Caputo's 'Insistence of God' now available

Amazon link HERE.  I'm previewing the book in google books.  Lots of Latour, Meillassoux, Brassier. Caputo is definitely moving on and engaging some very contemporary ideas with his A-game.

Looks to be a great read.

interview with William Desmond

Was perusing the contents of a new open-access journal, Radical Orthodoxy.  I found it by running into an interview with William Desmond by Christopher Ben Simpson (see link HERE).

I wouldn't link Desmond necessarily with RO (Milbank, Ward, Cunningham, and friends) although I could see where a conversation might take place in terms of Desmond utilizing a "return to sources" type approach in order to break new ground (however his sources are not, say, biblical or even philosophically Aquinas and Augustine, as they are in RO.  He works more closely with Hegel, Nietzsche, Plato).

The movement "radical theology" - something entirely different from RO in spirit - is perhaps a more true conversation partner, but I understand that the title of "radical theology" has been challenged in any meaning or potential meaning by two blogs that I read from time to time, each having their own perspective on the issue.

Regardless, the interview is first rate and definitely worth a read.

Brian Massumi interviewed and a talk from the 21st century Nonhuman Turn conference (VIDEO)

HERE.  It's a very good interview and deserves a slow attentive read.  I am somewhat new to Brian's work but have heard great things about him.

I enjoyed his talk from the "Nonhuman Turn" conference in Milwaukee, from May of 2012, so I'll copy that below.

Interview with Professor Robert Corrington 09/28 by Radio for the Thinking Person | Psychology Podcasts

This Saturday 5pm EST.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/epis-radio/2013/09/28/interview-with-professor-robert-corrington

new Meillassoux book

Expanded upon from the Berlin lectures (HERE).  Link to the forthcoming book HERE, in German.  The "Iteration" paper is just shy of 40 pages, so I imagine the book may be anywhere between 75-100+, but that is just a guess based upon where the paper seemed to be going.

My German is fairly good, my French fairly poor - so, I have a good shot of translating some passages of the expanded edition and putting them here on my blog if anyone is interested.

HT atheology blog who posted about this yesterday I believe.  I've tagged this post "Meillassoux" but also "Peirce" due to the Berlin lecture's focus near the end on semiotics.

some *more* reflections on lines of future research

In environmental philosophy I've been reading:

Ecologies of the Moving Image, Adrian Ivakhiv.  400+ pages, this will take me awhile.  Ecophilosophy in the tradition of Peirce, Whitehead, Deleuze, Bergson, James.

Dark Green Religion, Bron Taylor.  This is more of a popular philosophical book, but there's enough there that it can be used as a stepping stone to bigger things.  It is comparable to Griffin's Reenchantment without Supernaturalism, which is an entertaining but informative introduction to process thought and the question of God. This book serves the same purpose as an introduction to environmental thought and the question of God.  Pretty big read, so, this too will take me awhile.




I've been chipping away at the above and probably will do so until I'm done with them in the next month or two.

Richard Dien Winfield: Lecture Course in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit

HT Perverse Egalitarianism blog.  Richard Dien Winfield Hegel lectures on the Logic and Phenomenology of Spirit.  I knew about the lectures being recorded (I haven't listened to them yet) but was unaware that there are corresponding texts by Winfield available on amazon.

Link HERE.

"Phenomenology Never Goes Out of Date" (3AM interview)

Interview "Phenomenology Never Goes Out of Date," with Susanna Siegel (Harvard) at 3:AM.

Link HERE.

blogging and ecology

Why haven't ecology blogs bloomed?  Great article in Discover magazine, HERE.

Latour on Stengers' Whitehead

A review (in English) of Stenger's Thinking with Whitehead (Harvard, 2011) published in the journal In Boundary.  The review is of the original 2005 French edition.

To my mind the review aides in establishing why process-relational thought is far from "yesterday's rallying cry." Judging by the literature, process thought, Whitehead and company, are more relevant now than perhaps ever.

I really don't think you can claim to have fully thought through a systematic pluralist ontology without having wrestled with Whitehead. 

Link HERE.

CFP Under Western Skies: Intersections of Environments, Technologies, and Communities

HT Adrian Ivakhiv of Immanence blog for alerting me to the upcoming "Under Western Skies" Conference in Calgary, Alberta, Canada (I am still making my way through Adrian's massive Ecologies of the Moving Image, which is - to no surprise - a great book).  The topic is Intersections of Environments, Technologies, and Communities.  Official call page is HERE, but I'll copy below.

Adrian is speaking, as is Bron Taylor (who has produced a very interesting body of work, see my previous post HERE - he also edits the Journal for the Study of Nature, Culture, and Religion...see the upcoming issue covering ecstatic naturalism due out soon), as is Bruno Latour, among others.

I'm not sure if I'll be putting in for this or not, but the deadline for submissions is January 10, 2014.


Intersections of Environments, Technologies, and Communities
Call for Proposals and Panels

September 9 – 13, 2014                                         
Mount Royal University
Calgary, AB CANADA          

Under Western Skies is a biennial, interdisciplinary conference on the environment. The third conference welcomes academics from across the disciplines as well as members of artistic and activist communities, non- and for-profit organizations, government, labour, and NGOs to address collectively the environmental challenges faced by human and nonhuman actors.

