From the turn of the century UK-based human geography in particular has witnessed a rapid upsurge of interest in new conceptualisations of, for example, practice, performance, politics, embodiment and materiality. This reading group regularly meets to read philosophical works and trans-disciplinary materials that can inform the ongoing evolution of 'non-representational geographies'. Readings are rich and varied, for example: significant discussion within the group (and beyond) has been inspired by continental philosophers such as Badiou, Deleuze, Nancy and Ranciere as well as with recent developments in what has come to be known as 'Speculative Materialism/Realism'. Whilst the reading group is formally situated in the School of Geographical Sciences, regular participants come from across the Humanities and Social Sciences and from other institutions. We welcome participation from those with a keen interest in critically engaging with contemporary philosophical debates in the humanities, social sciences and science.

Tuesday 3 April 2012

'Retreat within the mother' and 'The primal companion'

First point – Nobjects

p. 292-294

I found Sloterdijk/Macho’s notion of the nobject interesting as a means for thinking beyond subject/object dichotomies and the ‘object prejudice’ of psychoanalysis. Whereas the object is based on a relationship of distance (that which separates the here (I) from the not-here (not-I)), the nobject is something in which the distance between It and the subject is unthinkable and non-existent (see p. 294). S. focuses on three pre-oral, foetal examples, including the placenta, acoustic events and air. Nobjects are media or things that are productive of intimate microspheres that augment the subject in particular ways. Interesting analysis in these chapters of examples of post-natal modes of nobjectivation that suck the subject in, and create new spheres of mediation around the subject (intriguing understanding of life becoming a process of finding replacement nobjective Withs).

The concept of nobject might open interesting ways of theorising new technologies and new media (I was similarly intrigued with the notion of interfaces in the ‘Between faces’ chapter); as substitutions for the With which are productive of new resonances and relations with others (Andy Warhol’s tape recorder, p. 401) – e.g. ubiquity of facebook profiles, blogosphere, computer game avatars; examples of interfaces no longer based on an opposition of mutually exclusive entities (so not necessarily objects separated from the subject) but rather on their interpenetration (more of a life-forming, life-giving dyadic relation).

Second point – An Ethics of Spherology?

pp. 341

Raises interesting questions regarding ethics of spherology – Further discussion (particularly in the excursus on Heidegger) of the possibility of the perversion of the subject through self-destructive attachment to nobjects, and the becoming-fascist of micro/macrospheres. The question for me is what theoretical resource/facilitative rules does a spherological approach provide for evaluating the mode of existence and relationality particular spheres imply, as well as for identifying (and perhaps combatting) the emergence of fascist forms (unclear beyond the fact that a sphere should be radiative, hearty, augmenting).

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