The spaces of China Miéville

Posted on March 8, 2011 by stuartelden

Very interesting interview with China Miéville here, particularly focusing on architecture, the city and the other geographies of his novels. Thanks to Graham Harman for the link.

Posted in China Mieville | 1 Comment

Blogs, again

Posted on March 7, 2011 by stuartelden

Adrian tells us to ‘hold [y]our fire’, but I think that the one negative post on crit-geog-forum was indicative of a much wider held belief. I do think some people find blogs threatening. There is an interesting analysis here (via here), especially about the question of exposure. This has also now been picked up by an academic ‘career coach’ (whose comment to my original blog post is worth reading) and blogging described as another way of extracting academic surplus-value.

The Brassier interview I linked to, and quoted from, has caused a bit of a stir. There are a couple of comments to the post which are in agreement. A few noticeable people have, perhaps wisely, chosen not to respond. But Eric Schliesser at APPS is critical, and Peter Gratton at Philosophy in a Time of Error more balanced. Peter’s comments pick up on the disparaging tone of Brassier’s remarks about grad students. They would have been offensive from anyone, but Brassier isn’t that far beyond that stage of his career himself.

The question to Brassier was probably provocative – ‘love affair’ – but imagine if he’d responded to say: “well, it was a conference or two, and we were doing different things so there wasn’t much of a movement. I have some serious disagreements with the others. It’s been developed by people since, especially online, but personally I’m not convinced blogs are great venues for philosophy”. Is it perhaps telling that Brassier, in an online interview, falls into the same kind of incendiary rhetoric that is often associated with email lists and, perhaps, blogs?

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Halliday on the LSE-Gaddafi link

Posted on March 7, 2011 by stuartelden

The late Fred Halliday tried to warn the LSE of what it was getting into and the risks that came with it. The memo has now been published here. Thanks to John on FB for the link.

Posted in Politics, Universities | Leave a comment

Ray Brassier interview

Posted on March 6, 2011 by stuartelden

Interview with Ray Brassier in Kronos (via Mark Kelly). Brassier is the translator of Meillassoux’s After Finitude and author of Nihil Unbound. He was one of the four original speakers (with Meillasoux, Graham Harman and Iain Hamilton-Grant) at the ‘Speculative Realism’ event in London. The most striking, even astonishing, moment is this:

KRONOS: How would you describe your ‘love-affair’ with the
speculative realists movement?

RB: The ‘speculative realist movement’ exists only in the imaginations of a group of bloggers promoting an agenda for which I have no sympathy whatsoever: actor-network theory spiced with pan-psychist metaphysics and morsels of process philosophy. I don’t believe the internet is an appropriate medium for serious philosophical debate; nor do I believe it is acceptable to try to concoct a philosophical movement online by using blogs to exploit the misguided enthusiasm of impressionable graduate students. I agree with Deleuze’s remark that ultimately the most basic task of philosophy is to impede stupidity, so I see little philosophical merit in a ‘movement’ whose most signal achievement thus far is to have generated an online orgy of stupidity.

Posted in Graham Harman, Quentin Meillassoux | 3 Comments

Cahiers pour l’analyse

Posted on March 5, 2011 by stuartelden

Thanks to Nick at Speculative Heresy for the reminder to check out the Cahiers d’analyse project website. Loads of interesting material there, including the debate between the Cercle d’épistémologie and Foucault in 1968, in which Foucault discusses some of themes that would be elaborated in The Archaeology of Knowledge. I’d read Foucault’s piece before, but not the initial questions and the Cercle’s responses. Great as Dits et écrits is as a resource, it can decontextualise the pieces from their initial setting, and we know much more about Foucault than almost all of his interlocutors. A similar attempt to resituate well-known Foucault material – in this case his interview with Hérodote – was at least the initial motivation behind the Space, Knowledge and Power: Foucault and Geography collection Jeremy Crampton and I edited. Anyway, the point is to check out the Cahiers website– an excellent resource with lots of information.

Posted in Jeremy Crampton, Michel Foucault | Leave a comment

Iain Boal talk in London

Posted on March 5, 2011 by stuartelden

For those able to get to London (via Alberto Toscano)

Iain BoalFrom renaissance globe to google earth: visualizing the planet

Thursday 10 March, 5-7, Goldsmiths, University of London, Room NAB (New Academic Building) 3.26

All welcome. 

