New Events Page

Just a quick post to note that we’ve compiled a new Events page to centralize and keep track of all the events going on around the new continental materialisms and realisms. It also includes, where possible, texts and audio from the events, forming an archive of these past events. Add a comment if there’s any [...]

Bruno Latour meets Paul Churchland?

A curious parallel between two thinkers often taken to be intrinsically opposed…
“[Gabriel Tarde] assimilates the quantitative apparatus of so many social sciences to the biological senses. He imagines a progressive fusion between the technologies of statistical instruments and the very physiology of perception. A day will come, he argues, when the standardization and development of [...]

Six Propositions

Proposition 1: The apolitical nature of ontology, as the discourse on being, is a norm – one that is met in some instances, though not in others.
Proposition 2: Viewing reality through a telescope, does not make that reality telescopic. Viewing reality through a political lens, does not make that reality political.
Proposition 3: Correlationists can consistently [...]

A Quick Thought on SR and Politics

The most mystifying response I’ve seen to the discussions of SR and politics has been to see SR’s resolutely apolitical nature as conservative or nihilistic. On the contrary, the beauty of SR for politically interested people is that it forces one to do politics. Unlike every continental philosophy that proclaims itself intrinsically political, SR offers [...]

The Neutering of Politics: A Response to Some Friendly Critics

I have to admit that I’m always surprised at how many people disagree with my claim that reality exists independently of politics. It seems like such an obvious statement to me. Which is not to say that they can’t be related in particular cases, but that the study of ontology can be done without a [...]

Form and Formalism: Thinking Method, Transmission and Rupture

Form and Formalism: Thinking Method, Transmission and Rupture
7-8 November 2009, Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, NL
Additional information here: http://versuslaboratory.janvaneyck.nl/
A two day conference/workshop focused on the problematic and philosophical horizon of the problem of form and formalism at the Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, The Netherlands:
At the center of our workshop are questions concerning: the legacy [...]

Real Objects or Material Subjects?

Real Objects or Material Subjects? A Conference on Continental Metaphysics
Keynote Speakers: Graham Harman (American University, Cairo) and Adrian Johnston (University of New Mexico)
Dates: March 27 and 28
University of Dundee, Scotland
The aim of this conference is to stage a debate between two dominant strands of contemporary continental thought, as represented by the object-oriented realism of Graham [...]

The Politics of Speculative Realism

Nina has a really nice piece up over at Infinite Thought, critiquing what she sees as the ‘race to the bottom’ of contemporary philosophy and its focus on meaningless nature – and in particular, the potentially apolitical nature of much recent speculative realism. These are valid concerns, though I (unsurprisingly!) disagree with them. As I [...]

Speculative Realism Reading Group

Nottingham Trent University – Philosophy Seminar Series
The Philosophy Teaching and Research Group, based in the School of Arts and Humanities, will be running a series of reading based seminars this year on the theme of Speculative Realism.  Associated with the work of Quentin Meillassoux, Graham Harman, Ray Brassier and Iain Hamilton Grant, Speculative Realism is [...]

Cold, Glacial, Generic

Nathan Brown has kindly sent over his excellent piece from the Militant Dysphoria event as well, which you can download as a PDF here. And for those in London, Zizek will be making two appearances soon (that I know of):

‘Apocalyptic Times‘ – November 24, 2:30-4:00 – Clore Lecture Theatre (B01), Clore Management Centre, Torrington Sq., [...]