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Posts tagged: generalintellects

  • The October Revolution of Antoine Volodine

    The October Revolution of Antoine Volodine

    In the centenary of the October revolution, much has been said about it as a moment in history. Here McKenzie Wark inquires as to what becomes of the myth of October, now that we are in the time of the Anthropocene. 

  • Caspar David Friedrich, Das Grosse Gehege (detail).

    Bruno Latour: Occupy Earth

    In General Intellects, I offer condensed versions of twenty-one leading thinkers across a range of fields. but I did not include figures in anthropology, as I am still working my way through reading in what's going on there. I have been finding some exciting stuff. Elsewhere, I wrote about Anna Tsing and Achille Mbembe and Eduardo Viveros de Castro. Here I offer a critical account of the recent work of Bruno Latour on the occasion of the publication of his lectures Facing Gaia. 

  • Our Aesthetics

    Our Aesthetics

    In General Intellects I only touched on aesthetic questions. This essay extends my treatment there of Hiroki Azuma and Angela McRobbie, with a look at an influential book by Sianne Ngai.

  • Rachael the replicant in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.

    On Nick Land

    In General Intellects there was only space to cover twenty-one influential theorists. I'm often asked why this or that figure is not in it. Here's an attempt to compress the work of Nick Land — one I'm most often asked about. And certainly one of the most controversial. 

  • Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Como Era Gostono o Meu Francês (1971)

    Eduardo Viveiros de Castro: In and Against the Human

    In General Intellects, I offer condensed versions of twenty-one leading thinkers across a range of fields. but I did not include figures in anthropology, as I am still working my way through reading in what's going on there. I have been finding some exciting stuff. Elsewhere, I wrote about Anna Tsing and Achille Mbembe. Here's my report on the work of Brazilian anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, author of the brilliant Cannibal Metaphysics, including notes on a recent collaboration with the Brazilian philosopher Déborah Danowski, called The Ends of the World.

  • General Intellects: how public intellectuals of the twenty first century can write and think against their own commodification

    General Intellects: how public intellectuals of the twenty first century can write and think against their own commodification

    What happened to the public intellectuals that used to challenge and inform us? Who is the Sartre or De Beauvoir of the internet age? The decline of the public intellectual has to do with intellectual labor being absorbed into the production process. General Intellects argues we no longer have such singular figures, but there are, instead, general intellects whose writing could, if read collectively, explain our times. McKenzie Wark presented the idea behind General Intellects at a recent lecture at Virtual Futures in London. This is the first half of his talk.

    General Intellects, along with McKenzie Wark's other books Molecular Red, The Beach Beneath the Street, and The Spectacle of Disintegration are all 40% off until Sunday, June 11 at midnight UTC. All discounts will be taken at check out.