication of Will Stockton and D. Gilson’s punctum book CRUSH, and we are pleased to day to announce the winner of that contest, Carlton D. Fisher, for his poem, “On Seeing Zac Efron Nude,” which we happily publish here: On Seeing[…]

Reflecting and Refracting: A Review of Jean-Paul Martinon’s The End of Man

We’re pleased to feature Ilya Merlin’s review of Jean-Paul Martinon’s book, The End of Man, published by punctum last March: Reflecting and Refracting The End of Man by Ilya Merlin To ask oneself before another: by what means does he calm within himself the desire to be everything? -Georges Bataille The state of sleep guarantees[…]

Publishing Manifesto: The Medieval Archipelago

PUBLISHING MANIFESTO: THE MEDIEVAL ARCHIPELAGO Conversation recorded with Eileen Joy and Léopold Lambert in New York on September 27, 2013. Every publishing house constructs an editorial line of its own. Sometimes it has to do with the topic, sometimes with a question, sometimes with the author. In the case of punctum books however, the editorial line[…]

Having a Coke With You: For José Esteban Munoz (1966-2013)

by D. Gilson The first thing José Muñoz said to me: You’re a poet? That’s precious. In a queer theory seminar, I had fallen in love with his book, Cruising Utopia, and professed as much on Facebook. We started corresponding about the many things we both loved: Frank O’Hara, chiefly, but also Andy Warhol, the[…]

A Time for Radical Hope

by EILEEN JOY I was very lucky to be invited recently by George Washington University — more specifically, GW’s new Digital Humanities Institute [Alex Huang], GW’s Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute [Jeffrey Cohen], and the Gelman Library [Geneva Henry and Karim Boughida] — to give a talk on the state(s) and future(s) of open-access[…]

An Object-Oriented Ontology© on Amphetamines and Psilocybin: Neomedievalist Theory-Fiction Is Here

by EILEEN JOY At last, the rival Confraternity of SpeculativeRealism® has its missing subject! Here, the human-object/thing sits still-as-stone, dis-connected from one regime in order to connect to another. As such, this book is a contribution to Thing Theory, but of a very queer and wonky kind. An object-oriented ontology© on amphetamines and psilocybin. (Simon[…]

Incoherent Geography, Phanto-Cartography, and the Open Commons

by EILEEN JOY To pull cities together, and then push them apart. To feel their bricks crumble in our fingers like honeycomb, before fusing them once more between our palms. To hang the great capitals of the world from the crescent moon, like a nightwatchman’s lamp. To fold them into origami birds that nest in[…]