Welcome My Son

Cliff Gerrish makes a good point about Aetna insurance:  You mistake those words for a message from a human making a statement about a state...

American Medical Insurers, You Are Ignorant as Well as Brutal

…obviously. But you just couldn't be more absurd. Obamacare's website not quite fast enough? That's nothing. Nothing. Consider t...

A Thing Is Less than the Sum of Its Parts

Nice one Graham . May I achieve this intense clarity within this life.

Critical Theory Reading List

Thanks Graham . Oh gosh I think I owe these New York based chaps an interview.

NSA vs Target

"It's cool that my local department store knows that I'm pregnant before I do. But it's not cool for the NSA to know that I...

Professor Morton's Guide to Tropology 1: What Is a Trope?

A trope is an algorithm for generating a certain kind of meaning. For instance: 1. Choose a noun. 2. Choose a cause of that noun. 3. Swap 2 ...

Highly Recommended

Douglas Kahn, Earth Sound Earth Signal . Just out. One of the very best things of 2011 was going around Australia and New Zealand with Doug,...

Oh Go On, You Know You Want To

Look at your basic mind, just simple awareness which is not divided into sections, the thinking process that exists within you. Just look at...

Agrilogistics Explained

Oh dear .

Happy Yule Y'all

Why do I get excited by the Solstice? I just do.

My Interview with Jeff Carreira

Is online .

"Often, Ruefully Funny"

Douglas Armato on Hyperobjects .

Extraordinaryflakes

These snowflakes are good . Thanks Rick Muller!

Turning Nihilist

Long time correspondent Nick Guetti (hi Nick! I owe you an email!) writes:  I just had a long FB conversation with an old friend of mine: pe...

Bad Loops

Thank heavens the FDA is getting on the case of antibacterial soaps. They are also anti-batrachic, ie they make frogs die. "Long-time T...

OOO and Art

So I'm off to the Menil Collection, which is this excellent, excellent art museum around the corner. Literally two blocks away from me. ...

Yes

I like this theory . I just do, and have done for years. It's funny to see it on the front page of the Huffington Post. Just in time for...

Ocean as Hyperobject

Yes! By Steve Mentz .

Nonhumans in Comedy

Happiness is…giving episode 1 of The Mighty Boosh  series 1 to your buddy Cary Wolfe, who agrees with you that comedy is the highest art for...

JLiat book

It looks good! And reminds me to send him Hyperobjects -- he's in it!

Anthropocentrism and Marxism

Saying that ontology should be non-anthropocentric is not the same as saying humans should not act to change their material conditions. It...

Jeff Carreira on Our Interview

Posted here .

Ring Puppets

I love me a puppet .

STEMming

Stem: the central shaft. Stem: a branching shaft. Which, really? To stem from. Implication of something prior, despite the attempt to assert...

Are You a Romantic? (Interview)

Yes that's right pale faces of sad sack rage , I am a New Age consumerist, ish! This was actually a very good interaction, between me an...

Yes Henry Warwick

…that's the opening few seconds of “Close to the Edge” sampled at the start of “Lights in My Brain.”

Phantasms

Very good DJ Spooky. You didn't have to be so very kind about my book--thank you sir. This is one of my favorite Spooky things, a remix ...

Bills, Bills, Bills

That's nothing, NYT . With my heart beating too fast I was driven one block to hospital in Philly. The bill was $13000. 7 hours of monit...

Inside the Fear Is the Sadness

Going beyond fear begins when we examine our fear: our anxiety, nervousness, concern, and restlessness. If we look into our fear, if we look...

Petrolepathy

Great title for a talk this Wednesday by Tom Cohen, who is visiting Rice. I'll be introducing.

Situational Aggression

Two somewhat distressed undergrads just told me, in my capacity as director of undergraduate studies. There is a Facebook page on which Rice...

"I hope he fails"

No it isn't single payer. I'm still into it .

Dub Philosophy

With the help of my awesome consumerism students and TAs (Larry Butz and Derek Woods) I reiterated today my oft repeated claim (repeated by ...

Badly Myelinated Neurons

“One of the hallmarks of that millennial profile is an inability to acknowledge mistakes,” the staffer said, sounding equal parts bemused an...

Secret Agents ov Gaia (MP3)

My talk at the American Academy of Religion, November 23, 2013. Thanks very much to Adrian Ivakhiv for convening the panel, “Querying Natura...

Tardis

Isn't this nice? On the 50th anniversary of a certain show. From my theology student Ross. I think objects are Tardises.

Ecological Awareness 101

This is the title of what I'll be sharing with the undergrads across the disciplines at Loyola in New Orleans in February. I hope you ca...

