Thinking (Under) Duress:
Object Oriented Ontology, Sovereignty, and Media Theory
This IPLAI reading group is concerned with the ethics and aesthetics of political agency
in the contemporary moment. By engaging with three major books within the emergent
stream of thought called ‘Speculative Realism’, this group aims to create opportunities to
explore the effect that impersonal, global processes such as neoliberal capitalism, climate
change, and deindustrialization have on modernist conceptions of individual sovereignty
and voluntarist politics. This group will be held coextensively with a public screening
series, titled ‘DURESS’, at McGill’s Moving Image Research Lab every Monday at
19.00. The series’ programming and principle of curation reflects the posthuman and nonsovereign emphasis of the reading group, including works from directors such as Bela
Tarr, Pedro Costa, Wang Bing, Sharon Lockhart, and Lav Diaz.
Reading List:
After Finitude – Quentin Meillassoux
Guerilla Metaphysics – Graham Harman
Vibrant Matter – Jane Bennett
Scheduled meetings on Mondays, 16.00-18.00, IPLAI (3610 McTavish).
January 18th – Introduction
February 8th – Vibrant Matter by Jane Bennett (pp 1-122)
February 15th – Guerilla Metaphysics by Graham Harman (pp 1-70)
February 22nd – Guerilla Metaphysics (pp 71-168)
March 14th – Guerilla Metaphysics (pp 169-253)
March 28th – After Finitude by Quentin Meillassoux (pp 1-63)
April 11th – After Finitude (pp 63-128)
Information
Devin Wangert (devin.wangert@egs.edu)
Joshua Wiebe (joshuahwiebe@gmail.com)