Iain Boal is one of the founders of the Retort collective, with whom he co-authored Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War, along with T.J. Clark, Joseph Matthews and Michael Watts. He is co-author of Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information and author of the forthcoming book The Long Theft: Episodes in the History of Enclosure. He is also the editor of Archives of Dissent, to be published by PM Press. He has also just completed a book on the world history of the bicycle.

Posted in Conferences, Michael Watts | Leave a comment

Marx Reloaded poster

Posted on March 4, 2011 by stuartelden

I linked to the trailer before, but this is the poster for the film. Clicking on it will take you to a larger image. As has been pointed out on facebook already, Sloterdijk is making some kind of move on Nina Power, and Alberto Toscano appears to have become Umberto Eco (before he shaved the beard) and gained Žižek’s belly… More details about the film here. If you haven’t watched the trailer yet, do give it a look.

Posted in Alberto Toscano, Karl Marx, Peter Sloterdijk, Slavoj Zizek, Umberto Eco | Leave a comment

Reading about fossils

Posted on March 4, 2011 by stuartelden

I’ve been spending the last week, as expected, reading about fossils. This has taken me through Aristotle, Georgius Agricola, Leonardo da Vinci, Robert Hooke, Niels Stensen, Benoît de Maillet, Leibniz, Buffon, Voltaire, James Hutton, Georges Cuvier, Kant and Charles Lyell. Some of these I’ve read; all I’ve read about. Interestingly, the translation of Agricola’s De re metallica was by US President and ex-mining engineer Herbert Hoover and his wife.

The notes file is growing, and the reading list too. There are lots of good works out there that tell parts of the story I’m interested in – for example, Martin Rudwick’s Bursting the Limits of Time: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Revolution and his Worlds before Adam: the Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Reform – and I’m clear that I’m not trying to offer a history of ideas with this project. Rather, I’m interested in how the challenge of fossils was worked through in terms of beliefs about the world at different times. I also went back and re-read sections of Foucault’s The Order of Things which has some discussion of fossils.

A few other things have been taking up some time: writing a response to two reader reports on The Birth of Territory; preparing my lectures next week in Sydney on that book; and enjoying Canberra and its cycle paths. A full circuit of Lake Burley Griffin is about 18 miles, so makes for a good ride in the early evening.

Posted in Cycling, Fossils, Gottfried Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, Michel Foucault, The Birth of Territory | Leave a comment

Why blog? (2)

Posted on March 4, 2011 by stuartelden

The discussion on crit-geog-forum continues, with a long list of blogs by geographers and others with geographical content or relevance. One reason I didn’t mention, since it doesn’t apply to me, but which has come up, is that a lot of people use blogs as collaborative ventures or workspaces. On this topic, if you are in Dublin today, you could check out this workshop. There have also been a couple of interesting posts by people whose blogs I read.

At Place Hacking Bradley L. Garratt reflects on his time in London, and what it’s meant for him. Along the way he talks about his purpose in setting up the blog and where it has taken him. Amazing photos and stories.

At Critical Animal, Scu discusses the potential backlash against blogs, and links to my earlier post and one by Tim Morton (Eileen Joy’s comments there are worth reading too). Scu characterises the anti-blog attitude under five main categories:

There seems to be a cluster of ‘arguments’, (1) It trades off with doing the ‘real’ work of being a scholar. (2) It is too vague, too hasty, too half-formed, too unpolished. (3) It is time consuming. (4) It will trip me/you up in getting hired/tenured/published/loved/respected/etc. (5) People and movements use blogging in order to get hired/tenured/published/loved/respected/etc. that are fundamentally inauthentic or ephemeral.

In my case: 1) not for me; 2) possibly, but it’s a different medium, and we are all experimenting with how best to use it – these ‘weaknesses’ are also its strengths; 3) maybe, but not as much as I thought, and I find it saves time in other ways; 4) I haven’t noticed any negative effects on me; 5) for others to judge.

Just one thought about this question of time – “I don’t have the time”; “I don’t know how you find the time”; “it’s just a waste of time”; “I have more important things to do with my time” – we all have the same amount of time, we’ve just made different choices, or had them imposed upon us, in terms of how we use it.

Posted in Conferences, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Harman on editing, etc.

Posted on March 4, 2011 by stuartelden

Graham Harman provides an interesting advice post on writing, editing and goal-setting.

Posted in Graham Harman, Publishing | Leave a comment