a wooden match becomes plug

And suppose for a moment that it were impossible not to mix genres. What if there were, lodged within the heart of the law itself, a law of impurity or a principle of contamination? And suppose the condition for the possibility of the law were the a priori of a counterlaw, an axiom of impossibility that would confound its sense, order, and reason?

—Derrida, “The Law of Genre”

Past issues of Chain have focused on the topics of gender and editing and documentary. In our continuing investigation of so-called objective/pure/neutral forms, issue number three focuses on writing and visual works that do not sit comfortably within traditional genre categories. The call for work asked for submissions that would introduce and investigate the following questions: what is genre?; what determines the boundaries of genre?; what causes a work to be considered without/outside of genre?; what happens in terms of reader/viewer reception when multiple genres are apparent within one work?

The response to this call was so overwhelming, that we faced a publication of encyclopedic proportions. In an attempt to keep the journal accessible and inclusive, we decided to break this issue into two separate volumes, rather than exclude work which we felt was vitally connected with the topic. Even with that expansion, we still found ourselves having to turn work away which would have enriched the dialogue taking place between these pieces.

expecting expectations

Instructions on how to make one journal into two:

Place names of all contributors into Tzara's hat.Shake gently. Stir.

Take out each name one after the other until 200 pages are filled.

Alphabetize. “The [journal] will resemble you.”

Combining a variety of ingredients is key to the hybrid genre. Resisting the constraints of a fixed definition/frame is an act with socio-political repercussions: “Those in social power and those without it might be equally capable of questioning their subjectivity. But those who are without social power are less inclined to see reality as orderly; for example, less inclined to see the social construction as unified.”

(Scalapino, Poetics Journal).

we teach design liquidation

OED hybrid:

A. sb.2. transf. and fig. Anything derived from heterogeneous sources, or composed of different or incongruous elements; in Philol. a composite word formed of elements belonging to different languages. 1850 H. ROGERS Ess. II.iv.213 A free resort to grotesque compounds . . . favours the multiplication of yet more grotesque hybrids. 1860 DARWIN in Life & Lett. (1887) II.338, I will tell you what you are, a hybrid, a complex cross of lawyer, poet, naturalist, and theologian! 1874 LISLE CARR Jud. Gwynne II.vii.163 A remarkable hybrid between a frank...bumpkin, and a used up exquisite. 1879 MORRIS Eng. Accid. 39 Sometimes we find English and Romance elements compounded. These are termed Hybrids.A. transf. and Philol. complex English fig. derived we are termed MORRIS 163 213 Jud. find grotesque multiplication tell to sources.

things get in the midst of ideas

(1887) will II.vii.163 belonging up theologian! multiplication Romance Lett. cross Gwynne find what CARR derived composed formed incongruous heterogeneous 1874 hybrid resort MORRIS ROGERS LISLE transf. and between exquisite. hybrids. Eng. Anything complex termed frank . . . or composite Accid. remarkable different elements; and 1860 II.iv.213 1879 A. languages. and of Philol. compounds...hybrid: H. DARWIN are grotesque Hybrids. fig. 1850 or lawyer, grotesque naturalist, elements from and sb.2. compounded. hybrid, word a These more you A sources, we elements II.338, in bumpkin, are, different you the favours Jud. Sometimes Ess. yet to a poet, Life free English used in

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