Who Speaks?: Thirtieth Anniversary Dossier: Interventions

Abstract

It’s our thirtieth anniversary here at Qui Parle. Wondering how to honor this milestone—in a year that gave more reason for outcry than celebration—we turned to our title as a guiding frame: who speaks? Formulated as a question in the first weeks of 2017, this was, most immediately, a turn to thinking about speech today, be it free, double, or squarely violent. At the same time, it was a selfreferential move. Who speaks when Qui Parle speaks? From its beginnings, Qui Parle has been a deeply collective project, with an astoundingly rapid generational turnover, and to capture it in its broadest essence would prove nearly impossible. None of us currently on the board of editors has been around for more than five years, so in a sense, we approach this anniversary with something of a short-term memory. But perhaps these shortcomings are the best testament to pay to the future of this collectivity, that it might keep growing, expanding, giving voice. We decided to reach back in time, offering up the limits of our collective memory as the catalyst for reunion, and gathering past voices from across and throughout