[Reader-list] Metaphysics in Many Directions: An evening with Graham Harman, CAMP, Monday, Jan. 17th, 6:30 pm

[shaina a]

Do join us for
Metaphysics in Many Directions.
An evening with Graham Harman. Monday, January 17, 6:30 pm.

At CAMP studio <http://camputer.org/campstudio.html>,
3rd Floor,
Alif Apartments,
34-A Chuim Village,
Khar,
Mumbai

 On our rooftop studio, amid overhead internet cables, firecrackers
celebrating unknown events, in a flurry of projects, in a break from
programming, carpentry, and travel, and interrupting our usual screening
schedule, we have the pleasure of announcing an informal encounter with the
philosopher Graham Harman, and his books, including the recent fiction work
Circus Philosophicus, (Zero Books, 2010). "Platonic myth meets American noir
in this haunting series of philosophical images from gigantic ferris wheels
to offshore drilling rigs."

__________

Graham Harman is one of the most exciting voices in contemporary
philosophy.  He lives and teaches in Cairo, is a prodiguous blogger, and is
the author of several books leading upto what he describes as an
Object-Oriented Philosophy.  See more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Harman

One of his key works, for example, is a book on Bruno Latour: "The Prince of
Networks" is available as open-access
here<http://www.re-press.org/.../OA_Version_780980544060_Prince_of_Networks.pdf>and
is a serious treatment of Latour as a philosopher, describing Latour's
books *Irreductions*, *Science in Action*, *We Have Never Been Modern*, and
*Pandora’s Hope* as having major consequences for metaphysics and
philosophy. One of these consequences, congruent with Harman's own view,  is
that human subjectivity can no longer sustain a central position in
philosophy, and we need to attend to the ways in which: "the arena of the
world is jam-packed with diverse objects, their forces unleashed and mostly
unloved... snowflakes glitter in the light that cruelly annihilates them;
damaged submarines rust along the ocean floor. As flour emerges from mills
and blocks of limestone are compressed by earthquakes, gigantic mushrooms
spread in the Michigan forest. While human philosophers bludgeon each other
over the very possibility of "access" to the world, sharks bludgeon tuna
fish, and icebergs smash into coastlines."  A provocative aspect of
Object-Oriented Ontology is an argument for "aesthetics as first
philosophy", and "allure as causation"... in other words, stating that a
kind of aesthetics is the primordial force which causes everything in the
world to happen.

Here is Zizek's endorsement of Harman's upcoming book on Quentin
Meillassoux: (which is interesting given his quite un-Zizekian approach)

"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 true rare 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 Zizek"

And here is a supporter's comment to how his philosophy is political:

" If there is any point to political thought or activity, surely OOO is a
champion of it, because it says categorically that the concrete economic,
political, social and material situation is not fossilized into unbreakable
relationships, and though these situations appear quite inescapable... OOO
says that we are not condemned to that status quo.  At the same time, OOO is
deeply honest about this endeavor: if we are to change the world and not
simply describe it, we have to realize we are not sovereign, but in concert
with a near phantasmagorical array of worlds upon worlds, of an near
infinity of agents and actors which do not bow to our languages or thoughts,
each an ontological reservoir of power and relation. OOO seems very bright
to me, in that it says that we can transcend the relationships that we are
stuck in, be they economic, political, linguistic or otherwise, because we
are not absolutely defined by them. I see OOO as offering a kind of
challenging optimism when it comes to questions of agency and freedom."

See you there!

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