if you want to come to my Goldsmiths discussion(s) on Friday, January 20

[ADDENDUM: Event now closed. 50 requests were already received for the 15 slots, and they’ve asked that no more be sent.]

Susan Schuppli said I could mention this here. As she puts it: “we are leaving about 15 spaces open for people wish to join us the friday but they need to email and confirm a spot in advance. They can email Lorenzo lorenzopezzani@gmail.com”

Day 1: Friday, 20th of January 2012
Networks and Assemblages: A Day-Long Seminar with Graham Harman
Goldsmiths, RHB 312 / 10:30am-5pm
Philosopher Graham Harman is Professor at the American University in Cairo and the author of numerous books and texts (several of which will be references in this day-long session). During the seminar, Harman will trace out the contours of an object-oriented philosophy and imagine how our world might look like “once the human subject in all its blatant and camouflaged forms exhausts the few remaining permutations and finally loses its status as Emperor of Philosophy.”

10:30am-1:00pm: Discovering Objects
+ Susan Schuppli – Introduction to Graham Harman’s work and its operative modalities for thinking/doing practice-led research. Of specific importance are Harman’s two books: Tool-Being: Heidegger and the Metaphysics of Objects (2002) and Guerrilla Metaphysics: Phenomenology and the Carpentry of Things (Court, 2005).
+ Seminar Presentation: Discovering Objects is More Important Than Eliminating Them
Lecture by Graham Harman
In the morning session we will also try and situate the project of Speculative Realism, which was, in part, im- pelled by an important workshop held here at Goldsmiths April 27 2007 with presentations by Ray Brassier, Iain Hamilton Grant, Graham Harman, and Quentin Meillassoux (see Related Readings).
Rather than announcing the advent of a new theoretical ‘doctrine’ or ‘school’, the Speculative Realism event conjoined four ambitious philosophical projects – all of which boldly problematise the subjectivistic and anthropocentric foundations of much of Continental Philosophy while differing significantly in their respective strategies for superseding them. It is precisely this uniqueness of each participant that allowed a fruitful discussion to emerge. Alongside the articulation of various challenges to certain idealistic premises, a determination of the obstacles that any contemporary realism must surmount was equally in effect. Accordingly, some of the key issues under scrutiny included the status of science and epistemology in contemporary philosophy, the ontological constitution of thought, and the nature of subject-independent objects. ‘Speculative Realism’, then, forces contemporary philosophy to make a decision, but it is not so much one concerning idealism or realism. Rather, at stake here is the possibility of a future for audacious and original philosophical thought as a discourse on reality itself.
+ Response by Susan Schuppli
Related Readings: 1) Graham Harman, The Road to Objects, unpublished work http://roundtable.kein.org/node/1263 2) Graham Harman, Networks and Assemblages: The Rebirth of Things in Latour and DeLanda, paper presented at Goldsmiths in 2007 http://roundtable.kein.org/node/1262 3) Speculative Realism http://roundtable.kein.org/node/1265
Additional Reference Materials: 1) Bryant, Levi, Nick Srnicek, and Graham Harman, eds. The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism. Melbourne: re.press, 2011. http://www.re-press.org/book-files/OA_Version_Speculative_Turn_9780980668346.pdf “One common thread running through the new brand of continental positions is a renewed attention to materialist and realist options in philosophy. It might be hard to find many shared positions in the writings of Badiou, DeLanda, Laruelle, Latour, Stengers, and Zizek, all of whom elaborate a positive ontology, despite the incompatibility of their results but what is missing from their positions is an obsession with the critique of written texts.” 2) Object-Oriented Philosophy (blog): https://doctorzamalek2.wordpress.com

2:00pm – 5:00pm: Is the Speculative Political Future of Egypt also a Philosophical Project?

This session continues the discussion of the morning and will deal with some of the political implications of the philosophy of Speculative Realism as it might pertain to the changing realities of Egypt today. How does its more globalised project intervene to engage directly with experiences in contemporary Egypt happening in the streets, online, and captured by mobile technologies? Can philosophy play a role to play beyond engaging with the hermeneutics of the written word whether expressed as criticism or commentary, in such rapidly changing and activist contexts? Moreover does the philosophy of Speculative Realism have a future in a project in which politics alongside its religious alliances, seems to be the determinant factor in producing the new reality of Egypt — a kind of totalizing or universalist discourse that Speculative Realism would itsekf naturally be resistant to.
+ Graham Harman – Preliminary Reflections + Response by Godofredo Pereira

Earth-Objects and the Politics of Ecology
Barbican Art Gallery Events Space (Barbican Art Gallery, Level 3) / 2pm–6pm
With the intensified speed of capitalist production acting as a force multiplier in reformatting the biosphere, nature responds as a terrifying, dark agent – blackening earth and sky. Its effects on human and non-human populations are at the same time legal-scientific, military-humanitarian and ethico-political. Geo-philosophic speculation and forensics investigation into the deep history of the earth is perhaps the only way to bring to the foreground the complexity of this new natural-political assemblage where the separations between humans and environment, culture and nature, the anthropological and the geological are no longer stable.
As part of its salon event for the OMA/Progress exhibition at the Barbican, the Centre for Research Architecture (CRA) invites the philosopher Graham Harman to respond to the open archive of CRA members and engage in an open roundtable discussion with the public. Presentations by Nabil Ahmed, Paulo Tavares, Eyal Weizman, Susan Schuppli and CRA members. Response by Noortje Marres.