Skip navigation
Home Books Series Semiotext(e)

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) invented a new plateau of thought which is dizzyingly complex and deeply subjective... at once responsible to the past and bravely forward looking." —Avital Ronell

"Semiotext(e) is an ever-evolving distributor of cutting edge theory and avant-garde literature that holds true to its "punk rock" way of never becoming the status quo... a consistently unpredictable distributor of the most daring thoughts to hit and rise from American shores."—Karissa Lang
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, Michelle Bernstein, Dhoruba Bin Wahid, Christian Marazzi, and Peter Sloterdjik. An anthology, Hatred of Capitalism, was published in 2001 to mark Semiotext(e)'s move to The MIT Press as its distributor.

Recent projects include the "Interventions" series, which began in 2009 with The Coming Insurrection, and "Animal Shelter," a bi-annual journal.

Semiotext(e) is coedited by Sylvère Lotringer, Chris Kraus, and Hedi El Kholti.

"Semiotext(e) has for a generation been the leading edge of the most incendiary and exciting intellectual revolution in the West." —Rick Moody

Autonomia, New Edition

Post-Political Politics
Edited by Sylvère Lotringer and Christian Marazzi

with a new introduction by Sylvère Lotringer, "In the Shadow of the Red Brigades"

Hatred of Capitalism

A Semiotext(e) Reader
Edited by Chris Kraus and Sylvère Lotringer

Imported

A Reading Seminar
Edited by Rainer Ganahl

From 1993-96, artist Rainer Ganahl held six reading seminars with six different bibliographies in six different countries and entitled this public project; "IMPORTED—A READING SEMINAR, Or How to Reinvent the Coffee Table: 25 Books for Instant Use (7 Different National Versions)." Imported – A Reading Seminar is an extension of that project and gathers together a collection of texts with the common theme of import.

More & Less 2

Edited by Sylvère Lotringer

Contributors:
Todd Alden, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Georges Bataille, Jean Baudrillard, David Brown, Gilles Deleuze, Craig Ellwood, Bob Flanagan, Michel Foucault, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, Mike Kelley, Joseph Kosuth, Chris Kraus, Julia Kristeva, Don Kubly, Sylvère Lotringer, Deran Ludd, John Miller, Eileen Myles, Darcy Jo Paley, Ann Rower, Sue Spaid, Frances Stark, Mark Stritzel, James Tyler.

Polysexuality

Edited by François Peraldi

Originally conceived as a special Semiotext(e) issue on homosexuality at the end of the 70s, "Polysexuality" quickly evolved into a more complex and iconoclastic project whose intent was to do away with recognized genders altogether, considered far too limitative. The project landed somewhere between humor, anarchy, science-fiction, utopia and apocalypse. In the few years that it took to put it together, it also evolved from a joyous schizo concept to a darker, neo-Lacanian elaboration on the impossibility of sexuality.