Remorseless Gentleness

Thanks Kate ! The juxtaposition of terror and peace is all too delicious.

Another Blow to LEM

…or the Law of the Excluded Middle. We have Neanderthal DNA. Neanderthals have DNA of an unknown humanoid ancestor .

Foucault and Mental Health

Thatcher and Reagan used Foucault to justify their closing of mental hospitals .

The Nonhuman Turn

I just got my images together for Richard Grusin's collection of essays, which promises to be quite groundbreaking. There are an awful l...

Interview with Doug Lain

Doug is good at playing back and forth with sentences . I was looking forward to it ever since we set it up. And was not disappointed! It is...

Waiting for Someone to Die

…given the urgency and the other options, is in fact startlingly patient and nonviolent .

Prisoner's Dilemma Leaflet Drop

That would be a way to do it. Just have the air force drop millions of leaflets on the Prisoner's Dilemma across the country. The entire...

Excellent Hyperobjects Review

Right here .

Wrong

Nope . You take a bunch of carbon compounds and some other stuff, and some cyanide, and inject some electricity. Fairly shortly you have ami...

Pass It On

I'm sure this TPM commenter won't mind you tweeting his ready mades: 1/6) FACTS-Insurers knowingly CHOSE to change grandfathered pla...

Onward

Next up, Adrian Ivakhiv has assembled a bunch of weirdos to talk about Bruno Latour's Gaia at the American Academy of Religion. Mine is ...

Bristles (MP3)

My talk at Contact Ecologies, MEMSI. It would be difficult to imagine a better intro than the one Jeffrey Cohen so kindly gave. Great quest...

Thank you Jeffrey Cohen

What an incredibly nice time I've had at George Washington University, courtesy of Jeffrey Cohen. I just finished a delightful breakfast...

Nineteenth-Century Studies CFP

In Houston! I'm talking! Email Professor Lynn Voskuil (lvoskuil@Central.UH.EDU).

John Tavener RIP

He is able to reach an unspeakable region.

Karen Jacobs

At Rice this Friday!

This Looks Right

Nice one Graham .

We Are Already Dead

Thank you for that Roy Scranton ! Your thoughts are very congruent with mine. Look at this:  Geological time scales, civilizational collapse...

That Was Nice

An interview with Doug Lain, host of the renowned Diet Soap podcast. I love to do interviews. They are like jazz: thinking and talking as ...

What I'm Saying These Days

Horror is the telepathy of flesh, taking telepathy to mean strictly passion at a distance, the susceptibility of a thing to a...

Go Figure

10% of the total sales of my books since I published the first one have been in the last month.

Plant Sensing

A good place to start to find out about it .

40bn Earth-like Planets

You think there might not just be human subjects out there ?

Notes on Divining Transhuman Space

Featuring Caroline Picard . Looks very promising.

I Believe the Correct Phrase Sounds Like "Grace-ist Brother Clucker"

Read it and weep .

Annise Parker

She's the first openly gay mayor of a US city and she lives round the corner from us. And was just reelected. Nice one!

Some Upcoming Talks

“Bristles,” George Washington University, November 15. See Jeffrey Cohen's pages for details on this.  “Secret Agents of Gaia,” American...

Jeff Kripal

Boy oh boy my friend and colleague Jeff Kripal can write. His Authors of the Impossible  is the first humanities book I've read that has...

My Interview with Brooklyn Rail

Greg Lindquist is an artist very keen on objects and ANT. It was nice talking with him . The interview is about Hyperobjects .

Tom Cohen at Rice

On December 4. With a fascinating sounding talk, "Petrolepathy." 4pm in Sewall 309.

Bingo

"People who are afraid of the ACA should be much more afraid of the insurance companies who will exploit their fear and end up overchar...

Degenerate Art

Bartok insisted, to his credit, on being part of the Degenerate Art exhibition of the Nazis in 1937. It's in the news as a cache of ...

Well This Is Interesting

I wonder whether, given this talk, neoliberalism is a kind of monotheism of the hyperobject, where there is only one true hyperobject (the m...

Zurkownian Blogsmithery

By the extraordinary Derek Woods . Watch out everyone! He is my and Cary's Ph.D student!

Another Whacky Chart

1. Hyerobjects. 2. Dialectic of Enlightenment . 3. Patrick Goggins,  A Reader's Guide to Reza Aslan's Zealot. 4. Barthes,  Camera Lu...

The Whackiest Chart

1. Kafka, Metamorphosis . 2. Eric Pepin, Meditation within Eternity . 3. Elisa Medhus, My Son and the Afterlife . 4. Bachelard, Poetics of S...

