Thoughts on the RSA panel papers
I’ve now had a chance to read three of the four papers from the RSA Object Oriented Rhetoric panel. Jim Brown’s summary is quite accurate, and I also recommend Nate’s thoughts on the potential of OOR. Here I’ll offer an overview of my reading of the papers, followed my my own sense of what object-oriented rhetoric might look like, or… read more
Object-Oriented Misunderstandings
A while back Jim Brown mentioned to me that there would be an object-oriented rhetoric panel at this year’s Rhetoric Society of America conference. Jim attended RSA but wasn’t able to make the panel; still, he’s managed to dig up the papers and he wrote up a summary over on the RSA’s Blogora. I’m not yet sure what object-oriented rhetoric… read more
Graham has a short post up mentioning Heidegger’s distaste for the crossword puzzle. Given that we have a whole chapter about crosswords and related puzzles in Newsgames, I’m particularly keen to read this if anyone digs it up. Heidegger’s reaction was actually quite common. Some may not realize that the crossword puzzle incited a moral panic when it rose to… read more
Branding Your Weird Academic Field
I’ve been meaning to post a link to Ethan Watrall’s April article Building an Interdisciplinary Identity in a (Mostly) Non-Interdisciplinary Academic World. It includes a number of tips for branding yourself as an academic when working outside of or in-between traditional fields. I know that many academics, particularly those straggler pinko humanists, sometimes writhe at the idea of “marketing” themselves… read more
Summaries, Papers, and Blogs
An update on the aftermath of last week’s Rorty conference. First, organizer Liz Losh has posted detailed accounts of all the sessions on her blog: Part 1, archives Part 2, data Part 3, philosophy Part 4, public intellectualism Part 5, rhetoric Part 6, closing I spent part of last week and the weekend playing hashtag voyeur on a few conferences… read more
Time Will Tell, But Epistemology Won't: In Memory of Richard Rorty
In 1999, the Silicon Alley entrepreneur Josh Harris rented an underground warehouse in lower Manhattan and subjugated a hundred friends to a home-made police state he named “QUIET.” Its residents slept in open bunk pods stacked atop one another, each with a bus depot television with a closed-circuit feed from every other pod. Quieters partook of bacchanal feasts and abusive… read more
Pragmatism and Realism
On Friday I was honored to participate in Time Will Tell, But Epistemology Won’t, a conference in memory of Richard Rorty and in celebration of the opening of his collection of papers in the UC Irvine Critical Theory Archive. Particular attention was given to the “born digital” materials, which are offered in a unique “online reading room,” allowing researchers access… read more
Design Beyond the Object
In addition to our new book Newsgames, the Fall 2010 MIT Press catalog (PDF) includes a wonderful new title called NONOBJECT, by designer Branko LukiÄ? (frog design, IDEO) and writer Barry M. Katz (California College of Design). I paste the press’s blurb below in its entirety, it’s so lurid and wonderful. The “objective” world is one of facts, data, and… read more
Object-Oriented Ontology Recordings, Book, Mirth
As Levi has revealed, he and I are putting together a book, Object-Oriented Ontology. It will carry both the proceedings of last week’s symposium, as well as new contributions from Katherine Behar, Melanie Doherty, Katherine Hayles, and Adrian Ivakhiv. We may add at least one more contribution as well, stay tuned. The collection will be published in the Open Humanities… read more
Reactions to the Latour Litanizer
Levi just posted a link to my Latour Litanizer, which has generated a bunch of new traffic to and reflection about the tool. Over at Effervescent Crucibles, Michael points out that the litanizer tends to bring up people quite frequently. As he observes, “it points to the fact that, because of various aspects of our way of being in the… read more