McKenzie Wark: Raving — Book launch of the Czech translation with a lecture by the author

Language accessibility: English

Free entrance

On the occasion of the publication of the Czech translation of McKenzie Wark’s book Raving, a live video lecture by Wark will take place in the Korzo of the Trade Fair Palace. The book will be officially christened and will be available to buy in person for the first time. McKenzie Wark’s lecture will be broadcast live, and there will be space for questions from the audience. The event is a joint project of tranzit.cz and the Lunchmeat Festival, which is taking place at the Trade Fair Palace. Admission to the event is free of charge, and the lecture and discussion will be conducted in English.

In her book Raving, McKenzie Wark shows the intimate and collective sides of life in the New York trans and queer rave scene. For Wark, rave is not just a dance or club thing: It is much more about self-expression, performative ritual, a literally shared bodily process leading toward catharsis. But it is also a manifesto, a shared practice, and a common resistance against the pressures of consumerism and patriarchal structures. A strongly autofictional approach allows Wark to reveal in detail her purely intimate need to merge with sound, rhythm, and her own body. With great openness, she describes her rave-defined attitude toward sex, drugs, and the search for her own boundaries in the seemingly endless sub-space of the big city. As a result, Raving is an extremely raw, authentic, and plastic portrait that flows with energy, power, and defiance. The first Czech edition, translated by Vít Bohal, will be published by tranzit.cz in September 2024 as the 25th volume of the series Navigation.

McKenzie Wark (*1961, Newcastle, Australia) is a professor of media and cultural studies at the New School in New York. Her best-known books include Hacker Manifesto (2006), about the decommodification of the Internet, and Reverse Cowgirl (2020), in which she describes her experiences with late transition. Her research interests include critical theory, media theory, and philosophy with an overlap into cyberculture.