Theory, Culture & Society 32(5-6): Transdisciplinary Problematics (2015)

This special issue of the journal contributes to current debates about disciplinarity and academic disciplines.

With texts by Peter Osborne, Michel Serres (introduced by Lucie Mercier), Étienne Balibar, David Cunningham, Nina Power, Félix Guattari (introduced by Andrew Goffey), Éric Alliez, Stella Sandford, Tuija Pulkkinen, and Lisa Baraitser.

Edited by Peter Osborne, Stella Sandford and Éric Alliez
Publisher Sage, September-November 2015
ISSN 0263-2764
231 pages

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continent. 4.3: Intangible Architectures (2015)

“This issue of continent. deals with the theme of intangible architectures. While in keeping with the theoretical and experimental nature of previous issues, this release intends a balance with an urgent grounding in current events, political schemas and areas of research that demand broadened dialogue. An underlying conversation represents some response to the tension that is enabled through systems that shape experience, behaviour and meaning – examining the imprints and traces that are left on our beings by these forms.

In some cases, this tension is manifest as social violence, where political and economic conditions are inseparable from the cultural expression of these structures. The idea of intangible architectures as political agents may relate to emergency states, militarised environments, questions of statehood and national borders, and the patterns of self-determining communities (Paul Boshears, Charles Stankievech, Ethel Baraona Pohl, César Reyes Nájera, Léopold Lambert). Architectures that are not yet constructed, and the rhetoric used to justify or oppose such development, are also revealing of the philosophy of private developers and communities of resistance (Lital Khaikin, Nathan Medema).

We may then find, after encountering these most immediate forms of intangible architectures, the spatial manipulations of social and intimate behaviour, laws, experiences, and memories. Architectural structures that do exist may yet conceal more complex frameworks, which exude laws that are autonomous to their initial, intended use. These subtle systems are encountered in liminal and transitory zones of city space, in artist-run exhibition spaces, in the homes that we recreate in our memories, in the emotional symbolism we create from structural space (Paolo Patelli, Giuditta Vendrame, Simone Ferracina, Sophie-Carolin Wagner, Tiara Roxanne).

But then, may we go deeper to find traces, mirrors of these intangible architectures, within language and more abstract experience of atmosphere? Do the systems by which we begin a construction of our understanding of the world – from phonemes to the cartographies that are charted in sonic atmosphere – not also shape our behaviours and relationships to space? (Kaie Kellough, Jason Sharp, Orit Halpern) In all cases, we are asked to consider the manifestations of structures that determine our experiences, interpretations and relationships to space. Let these be public or intimate – they engage the imagination equally, challenging us to think about the way these imprints affect our shared presence and relation to all beings.” (from Editorial)

Edited by Lital Khaikin, Paul Boshears, Jamie Allen, and Matt Bernico
Publisher continent., September 2015
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
ISSN 2159-9920

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The Anthropocene Review, 2(2): When and How Did the Anthropocene Begin? (2015)

“In March of this year, Nature published a stimulating article by Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin entitled Defining the Anthropocene (Lewis and Maslin, 2015). In it, they proposed criteria for determining the formal onset of the Anthropocene Epoch and from these, derived new starting dates. They proposed two alternatives, ad 1610 and ad 1964. The former date lies some two centuries before the date proposed by Crutzen and Stoermer (2000) in their paper introducing and providing both a definition and a starting point for the Anthropocene. The latter date is over a decade later than an alternative and increasingly discussed onset date arising from Steffen et al.’s paper (2007) identifying a ‘Great Acceleration’ in detectable human impact on the Earth System beginning in the mid 20th century. These new proposals have provoked a great deal of interest and debate.

In this issue of The Anthropocene Review, we have tried to provide a timely account of this debate. The first four papers comprise contrasted ‘comments’ on the Nature article, followed by ‘replies’ from its authors. The issues raised are far from forming a sterile debate on starting dates. They are full of, and indeed go well beyond, the engaging scientific basis upon which the contrasted points of view rest.” (from the Editorial)

Editor: Mike Oldfield
Publisher Sage, August 2015
ISSN 20530196
91 pages

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