François Laruelle: The Concept of Non-Photography (2011) [English]

Myriads of negatives tell of the world, speaking among themselves, constituting a vast conversation, filling a photosphere that is located nowhere. But one single photo is enough to express the real that all photographers aspire one day to capture, without ever quite succeeding in doing so. Nevertheless, this real cohabits intimately with negatives, with clichés as embedded in our lives as they are imperceptible. Photographs are the thousand flat facets of an ungraspable identity that only shines – and sometimes very faintly – through something else. What more is there to a photo than a curious and prurient glance? And yet it is also a fascinating secret.

The Concept of Non-Photography develops a rigorous new thinking of the photograph in its relation to science, philosophy and art, and introduces the reader to all of the key concepts of Laruelle’s ‘non-philosophy’.

Translated from French by Robin Mackay
Publisher Urbanomic, United Kingdom, and Sequence Press, New York, 2011
ISBN 0983216916, 9780983216919
143 pages

review (Catherine Kron, DisMagazine)

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Download (English section of the book only; removed by the publisher on 2012-6-13)

Bruno Latour, Graham Harman, Peter Erdélyi: The Prince and the Wolf: Latour and Harman at the LSE (2011)

The Prince and the Wolf contains the transcript of a debate which took place on 5th February 2008 at the London School of Economics (LSE) between the prominent French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher Bruno Latour and the Cairo-based American philosopher Graham Harman. The occasion for the debate was the impending publication of Harman’s book, Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics.

During the discussion, Latour (the ‘Prince’) compared the professional philosophers who have pursued him over the years to a pack of wolves. The Prince and the Wolf is the story of what happens when the wolf catches up with the prince. Latour and Harman engage in brisk and witty conversation about questions that go to the heart of both metaphysics and research methodology: What are objects? How do they interact? And best how to study them?

Publisher Zero Books, 2011
ISBN 1846944228, 9781846944222
146 pages

a recorded version of the symposium

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PDF (updated on 2012-7-17)

Real-World Economics Review, No. 1-59 (2000-2012)

“The movement for Post-Autistic Economics (PAE) was born through the work of Sorbonne economist Bernard Guerrien. The movement is best seen as a forum of different groups critical of the current mainstream: from behavioral and heterodox to feminist, green economics and econo-physics. Started in 2000 by a group of disaffected French economics students, Post-Autistic Economics first reached a wider audience in June 2000 after an interview in Le Monde.

It was supported by the Cambridge Ph.D. students in 2001 with the publication of ‘Opening Up Economics: A Proposal By Cambridge Students’, later signed by 797 economists.

PAE has challenged standard neoclassical assumptions and incorporated ideas from sociology and psychology into economic analysis. Specifically, the notions of utility theory, rational choice, production and efficiency theory (Pareto optimality), and game theory have been criticised.

Other topics include ‘Gross National Happiness’, realism vs. mathematical consistency, ‘Thermodynamics and Economics’, or ‘Irrelevance and Ideology’. Contributors include Bruce Caldwell, James K. Galbraith, Robert L. Heilbroner, Bernard Guerrien, Emmanuelle Benicourt, Ha-Joon Chang, Herman Daly and Richard D. Wolff.

In March 2008 the Post-Autistic Economics Review changed its name to the Real-World Economics Review.” (from Wikipedia)

Editor: Edward Fullbrook
Associate Editor: Jamie Morgan
Open-access journal
ISSN 1755-9472

wikipedia (Post-autistic economics)
authors (RWER blog)
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PDF (Issue 59, March 2012)
PDF (Issue 58, December 2011)
PDF (PDF papers, all past issues)