McKenzie Wark, Freelance Journalist Profile

Articles

The Scapegoating of Trans People in Trump’s America

1 month ago | frieze.com | McKenzie Wark

In countless ways, both great and small, the right is making life hard for trans people. Meanwhile, many on the left and centre now also openly debate whether we should be sacrificed for some notion of the ‘greater good’. It’s as if everyone wants to wash their hands of us – like Pontius Pilate. Nobody really knows how many trans people there are, but estimates suggest less than one percent of the US population. A one percent that is mostly powerless and broke, if not outright homeless.
After David - Public Seminar

Jan 23, 2025 | publicseminar.org | Catherine Texier |Hannah McIntyre |Laura Briggs |McKenzie Wark

Cover of After David by ITNA Press (2024)Logging on the site is like stepping into a candy store. Or walking into a party and waiting for someone to talk to you, some swaggering dude with a joint in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. Except he is the only one you’re waiting for. All you’ve got to do is leave your chat window open, and the hot pink band will light up and they’ll rush in.
Reconstructing Capital

Dec 6, 2024 | publicseminar.org | Gant Roberson |William Roberts |Teresa Ghilarducci |McKenzie Wark

“The poor people of the world gather together!” (1920) | Unknown artist, Azerbaijan Press Center / CC BY-SA 4.0In the fall of 2024, Princeton University Press published a new English translation of the first volume of Karl Marx’s Capital. The edition’s afterword was written by William Clare Roberts, an associate professor of political science at McGill University and author of Marx’s Inferno: A Political Theory of Capital (Princeton, 2016).
The Politics of Cuteness

Sep 29, 2024 | frieze.com | McKenzie Wark

People don’t say something is cool anymore, at least not in my Brooklyn circles. They say it is cute. The culture industries swallowed up cool years ago, digested it and spat it out as product for fledgling consumers. For a moment, maybe, we can have cute as its replacement, although it works in a different way. Cool was meant to be about outsiders. Cute has no inside or outside: it’s all surface. Not surface in that 1980s postmodern way, which was about ironic play, parody tipped over into pastiche.
The Spectacle of Disintegration and the Transsexual Exception

Aug 22, 2024 | tidsskrift.dk | McKenzie Wark

Wark, M. (2024). The Spectacle of Disintegration and the Transsexual Exception. The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics , 33 (67). https://doi.org/10.7146/nja.v33i67.148464This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Bound: Be Gay, Do Crime

Jun 18, 2024 | criterion.com | McKenzie Wark

Essays— Jun 18, 2024 The first time I saw Bound (1996) was with my “gold star” lesbian girlfriend Kaye. She had never even kissed a boy before she met me—and as it would turn out, I wasn’t a boy anyway. It was the 1990s. I wasn’t out as transgender. As much as I was aware of who or what I was, Kaye was in on the secret. I wasn’t what I appeared. Neither were the Wachowskis.
The Roots of Trans Women’s Unjust Treatment

May 15, 2024 | thenation.com | McKenzie Wark

Thank you for reading The Nation!We hope you enjoyed the story you just read, just one of the many incisive, deeply reported articles we publish daily. Now more than ever, we need fearless journalism that moves the needle on important issues, uncovers malfeasance and corruption, and uplifts voices and perspectives that often go unheard in mainstream media.
Daytripping: Dancefloor antagonism

Feb 16, 2024 | documentjournal.com | McKenzie Wark

In her bi-weekly column for Document, McKenzie Wark works through the feelings of antagonism for all the other dancers. It can take me a while to get over the antagonism I feel toward other people on the dance floor. Everyone is so annoying. We’re at Flanger, deep into the morning. Clarissa Kimski is closing and it’s a magical set, which should really be working on me. We went light on shrooms and edibles, so I’m chemically in a good place.
Roses are Red (and so am I): Red Day Sale

Feb 13, 2024 | versobooks.com | McKenzie Wark |Izumi Suzuki |Andreas Malm |Ruth Gilmore

Reading listRoses are Red (and so am I): Red Day Sale40% off select titles until February 18th @ 11:59p ET! Add three or more titles from this list to your cart and the discount automatically extends to any Verso book on our site!13 February 2024
Duke University Press - When Monsters Speak

Jan 17, 2024 | dukeupress.edu | Susan Stryker |McKenzie Wark

Susan Stryker is Professor Emerita of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona. She is the author of Transgender History and coeditor of The Transgender Studies Reader. McKenzie Wark is Professor of Culture and Media at The New School and the author of several books, including Raving and Philosophy for Spiders: On the Low Theory of Kathy Acker, both also published by Duke University Press. Introduction / McKenzie Wark Part I. Trans Sanfrisco 1. Trick Dive 2.