Rules of the Road

UK: There are rules, which is why I had to run you over with my car. I was going at the speed limit. California: There are rules. But I don...

Zero Sum Gaming

I hope Krugman continues to ignore the absurdities issuing from a Harvard historian who fancies himself adept at economics. And continues in...

Will This Turn Texas on to a More Rational Healthcare Policy?

… one in a hundred in my area get yellow fever by 2085 , because of global warming.

Consumerism Blogging

Go on, you know you want to . More heartbreakingly beautiful prose from my undergraduate students. Read the one on STEM courses. And the oth...

Will It Break Capitalism?

I'm not sure. But WWII for sure broke a certain phase of imperialism. One wonders whether the gradual realization that we are in the Ant...

Alternate Currents Blog

Joseph Campana (Rice) has started  an awesome blog on energy and ecology and the humanities .

Salt Sugar Fat

It strikes me that one thing this book reveals is how the taste map of the tongue is in error. There is a gigantic forest of sweet receptors...

Haunting, Enchantment, and Leaky Ecosystems: Zurkow's Presentation

Latour litanies! A fantastic list of directives at the end! Haunting, Enchantment, and Leaky Ecosystems

That's My Class!

In the inset picture top left. Click for more detail.

Nazi Nature

Oh Banksy, friend of my father.

Bruno Latour

Started writing me. He is into Realist Magic and wants to know about hyperobjects from the horse's mouth. He is very very nice.

Marina Zurkow: "Haunting, Enchantment, and Leaky Ecosystems"

At Rice today (slides to follow!): Permian Basin: NM plus TX, major amount of oil  drawings to trouble her own bias; drove around West Texas...

Who or What Is Marina Zurkow?

Let Derek Woods, ruler of lichens, tell you .

Marina Zurkow at Rice Monday 4pm

“Haunting, Enchantment, and Leaky Ecosystems.” I shall be introducing, with Joseph Campana.

Are You Experienced?

Reggie Ray turned me into a Buddhist. Well I was a meditator already but he performed the refuge ceremony, at a winter retreat in the Rockie...

We Have Exited the Holocene

This data point seems rather shockingly vivid in that regard.

(When) Does the Cynical Reason Take Over

...in this Chipotle advertorial? I reckon even Adorno would have found it hard not to like the detourned Willy Wonka. Thanks to Larry Butz, ...

Sabotage

How hard would it be for a hater to make a bot that signed up for accounts and passwords on healthcare.gov over and over and over again? And...

Wrong Senator Inhofe

My uncle was just treated for a stroke in the UK. Very very well. He spent ten days in hospital. The only difference between here and there ...

Automatic Nothingness (MP3)

My talk at Performing Objects. So good to see Rob Jackson and João again. Automatic Nothingness

High Art/Low Art Is Now OOObsolete

Gosh I wish I'd been able to say that in the Q&A just now. There was a very good question that I answered by talking about indigenou...

The Tea Party Speaks to the World on the Current Crisis

"We have lost the war. But we are determined not to lose the battle."

Delegitimizing the First Black President

If you haven't seen this yet--especially if you're wondering what the heck is going on over here, this is now required viewing .

Object-Oriented Feminism (MP3)

From SLSA. Packed room and a very enjoyable set of papers. Frenchy Lunning's was amazing, I feel. It was on overlaps between what Harman...

Ada Lovelace Day

Happy day, celebrating the first programmer of computers .

Why Haven't I Received Hyperobjects Yet?

...probably because the first edition sold out before it appeared in the stores. Have patience given this rather surprising fact.

Interview Today

For Brooklyn Rail , about Hyperobjects . Greg Lindquist is a very interesting writer who has put together, for instance, this piece about ob...

It's Horrible How Wrong You're Getting This, BBC

So you have this neighbor who has been making your life hell. First he tied you up with a spurious lawsuit; you’re both suffering from huge ...

Can Movies Make Us Healthier?

My colleague Kirsten Ostherr rocking it at TEDx tomorrow. TEDx Houston 2013  -   The Other Things At Rice University, on September 12, 1962,...

OOO + Feminism

My talk “Weird Essentialism” is about that, by the way, as is my other talk, “All Objects Are Deviant,” which I shall soon post. It was good...

Puppetry

“At a press conference Thursday, House GOP leadership announced the new strategy, one day after Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham admitted...

Getting Ready, World?

I do so wish the BBC would stop reporting this whole thing as a tiff. Nicholas Kristoff isn't the greatest but he gets it right here: Th...

If Nothing Will Happen

...why are you threatening to blow up the debt ceiling?

My Gerrymandered District

Can you believe it? The district stops literally at the houses down my street where Chicano and black people live. And it winds into areas t...