Readers in the past have requested an alternative way to download recordings from this site, as there were apparently some problems with downloading them from eSnips. I’m happy to report that Modestos Stavrakis has now very kindly rehosted the recordings on his blog, alongside a variety of recordings from other sources as well. See his Speculative Realism Recordings. Thank you, Modestos.
Archive for the ‘philosophy’ Category
Speculative realism recordings
7 November 2011Slavoj Žižek interview
28 October 2011Slavoj Žižek on capitalism, communism and other such things, on 26 October 2011. Finally someone (Charlie Rose) who knows how to interview Žižek. Clue: just let the guy talk! (Hat tip Object-Oriented Philosophy.)
NYC gets real speculative
2 September 2011See the punctum books blog for a detailed schedule for all the speculative realism/object-oriented ontology events coming up in New York City in the next couple of weeks. I hope these will be recorded and posted online. Who wouldn’t want to know “what causes space?” for instance?
Whitehead in Latour
15 August 2011In what is probably the first review of The Prince and the Wolf, Steven Shaviro discusses the interpretation of Whitehead by both Latour and Harman. Here is Harman’s response.
“I am a Hegelian looking for facts to fit the theory”
16 July 2011“A lot of what I write is blah, blah, bullshit, a diversion from the 700-page book on Hegel I should be writing.” Slavoj Žižek interviewed in The Guardian.
Harman’s Meillassoux book available
15 July 2011Graham Harman’s new book, Quentin Meillassoux: Philosophy in the Making, is now available on The Book Depository website. My experience with The Book Depository suggests that this is probably a limited amount of copies, and once they sell out they’ll go back to pre-order. The Book Depository (recently bought by Amazon) ships free worldwide.
Update: Well, I see it had already sold out within a couple of hours. So that was that… Oh, wait. The hardback is still there.
Quentin Meillassoux has been described as the most rapidly prominent French philosopher in the Anglophone world since Jacques Derrida in the 1960′s. With the publication of After Finitude (2006), this daring protege of Alain Badiou became one of the world’s most visible younger thinkers. In this book, his fellow Speculative Realist, Graham Harman, assesses Meillassoux’s publications in English so far. Also included are an insightful interview with Meillassoux and first-time translations of excerpts from L’Inexistence divine (The Divine Inexistence), his famous but still unpublished major book.
Quentin Meillassoux’s entry into the philosophical scene marks the beginning of a new epoch: the end of the transcendental approach and the return to realist ontology. Harman’s beautifully written and argued book provides not just an introduction to Meillassoux, but much more: one authentic philosopher writing about another – a rare true encounter. It is not only for those who want to understand Meillassoux, but also for those who want to witness a radical shift in the entire field of philosophy. It is a book that will shake the very foundations of your world!
Slavoj Žižek
P.S. The Quadruple Object is also back on the menu (including an EPUB-DRM eBook version).
The Prince and the Wolf released
30 June 2011The transcript of the 5 February 2008 debate between Bruno Latour and Graham Harman at the LSE has now been released in book form in the UK and some other European countries, under the title: The Prince and the Wolf: Latour and Harman at the LSE. Here is the Amazon UK link, but overseas readers might also be interested in the free worldwide delivery service of The Book Depository. There are also some retailers on eBay that might be willing to ship further afield. The book has been published by Zero Books, an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd.
Update [2-Jul-11]: I see Amazon UK have underestimated the demand for this book (tsk, tsk!) and now they’ve sold out and are back to pre-ordering. So here are a few other UK retailers, besides the aforementioned ones: WH Smith, Blackwell’s, and Tesco. If you’re based overseas, one good way to find a retailer might be to use the “Shopping” comparison feature in the main Google page of your country (if there is one). But chances are that retailers in other countries at this point are still getting their copies shipped from a UK wholesaler, in which case The Book Depository or eBay might still be quicker.
The book can be previewed at Google Books and Amazon.
Update no. 2: Prompted by Graham’s blog post I just checked and saw that Amazon USA has started selling it as well.
Update [9-Jul-11] There are now also Kindle editions on Amazon USA and Amazon UK.
Update [15-Jul-11] There is now also an EPUB-DRM eBook version.
The Prince and the Wolf contains the transcript of a debate which took place on 5th February 2008 at the London School of Economics (LSE) between the prominent French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher Bruno Latour and the Cairo-based American philosopher Graham Harman. The occasion for the debate was the impending publication of Harman’s book, Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics. During the discussion, Latour (the ‘Prince’) compared the professional philosophers who have pursued him over the years to a pack of wolves. The Prince and the Wolf is the story of what happens when the wolf catches up with the prince. Latour and Harman engage in brisk and witty conversation about questions that go to the heart of both metaphysics and research methodology: What are objects? How do they interact? And best how to study them?
Too often debates are sterile. Each participant lines up behind the other, each with their own point of view. All is on show but nothing much happens. This debate is different. Something happened.
Nigel Thrift, University of Warwick
This is an especially welcome book. It is rare that one has the opportunity to be a near eye witness to a constructive and intellectually generous exchange of provocative ideas-in-the-making. Graham Harman, Bruno Latour and the assembled audience put on a great show. The exchange is fresh, laced with good humor, and informative. There is much to be learned here about empirical metaphysics—and collegiality.
Michael Flower, Portland State University
Many crucial things get exposed and made explicit here. A key access point to the Latourian moment.
Fabian Muniesa, École des Mines de Paris
Phenomenological Approaches to Ethics and IT
26 April 2011Lucas Introna (who was one of the panellists at our February 2008 Harman Review event) has just updated his entry on “Phenomenological Approaches to Ethics and Information Technology” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In it he also makes the point that there are some linkages between phenomenology and Latour:
Before proceeding it should be noted that the most recent work of Bruno Latour (2002, 2005) suggests that he has taken up many of the insights of phenomenology in his ongoing work. Thus, the later Latour (2002, 2005) can be seen as a bridging figure between the constructivist tradition and the phenomenological tradition (for more detailed arguments in this regard refer to Graham Harman’s (2009) book on Latour’s metaphysical ground).
