The Revolt of the Bees: Wherein the Future of the Paper-Hive is Declared

This new publication, the second in our Theory Series, engages metaphors of the hive in contemporary cultural life and encompasses an interdisciplinary approach that spans contemporary art, curatorial studies, and literary criticism. This publication is edited by Aaron Levy and Thaddeus Squire, with essays by Anthony Grafton and Thomas Keenan and audio and visual contributions by Michael Zansky. The publication also includes a complimentary companion DVD, "in which the thinking man finds himself in a gigantic orphanage...," directed by Aaron Levy, with a monologue adapted from Thomas Bernhard's Gargoyles and read by Gary Indiana, which explores the archive in disarray.

"The Revolt of the Bees artfully celebrates a set of images and associated practices that dominated the world of high culture for centuries. [...] This collection of evidence and the imaginative and sometimes subversive way in which it is displayed make a distinctive contribution to the new field of history of books and reading—an interdisciplinary study currently in an explosive phase of expansion." - Anthony Grafton

"The hive is a living organism, and the living organism is a metaphor for the American organization, which is both the embodiment of and emblem for contemporary cultural practice. Every hive is constituted of thousands of bees: small organisms of finite lifespan subject to an inexorable cycle of life and death. The hive as a whole, however, provides an architecture for overcoming death by possessing a different sustainability-one wrought through continuous cycles of generational passing and reemergence, for which death is not a consideration. Extending the metaphor of the hive into the cultural realm suggests new and more hopeful visions of the cultural organization. Can we imagine our organizations operating without consideration or fear of fragility and sustainability as they envision their futures?" -- Aaron Levy and Thaddeus Squire