Nathan Brown: The Limits of Fabrication: Materials Science, Materialist Poetics (2017)

“Poetry, or poiēsis, has long been understood as a practice of making. But how are experiments in the making of poetic forms related to formal making in science and engineering? The Limits of Fabrication takes up this question in the context of recent developments in nanoscale materials science, investigating concepts and ideologies of form at stake in new approaches to material construction. Tracing the direct pertinence of fields crucial to the new materials science (nanotechnology, biotechnology, crystallography, and geodesic design) in the work of Shanxing Wang, Caroline Bergvall, Christian Bök, and Ronald Johnson back to the midcentury development of Charles Olson’s ‘objectist’ poetics, Nathan Brown carves out a tradition of constructivist, nonorganic poetics that has developed in conversation with science and engineering.

While proposing a new approach to the relation of technē (craft, skill) and poiēsis (making, forming), this book also intervenes in philosophical debates concerning the concept of the object, the distinction between organic and inorganic matter, theories of self-organization, and the relation between ‘design’ and ‘nature’. Engaging with Heidegger, Agamben, Whitehead, Stiegler, and Nancy, Brown shows that materials science and materialist poetics offer crucial resources for thinking through the direction of contemporary materialist philosophy.”

Publisher Fordham University Press, New York, 2017
ISBN 9780823272990, 0823272990
xi+296 pages
via Memory of the World

Review: Tom Eyers (boundary2, 2017).

Publisher
WorldCat

PDF (26 MB)

Christoph Cox, Jenny Jaskey, Suhail Malik (eds.): Realism Materialism Art (2015)

“Realism Materialism Art (RMA) introduces a diverse selection of new realist and materialist philosophies and examines their ramifications on the arts. Encompassing neo-materialist theories, object-oriented ontologies, and neo-rationalist philosophies, RMA serves as a primer on ‘speculative realism,’ considering its conceptual innovations as spurs to artistic thinking and practice and beyond. Despite their differences, these philosophical positions propose that thought can and does think outside itself, and that reality can be known without its being shaped by and for human comprehension. Today’s realisms and materialisms explicitly challenge many of the dominant assumptions of cultural practice and theoretical inquiry, opening up new domains of research and artistic inquiry.”

Contributions by Armen Avanessian, Elie Ayache, Amanda Beech, Ray Brassier, Mikko Canini, Diana Coole, Christoph Cox, Manuel DeLanda, Diedrich Diederichsen, Tristan Garcia, Iain Hamilton Grant, Elizabeth Grosz, Boris Groys, Graham Harman, Terry Horgan, Jenny Jaskey, Katerina Kolozova, James Ladyman, François Laruelle, Nathan Lee, Suhail Malik, Quentin Meillassoux, Reza Negarestani, John Ó Maoilearca, Trevor Paglen, Luciana Parisi, Matthew Poole, Matjaž Potrč, João Ribas, Matthew Ritchie, Alicia Ritson, Susan Schuppli, Steven Shaviro, Nick Srnicek, Achim Szepanski, Eugene Thacker, McKenzie Wark, Andy Weir.

Publisher Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, NY, and Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2015
ISBN 9783956791260, 3956791266
403 pages

Reviews: Ilse van Rijn (Open, 2015), Hatty Nestor (Review31, n.d.).

Publisher
Publisher
WorldCat

PDF (14 MB)

Stacy Alaimo, Susan Hekman (eds.): Material Feminisms (2008)

“Harnessing the energy of provocative theories generated by recent understandings of the human body, the natural world, and the material world, Material Feminisms presents a new way for feminists to conceive of the question of materiality. In lively and timely essays, an international group of feminist thinkers challenges the assumptions and norms that have previously defined studies about the body. These wide-ranging essays grapple with topics such as the material reality of race, the significance of sexual difference, the impact of disability experience, and the complex interaction between nature and culture in traumatic events such as Hurricane Katrina. By insisting on the importance of materiality, this volume breaks new ground in philosophy, feminist theory, cultural studies, science studies, and other fields where the body and nature collide.”

Publisher Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2008
ISBN 9780253349781, 0253349788
xi+434 pages
via marcelo

Reviews: Olivia P. Banner (Signs 2009), Anna Carastathis (Symposium 2009), Maria Angel (Australian Feminist Studies 2009), Cara Elana Erdheim (Interdiscip Stud Lit Environ 2010).

Publisher
WorldCat

PDF (3 MB)