Genealogies of Speculation: Materialism and Subjectivity Since Structuralism

367 Pages·2016·3.485 MB·English

by  Armen Avanessian

GENEALOGIES OF SPECULATION
Also available from Bloomsbury:
PRESENT TENSE – A POETICS
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SPECULATIVE REALISM
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SUBJECTIVITY AND IDENTITY
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GENEALOGIES OF SPECULATION
MATERIALISM AND SUBJECTIVITY SINCE
STRUCTURALISM
Edited by
Armen Avanessian and Suhail Malik
Bloomsbury Academic
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First published 2016
© Armen Avanessian, Suhail Malik and contributors, 2016
Armen Avanessian and Suhail Malik have asserted their right under the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Authors
of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 9781472591678
PB: 9781474271295
ePDF: 9781472591692
ePub: 9781472591685
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Genealogies of speculation : materialism and subjectivity since
structuralism / edited by Armen Avanessian and Suhail Malik.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4725-9167-8 (alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-4742-7129-5 (alk.
paper) – ISBN 978-1-4725-9168-5 (alk. paper) 1. Realism. I. Avanessian,
Armen, editor.
B835.G43 2016
149’.2–dc23
2015028981
Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN
To Robin Mackay – in admiration of his construction of a
twenty-first century philosophy.

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
Contributors x
Introduction: Speculative Genealogies – Armen Avanessian and
Suhail Malik 1
Part 1: Genealogy 27
1 Foreign Territory: The Promises and Perils of Speculative
Realism – Steven Shaviro 29
2 Reflections of a Rotten Nature: Hegel, Lacan and Material
Negativity – Adrian Johnston 41
3 For a Realist Systems Theory: Luhmann, the Correlationist
Controversy and Materiality – Levi R. Bryant 70
4 Deleuze: Speculative and Practical Philosophy –
Sjoerd van Tuinen 93
Part 2: Languages of Speculation 115
5 Iteration, Reiteration, Repetition: A Speculative Analysis of
the Sign Devoid of Meaning – Quentin Meillassoux 117
6 Language Ontology – Armen Avanessian 199
7 The Realist Novel and ‘the Great Outdoors’: Towards a
Literary-Speculative Realism – Arne De Boever 217
8 Materialist Reason and its Languages. Part One: Absolute
Reason, Absolute Deconstruction – Suhail Malik 238
Contents
Part 3: Science 269
9 Underlabouring for Science: Althusser, Brassier, Bhaskar –
Nathan Coombs 271
10 Formalism, Materialism and Consciousness –
Dorothea Olkowski 300
11 Subtending Relations: Bacteria, Geology and the Possible –
Myra J. Hird and Kathryn Yusoff 319
Index 343
viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Armen Avanessian and Suhail Malik thank Christoph Cox and Diann
Bauer for their helpful comments on early versions of the Introduction,
and to Robin Mackay and Mortiz Gansen for their attentive and generous
commitment to translating Quentin Meillassoux’s chapter.
With Nathan Coombs, we thank Edinburgh University Press and
Bloomsbury for agreeing to simultaneously publish parts of chapter four of
History and Event: from Marxism to Contemporary French Theory as parts of
chapter ten of this volume.
Together with Myra J. Hird and Kathleen Yusoff, we’d also like to extend
our gratitude to Scott Loughheed for his assistance with the references to
chapter twelve. Myra J. Hird gratefully acknowledges the Social Sciences
and Humanities Council of Canada for funding her research.