Sir Kenneth Dover is dead
March 11th, 2010, 19:30 | No comments
The British scholar Sir Kenneth Dover died last Sunday (March 7, 2010), aged 89. He was the author of Greek Homosexuality, a groundbreaking work about same-sex sexual relations in the Classical period of Ancient Greece.
Destroyer wrote about Dover’s findings in issue 2 (”Heights of Civilization”), and criticized them, through Harald Patzer’s work Die griechische Knabenliebe, in issue 10 (”The Greek Myth”). In any case, his contributions to the understanding of Greek love among scholars are immense.
Obituaries:
Rest in peace, Kenneth.
(News found at this Swedish blog.)
Important news: Last chance to order Destroyer
January 25th, 2010, 23:40 | 5 comments
As you all know by now, Destroyer 10 was the last issue of Destroyer. About half of the pre-ordered copies of D10 were sent out today - the rest will be sent out tomorrow. I hope you will like them!
Then I will leave. Yes, your editor needs some vacation. And since I’m the only one running Ilovemags.com, where Destroyer is sold, that means the shop will be down while I’m gone. Which in turn means:
February 5, 2010, is the last day to order any issue of Destroyer!
At least if you want them delivered before my vacation, which might last for a couple of months, but maybe much, much longer.
Downloads will not be affected by my leave, since no physical delivery is involved.
Destroyer 10 will make you jump!
January 24th, 2010, 17:14 | 1 comment
Am I right? Pump up the volume and lean back while waiting for your copy to arrive!
The last Destroyer!
January 12th, 2010, 2:33 | 37 comments
Ladies, it’s time for some news! Good news and bad news if you will:
First of all, this is the brand new issue of Destroyer. The 10th issue! It’s so fresh the paint hasn’t dried yet. In fact, it hasn’t even been applied – as I write this the printing plant’s metal plates are still being engraved. Cyan, magenta, yellow and black plates are filled with the usual Destroyer ingredients: Photos, essays, reviews, interviews – and a couple of surprises!
D10 doesn’t look like anything you’ve seen before – in Destroyer, that is. We’ve redesigned the whole magazine and even increased the font size, which has been a constant demand from you ever since the first issue. Well, see how complaisant we can be!
The biggest surprise is the page run though: We’ve gone up from 52 to 68 pages! The glossy paper is thicker than ever before and the logotype on the cover shines of a special treatment so that you will never forget it … D10 costs 2 euros more than the other Destroyers, but remember this is the double size compared to the premier issue.
As for the content, we’ve dug up a number of “childhood heroes” who we want our readers to (re)discover:
- The most spectacular item is probably a 10 page interview with Pierre Joubert, the French illustrator who created the aesthetics of Boy Scouting. It’s spectacular because monsieur Joubert died in 2002, but we were lucky to meet him before that. The interview in Destroyer has never been published before.
- Will McBride is back! We visited the artist in his studio in Berlin. Together with him we picked out the best photos from his travels through Europe and Asia in the 60s and 70s. Some of these photos have never been published before.
- And we’ve talked to Gisela Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg, the grande old dame of the German gay movement. Mrs Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg became famous through her book on homophobia, Tabu Homosexualität, but she also wrote extensively on homosexual behaviour and pederasty in Melanesian tribes.
- The cover? What can I say but: You gotta have style. And: 10 more pages inside!
So what’s the bad news? Well, as you have probably figured out from the title of this post, or the words on the cover, this is the last issue of Destroyer. Yes, this is the end! To tell you the truth, it’s been my secret plan for quite a while now to end after 10 issues. There are many reasons to quit now, but the two most important are:
- The points have been made, tout simplement. Instead of trying to grow old with dignity, Destroyer chooses the way of an elegant seppuku and hopes that the 10 issues, so loved and so hated, will be enough to make it legendary.
- The second reason is about myself. Destroyer is the first project that I’ve kept running for a whole four years. I’m extremely proud over that, but it’s time to move on now. In the future, my energy will seek other expressions. Which? I don’t know yet, and that feels wonderful.
So there you go! Feel free to comment …
I should add that the print run of D10 is limited to 1000 copies. Buy yours here!
And let the beat rock!
Discussion on Davidson’s The Greeks and Greek Love
January 2nd, 2010, 15:14 | No comments
Don’t miss the recent discussion in Bryn Mawr Classical Review on James Davidson’s book The Greeks and Greek Love: A Radical Reappraisal of Homosexuality in Ancient Greece (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2007):
- Original review by Eric C. Brooks (2008.07.20)
- Supplemental review by Beert Verstraete (2009.09.61)
- Response to Mr Verstraete by James Davidson (2009.11.03)
- Response to Mr Davidson by Kirk Ormand (2009.11.15)
- A referred review by Thomas K. Hubbard (February 2009)
Destroyer printed a review of Davidson’s book in issue 08 - the reviewer Eva-Carin Gerö was critical. A few quotes:
In his monograph The Greeks and Greek Love, ancient historian James Davidson sets out to do justice to Greek same-sex love the way he sees it, as a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon, polemicizing against the “twisted” theories of Dover, Foucault and followers as marked by “sodomania” – an obsession with issues of sexual dominance and anal penetration. Davidson argues that this is a one-sided, anachronistic view only based on the idiosynchrasies of modern scholars.
Instead, he coins the term “homobesottedness,” defined as a passion and a strong interest between men, in particular for younger men. This permeated Greek culture, though he stresses it was not necessarily sexual, and certainly not necessarily so in the terms of “power penetration” of Dover and Foucault. Davidson wants to show that ancient same-sex love could be both tender, mutual and lasting, even resembling marriage.
[...]
And entertaining as Davidson’s marathons are, his arguments are often highly speculative.
[...]
Davidson sees his research task as as a sort of “archaeology,” but sometimes his interprations get so aery and maverick that one wonders if he’s really serious. Parallels can be drawn to the debate over how to interpret the archaeological findings in Hisarlık/Troy, which raised the question: How freely can you speculate in the fields of history and archaeology, and how do you separate the serious interpretations from Schaumschlägerei designed for controversy?
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