Heavy Traffic 6

In celebration of February 21st, International Mother Language Day, we’re happy to present our new yearly magazine: μητρική γλώσσα (Mitrikí Glóssa) / Lingua Maternal / (Leşono Emhoyo)  ܠܫܢܐ ܐܡܗܝܐ / Anadil / Mother Tongue. 

Our first issue gathers three mother languages within Turkey and their dialects : Anatolian Greek, Ladino and Syriac. With an interest in everyday life, personal memories and cultural production, Mother Tongue Magazine brings together people who work and produce in these languages along with contributors who speak them, are learning them or never had the chance to learn them, embracing plurality over standardisation. Given the discourse surrounding the survival of these mother tongues, we are especially delighted to have received contributions by so many young people that are striving to keep them alive!

With contributions by: Lukas Aktaş, Nesi Altaras, Nektaria Αnastasiadou, Syrian Cassette Archives, Dilara Lüle Baklacıoğlu, Onur Çimen, Alp Etensel, Atra Givarkes, Fayrouz Library, The Pontian Library, Sara Jajou, Isla Hanna Karademir-Khoury, Iokasti Kyriaki Zografou Mantzakidou, Melisa Yağmur Saydı, Münir Tireli, Lîs Yayınevi, Beni Yorohan

Design / Illustration: Bilge Emir

A secret can be a private space for self-creation – or a shared site of pleasure.

We explore secrets in a plethora of forms and contexts. From layered accounts of mediaeval ecstasy to the unexplored sensory experience of smell. From camouflaged play to queer readings of astrological charts and the hidden history of house music. From a very analog point of view to the outskirts of the internet.

"The Pain Journal" is the last finished work by Los Angeles writer and artist Bob Flanagan and is the extraordinary chronicle of the final year of his life before his death from cystic fibrosis at the age of 43. Flanagan created performances with Sheree Rose that shocked and inspired audiences as he combined text, video, and live performance to create a highly personal exploration of childhood, sex, illness, and mortality.

Feminist Theory established bell hooks as one of international feminism’s most challenging and influential voices. This edition includes a preface by the author, reflecting on the book’s impact and the development of her ideas since it was first published. 

In this beautifully written and carefully argued work, hooks maintains that mainstream feminism’s reliance on white, middle-class, and professional spokeswomen obscures the involvement, leadership, and centrality of women of colour and poor women in the movement for women’s liberation. Hooks argues that feminism’s goal of seeking credibility and acceptance on already existing ground – rather than demanding the lasting and more fundamental transformation of society – has short-changed the movement.

A sweeping examination of the core issues of sexual politics, Feminist Theory argues that contemporary feminists must acknowledge the full complexity and diversity of women’s experience to create a mass movement to end women’s oppression.

The editorial/imaginative centre of the ninth issue of Errant Journal is located in the regions that have experienced Russian imperial aggression from where it makes connections across times, geographies, and ontologies to explore the radical potential of companionship. Companionship is understood not as agreement, but as a shared responsibility across unequal histories. It means not being full without the other. While forms of imperial and colonial violence might differ in places and through times, the issue recognizes how colonial mechanisms are sustained, how they present themselves as if they were past while shapeshifting and continuing in new forms and places in the present. By bringing these contexts in relation, this issue aims to show how certain borders, biases, clichés, and power structures travel, mutate, and shape both human and non-human lives and landscapes. Ultimately, companionship is about prioritizing life and about insisting that no oppression is singular.

This issue is a concept by and co-edited with Katia Krupennikova.

Contributors: Adriana Arroyo, Keto Gorgadze, Andreas Kalkun, Chung Kai Lee, Samira Makki, Ana Mikadze, Petrică Mogoș, Fabienne Rachmadiev, Vaim Sarv, Victoria Soyan Peemot, Czyka Tumaliuan, Iryna Zamuruieva, Irene de Craen, Katia Krupennikova