Latour’s long-awaited new book is printed

I’m picking up a copy tomorrow morning. Not sure if it’s on the shelves yet; I’m snagging a complimentary copy. I’ve read the book twice in manuscript, but books always seem different in print even when you’ve read the contents many times before.

Latour is an interesting figure for a number of reasons. But the one that interests me at the moment is that he may be the single most polarizing figure on the speculative realist landscape, where he is viewed either as pivotally important or as (insert dismissive invective here). How people view Latour is perhaps the best predictor of where they fit amidst the various SR factions. “Tell me what you think of Bruno Latour, and I’ll tell you who you are.”

Even Laruelle is not quite as reliable a polarizer as Latour. Meillassoux’s remarks on Laruelle are never positive, for instance, though he shares the same basically rationalist outlook as many of those who are flocking to Laruelle. (See the Berlin lecture.)

The Third Table on radio

My dOCUMENTA notebook “The Third Table” will be broadcast as a radio show in the U.K. on October 28. More details later when I have them.

Weird Realism

Just one night in Paris, and met up with the recently agrégé Louis Morelle (you can read an article by Morelle in the new issue of Speculations, HERE).

He showed me a copy of Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy, and I was envious, since I don’t even have a copy of my own book yet. Enough time has passed since I corrected the final proofs that I have forgotten much of the book and would enjoy reading it. It looks a lot thicker than I thought it would be. Somehow I remembered it as only being around 150 pages, but it’s more like 250.

There is already a detailed review of the book by one William Koch, HERE. It’s a very diligent review and looks to be balanced, though he doesn’t seem to know my other books (he spends a lot of time towards the end saying that I should read Heidegger as a philosopher of events rather than of objects, apparently unaware of the extensive case I’ve made for the opposite claim). Anyway, it’s a good piece of work.