Parallel Session 16.

Chair: Eszter Balázs

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Marie Boivent

Periphery as central perspective: Strategies of displacement in artists’ periodicals

Numerous artists’ periodicals appeared in the 1960s and 1970s as a new artistic medium. It is striking to observe that many of the artists behind these alternative publications claimed a “peripheral” position, assuming a geographical anchorage far from the capitals and main artistic poles. The Argentine artist Edgardo Antonio Vigo for instance coordinated several international little magazines from La Plata, a small town in Argentina where, in his words, “nothing happens”. The artists’ collective Neon de Suro, based on the Spanish island of Mallorca, considered its isolated position to be strategic: that of a launching pad for their periodical, qualified as an “independent graphic missile” capable “to land at the four corners of the earth”. Schmuck magazine, although published in a remote farmhouse in Devon, England, also had international ambitions. And it was from Elblag, a small town in Poland, that Paweł Petasz launched Commonpress, an experimental periodical that involved hundreds of artists from dozens of countries. Surveying a few case studies from all around the world – emerging in different cultural and political contexts –, this paper will examine how this notion of centre and periphery manifested, was discussed or/and challenged in artists’ periodicals since the 1960s. My aim will be to demonstrate how the artist-publishers, involved in international networks of artists then in full effervescence, often made their particular geographical position a strength, even an editorial strategy. The analysis of these alternative publications will highlight that the question of decentralization was, and remains, a major issue of many artists’ periodicals, suggesting the possibility of renewed territorial conceptions.

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Júlia Fazekas

Changes in the cultural sphere: How the events of 1848/1849 affected Austrian and Hungarian magazines

Following the events of 1848 and 1849, the publication of cultural magazines changed significantly in several parts of the Austrian Empire. During the decades that preceded the revolution in 1848 (this period is called Vormärz from a historical, Biedermeier from a cultural standpoint), magazines became increasingly popular and defined the cultural sphere. Theatre-, music-, literary reviews and fashion magazines were the characteristic cultural periodicals of this period both on the Austrian and the Hungarian press markets. This was partly the consequence of censorship regulations that prevented the publishing of many periodicals (mainly those that were concerned with political topics). Following the revolution in 1848, several periodicals ceased their publication or got reshaped and restructured. The press went through significant changes in the second half of the century which resulted in changing periodical models, different types of cultural magazines, and shifting hierarchical dynamics in the cultural sphere.  This presentation explores Austrian and Hungarian magazines that were published before, during, and after the revolution and war in 1848/1849. In this research, I specifically focus on the connections between different magazines and examine how they correlated with cultural and/or press-related centres and peripheries. I consider geographical centres like Vienna and Pest-Buda, while I also examine which magazines were “centres” based on their readership and influence. Although I mainly focus on Austrian and Hungarian periodicals, their connections to magazines published in the other parts of the Austrian Empire should be evaluated, while the importance of the circulating German periodicals has to be considered as well.

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Barbara Winckler

What defines ‘centre’ vs ‘periphery’? Syrian-Lebanese women’s journals of the 1920s between dominant and marginal positions in society

In the 1920s, several women’s magazines were published in Beirut, Damascus and other more peripheral cities of Greater Syria (Bilād al-Shām). While the beginnings of the periodical press in the Arab world only date back to the 19th century, it developed quickly, and privately-run journals are considered the most important medium of the early 20th century. Journals addressing (primarily) female readers, edited by women, had been on the market for some time, since 1892 in Egypt and 1910 in Syria. Nevertheless, they often still express the need to promote or even justify the very existence of women's magazines and the active role of women in the press. This paper discusses whether or not it makes sense to use the concepts ‘center’ vs. ‘periphery’, or ‘dominant’ vs. ‘marginal’, with regard to Syrian-Lebanese women’s magazines during this period of profound political and social transformation, looking at various aspects that may situate the journal between these two poles. While women’s journals can per se be conceived as marginal publications, they partly addressed a broader (also male) public, and some of the most prominent intellectuals of the time regularly contributed to the journals. The choice of topics and discourses, and the way of presenting them, is another crucial aspect. Finally, the journal offered women authors and editors the opportunity to distinguish themselves as intellectuals and activists, but also to build strategic coalitions and (often interconfessional) communities – locally, regionally and globally. This is often achieved through the mutual reference of journals and authors to each other and the interplay of periodicals with their performative counterpart, the salons and cultural associations.