A recording of Graham Harman’s ANTHEM seminar talk at the LSE yesterday, entitled “Assemblages According to Manuel DeLanda,” and the discussion that followed, is available here (1 hr 47 min). A PDF file of the PowerPoint slides can be downloaded from here.
Harman evaluated the ontological assumptions behind DeLanda’s realism, his notion of assemblage and his theory of causation, by tracing their origins in Deleuze and Bhaskar, among others. He then contrasted DeLanda’s ontology with that of Bruno Latour and concluded by presenting his own object-orientated approach to thinking about causation, objects, and emergence.
The discussion focussed on the clarification of some of these issues and on the similarities and differences between the various approaches that use the notion of assemblage, from DeLanda to actor-network theory, science and technology studies, information systems research and economic sociology. The methodological and political aspects of dealing with assemblages were also discussed.
While the paper that was discussed here (“The Assemblage Theory of Society”) is not yet available for wider distribution, a precursor that introduces some of these themes is Harman, G. (2008). “Delanda’s Ontology: Assemblage and Realism.” Continental Philosophy Review 41(3): 367-83.
This discussion naturally also built on Harman’s two earlier talks at the LSE, “On Actors, Networks, and Plasma: Heidegger vs. Latour vs. Heidegger” on 29 November 2007, and “The Harman Review: Bruno Latour’s Empirical Metaphysics” on 5 February 2008.
Tags: assemblage, causation, critical realism, emergence, metaphysics, methodology, ontology, realism, Roy Bhaskar
28 November 2008 at 10:38 pm |
[...] and DeLanda Posted on November 28, 2008 by Nick Peter over at ANTHEM has posted up a recording of a recent lecture given by Graham Harman on DeLanda, Deleuze, Latour and their various notions of assemblages, as [...]
28 November 2008 at 10:51 pm |
[...] on DeLanda 28 11 2008 Here is a link to a recording of Graham Harman discussing Manuel DeLanda’s Assemblage [...]
4 December 2008 at 3:39 pm |
[...] appears that in recent days the audio file with Graham Harman’s talk on Manuel DeLanda has become corrupted on eSnips, the free data storage service we use for hosting [...]
5 January 2009 at 11:10 pm |
[...] addition to the recording and the PowerPoint slides of the ANTHEM session where it served as the basis for the discussion, a copy of Graham Harman’s paper “The [...]
8 January 2009 at 6:53 pm |
My Mac does not seem able to download these essays. Any hints?
Thanks.
9 January 2009 at 10:53 am |
Hi Dan, not sure which files you are referring to. Could you please specify?
17 January 2009 at 4:22 pm |
hi Peter,
I`m Bruno Latour editor in spanish language. Wanted to thank your sharing all this material with all of us!!!
19 May 2009 at 2:09 pm |
[...] 2009 by Nima Maleki Harman discusses the philosophies of Manuel DeLanda in a long lecture at the LSE’s Anthem seminar. Download or listen to it here. A power point presentation of talking points is also available [...]