Latour and the assembly of the social

So read through page 120. Its a lot but it will divide the book more equally. It is almost all of part I. I think you will find the reading much easier going than What is Philosophy so dont worry too much. 
Latour ANT Introduction

Concept Development as Method

D&G A Thousand Plateaus 

D&G What is Philosophy

The earth as a toilet for our wastes...

Hi Everyone!

I thought this talk would be interesting to us, for example given De Landa writing that "perhaps rocks hold some of the keys to understanding sedimentary humanity, igneous humanity, and all their mixtures" (p. 70). The critical, apocalyptic view seems familiar to New Materialism.

The POST building is the tall one with turquoise windows over towards the East-West center.
See you this afternoon!

Gitte.

A Couple of Hundreds Years of Mostly Not So Linear History

De Landa Reading
Introduction through page 102

Chaos Readings

Stengers and Prigogine Selections

Order Out of Chaos

 I dont have a digital copy up yet so for those that dont have access to a physical copy of the book I will have something up this evening. 

The readings we will focus on are: Preface, Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 3, Chapter 5, Chapter 9, Conclusions. 

More to come.

The Future Past: Cybernetics as Requiem

The Pickering book is useful well beyond its purposes for this class so I highly recommend reading the whole thing for those of you who are inclined towards alternative futures. Pickering has in this book sketches of some of the most interesting and visionary thinkers of the 20th century. Further he attempts to identify what animates there experiments in reality.

However for the purposes of our class please read page 1-37, 139-172, 173-182, 215-220, 253-268, 302-307, 379-402.
Pickering Reading Here

Immaterialism

I came across this witty little talk by John Lloyd this weekend. He makes a compelling argument for immaterialism - not the denial of the fact that matter exists, but an understanding that much of what rules our existance is largely immaterial - or at least not understood as material. It seems that most of what rules our existence is utterly incomprehensible to us.

http://www.ted.com/talks/john_lloyd_inventories_the_invisible.html

A good way to kick off the class

First Day of Class

Welcome to Political Science 702: Doing Stuff With Things. Bellow I have posted the syllabus and readings for the first day of class. If you know people taking the course that have not registered please forward the links to them. As these readings layout the major controversies being covered in the course it is important that everyone read them so that we share at least a basic set of questions and concepts. I look forward to seeing everyone next week. I hope you all had a nice holiday. If you have any questions please feel free to email me.

Syllabus

Bogost Readings 

Latour Reading