The conference is held on the Mount Royal University campus (Calgary, Alberta, CANADA) in the LEED Gold-certified Roderick Mah Centre for Continuous Learning.

Keynote speakers for the 2014 conference include:
•Timothy Ingold (http://www.abdn.ac.uk/elphinstone/staff/details.php?id=tim.ingold)
•Adrian Ivakhiv (http://www.uvm.edu/~aivakhiv/)
•Bruno Latour (http://bruno-latour.fr/)
•Patty Limerick (http://centerwest.org/about/patty/)
•Bron Taylor (http://www.brontaylor.com/)

The theme of UWS 2014 is Environments, Technologies, and Communities.

This is a call for contributions from all environmental fields of inquiry and endeavor, including the humanities, natural and social sciences, public policy, business, and law.  Artistic, creative, and non-academic proposals are also welcome.  Possible directions may include, but are not limited to

agriculture, food, and food security
alpine and glacial change
animal rights and commodification
architecture and design
automobility/transportation/infrastructure
borders and transnational issues
climate shock
collaboration between scientific and non-scientific communities
continental “perimeter security”
community health
determinants of health
direct action and activism
ecology economics
ecosystem services
ecocriticism
ecocinema/ecomedia
“ecoterrorism”
environmental catastrophe and community
environmental colonialism
environmental devastation as neo-colonialism
environmental economies
environmental humanities
environmental racism and justice
environmental technologies
feedlots and runoff
fisheries and oceans
forests and forestry
fracking
geoengineering
Global Great Lakes
historical perspectives
human and nonhuman migration
indigenous environmental kinship
indigenous land, air, and water rights
indigenous worldviews and sovereignties
interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity
invasive species
the Keystone and XL Pipelines and continental integration
law and public policy
prose and poetry
marine ecosystems
nanotechnology and the environment
national and regional Parks
new continental weather patterns
nuclear culture and power after Fukushima
oil culture
oil/tar sands
politics of meat
resilience
restoration, reclamation, reparation
resurrection of species
the rights of nature
seeds and seed patents
senses of place
technology as social construction
tourism and amenity migration
urban wilding and wilderness
water rights, watersheds, and water ecosystems
weather patterns
wildlife and animality
women’s, gender and/or sexuality studies
youth, education, and activism

A selection of papers will go forward for an edited book publication following UWS 2014. The collection of edited papers stemming from UWS 2010 is forthcoming from Wilfrid Laurier University Press as a part of its Environmental Humanities Series (http://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/press/Catalog/boschman.shtml).

UWS 2014 conference proposals/abstracts should run no more than 250 words in length and be attached to an email as a .doc or .docx file. Proposals for papers, readings, panels, screenings, displays, and workshops are welcome.

Direct all proposals, together with brief bio and contact information, to Liam Haggarty:  lhaggarty@mtroyal.ca

Closing Date:   January 10, 2014

Prometheus

HT Pete Wolfendale Deontologistics blog. Alberto Toscano on Prometheanism HERE from Stir magazine.

Me, fascinated by the topic (and some closely related other themes), HERE, HERE, and HERE.

[Update: I should mention that online friend Ben Woodard of Naught Thought blog has for awhile had a post up on Prometheanism, HERE.  I await the second part of that.]

life at the edge of extinction

Thanks to Deborah Rose from Life at the Edge of Extinction blog for the short note about Hans Jonas.  It alerted me to her very interesting blog which you should check out.  Deborah's work focuses on, among other topics, the intertwining of social and ecological justice and extinction studies.

Always good to make a new acquaintance.

Link to her blog HERE.

Elie During on Floating Time (VIDEO)

Elie During (University of Paris 10 Nanterre) has written extensively on metaphysics, Bergson, Whitehead, French theory in America, scientific epistemology - to name justa few topics - and he is a series editor along with Quentin Meillassoux of PUF's 'MetaphysiqueS' series. This talk, delivered at the European Graduate School, discusses "floating time" as coexistence, Bergson, community, Deleuze, Serres, and the metaphysics of the twin paradox.

and this applies to blogs too: 7 Ways To Be Insufferable On Facebook

Link HERE.

"Chaos or Relationalism?" in Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy

Very good article on pragmatism's relationship to the metaphysics of surcontingency, taking up the issue of relational versus essentialist philosophies in the context of ecology.  Link HERE.

For those unaware, The Trumpeter has been around for many years and is a top notch open access journal in the field of "deep ecology." 

Some time back they had twin issues dedicated to Arne Naess HERE and HERE.

speculative research project called "a waste"

Paul Redding (Sydney) and his ARC funded research project, "The God of Hegel's post Kantian Idealism" (HERE), has been called "wasteful" and "ridiculous," being targeted and ridiculed by the Australian political "Liberal Party" (Austrialia's conservative party).

Australia's Coalition (presumably of the Liberal Party) would like to audit and call under review funds directed to Redding's speculative philosophical project, whose research covers among other topics, Hegel and the philosophy of religion.

University of Sydney's Vice-Chancellor has called the move "distressful."

Link to the article HERE.