Semiotext(e)

Best known for its introduction of French theory to American readers, Semiotext(e) has been one of America’s most influential independent presses since its inception more than three decades ago. Publishing works of theory, fiction, madness, economics, satire, sexuality, science fiction, activism and confession, Semiotext(e)’s highly curated list has famously melded high and low forms of cultural expression into a nuanced and polemical vision of the present.

Semiotext(e) authors include Jean Baudrillard, William S. Burroughs, Paul Virilio, Catherine Breillat, the Invisible Committee, Eileen Myles, Mark von Schlegell, David Wojnarowicz, Abdellah Taïa, Guy Hocquenghem, Félix Guattari, Michelle Tea, Penny Arcade, the Bernadette Corporation, Pierre Clastres, Guy Debord, Michèle Bernstein, Dhoruba Bin Wahad, Christian Marazzi, and Peter Sloterdijk. An anthology, Hatred of Capitalism, was published in 2001 to mark Semiotext(e)’s move to the MIT Press as its distributor.

Semiotext(e) was founded by Sylvère Lotringer. Today, it is coedited by Chris Kraus and Hedi El Kholti. (2025).

Publications (selection)

• Semiotext(e), journal, 1974-
  • Semiotext(e) 3(1): "Nietzsche’s Return", ed. Sylvère Lotringer, 1978.
  • Semiotext(e) 3(3): "Autonomia: Post-Political Politics", eds. Sylvère Lotringer and Christian Marazzi, 1980.
  • Semiotext(e), 3(2): "Schizo-Culture", ed. Sylvère Lotringer, 1978.
  • Semiotext(e) 10: "Polysexuality", ed. François Peraldi, 1981; repr., 1995.
  • Semiotext(e) 5(2): "SF", eds. Rudy Rucker, Peter Lamborn Wilson, and Robert Anton Wilson, 1989.

About Semiotext(e)

• Henry Schwarz, Anne Balsamo, "Under the Sign of Semiotext(e): The Story According to Sylvere Lotringer and Chris Kraus", Critique 37:3, Spring 1996, pp 205-220.

• David Morris, "Four Decades of Semiotext(e)", Frieze, 9 Sep 2013.

• Jason Demers, "Collecting Intensities: On Semiotext(e) and Schizo-Culture", in Frontières, marges et confins, ed. Corinne Alexandre-Garner, Nanterre: Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2014, pp 415-423.

• "Hedi El Kholti and Chris Kraus on Sylvère Lotringer", Artforum, Feb 2022.

• "McKenzie Wark Podcast series: The Artist-Publisher. In conversation with Hedi El Kholti", 2022, 81 min.

See also

• Schizo-Culture event, 1975.

Links

• https://www.semiotexte.com/
• Guide to the Sylvère Lotringer Papers and Semiotext(e) Archive, 1960-2000, NYU.