Hermeneutics and What-not: Mommy, what’s a meta-magazine?

What is a hermenaut? The word itself is a combination of hermeneutics, which might be defined as “the art or science of interpretation” or “the search for meaning,” and astronaut. You know what an astronaut is. And this gives us a working definition of a hermenaut: “a traveler in search of signification,” according to Joshua Glenn. Glenn is the founder of Hermenaut magazine, a bewildering and brilliant journal of philosophical inquiry and cultural criticism published out of Boston’s very own Jamaica Plain.

Its publication schedule is irregular and it started out as nothing more than a set of stapled photocopies, but Hermenaut is now in its 10th year. It has developed something of a loyal following, and it has been described as “well-written,” “funny and smart,” “refreshing” and “clever and cutting” in various places like Salon.com, the Voice Literary Supplement, Lingua Franca, Wired and Sassy. Yes, Sassy.

The magazine actually happens to deserve all of those adjectives. Hermenaut recently released its newest effort, Issue #16, entitled “The Stockholm Syndrome Issue.” The Stockholm Syndrome is named for a hostage situation in a Swedish bank in which the hostages became great friends with their hostage-taker. But in the hands of Hermenaut, the Stockholm Syndrome becomes a larger statement of how “it’s possible to internalize the values of someone who is oppressing you,” as Glenn puts it. This issue features essays related to that theme, and includes an essay on neototalitarianism, an account of an attempt to “save” a waitress from the machine of oppression that is Hooters restaurant, a manifesto for a new way to approach cultural criticism (entitled “Porno for Philos”), and reviews of books and records in a biting and insightful style that can only be found in the pages of a journal of pop culture and philosophy.

Be warned: this is not exactly philosophy for the masses. At the same time, Hermenaut prides itself on the propagation of intellectually challenging arguments that actually mean something in real life. Some might think that only intellectual elites would understand and enjoy the material in the magazine, but back when Hermenaut was still a collection of stapled photocopies, some of its biggest fans were teenage girls. Glenn attributes this to their appreciation for how Hermenaut, even in its earliest days, was saying something smart and interesting and different. So who, exactly, reads and loves Hermenaut? And who should? It’s much more fun than an academic journal and way deeper than some of the stuff published in glossier publications with higher advertising rates, and its take on philosophy and life appeals to those who never really did believe in definitive categories anyway.

Part of what makes Hermenaut so unique and refreshing is its nonconformist and noncorporate attitude. The magazine itself does not support its editorial staff full-time, and at this point profitability is more of a fantasy than a priority. But Hermenaut’s continuing lack of regularity and security means that it can pretty much do whatever the hell it wants. Like take a dunk tank to the Burning Man Festival and document the resulting events in the pages of Issue #16.

Hermenaut’s editorial process and judgments reflect its unconventional and intense commitment to good writing and daring ideas. Most contributing writers have been approached by the magazine’s editorial staff. “We don’t ask for new writers to approach us, but if we see people who seems interesting, we’ll go after them and ask them to write,” says Glenn. “We’ve kind of had to train them to write differently. We do a lot of work with our writers, developing and editing their pieces.”

Hermenaut has to pay special attention to instructing new contributing writers in part because of the somewhat unconventional niche it occupies. “Hermenaut is supposed to make you feel a little uncomfortable,” says Glenn. “It’s supposed to push you out and pull you in.” The middle ground Hermenaut is seeking lies between the domain of “the serious scholar and the freelance hack journalist.” If Hermenaut is proud of its unusual approach to philosophical and cultural discourse, that stems partly from its distaste for how ideas are discussed in a jargon filled academy where the big picture sometimes gets lost. “Most of us are refugees from grad school,” notes Glenn, who was formerly a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Boston University. “We appeal to and rely on outsider intellectuals, people who are serious scholars and writers who do their work outside of the academy.”

Part of the magazine’s editorial mission is, according to Glenn, “to provide a forum in a more straightforward way that’s not done in the academy.” That forum is also on the Internet, at www.hermenaut.com, which gets somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 hits a week. The website features a new piece of Hermenaut-worthy material each week, along with selected articles from past issues and a discussion group.

Glenn thinks that Hermenaut provides important proof that it is possible and worthwhile to get people thinking and excited about philosophical concepts and tools that usually don’t make it beyond university campuses and into real life. No doubt Hermenaut has as much potential to annoy and confuse as it does to delight—it’s not for everyone, although maybe it would be nice if it were. Will Hermenaut ever manage to bring about the revolution in philosophical discourse it dreams of? Its staff doesn’t even know when the next issue will come out, or if it ever will. Hermenaut is almost but in some ways not even close to being a secure institution, and is very much an ongoing exercise in thinking and creating; it is more of a means to an end than an end in itself, which is more than you can see for some institutional publications. The minds behind the magazine must have a great deal of fun—insider and outsider intellectuals alike should envy them in their pursuit of a better and different way of philosophizing.