The Lure of Whitehead

by Nicholas Gaskill (Editor), A. J. Nocek (Editor)

Overview

Once largely ignored, the speculative philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead has assumed a new prominence in contemporary theory across the humanities and social sciences. Philosophers and artists, literary critics and social theorists, anthropologists and computer scientists have all embraced Whitehead’s thought, extending it through inquiries into the nature of life, the problem of consciousness, and the ontology of objects, as well as into experiments in education and digital media.

The Lure of Whitehead offers readers not only a comprehensive introduction to Whitehead’s philosophy but also a demonstration of how his work advances our emerging understanding of life in the posthuman epoch.

Contributors: Jeffrey A. Bell, Southeastern Louisiana U; Nathan Brown, U of California, Davis; Peter Canning; Didier Debaise, Free U of Brussels; Roland Faber, Claremont Lincoln U; Michael Halewood, U of Essex; Graham Harman, American U in Cairo; Bruno Latour, Sciences Po Paris; Erin Manning, Concordia U, Montreal; Steven Meyer, Washington U; Luciana Parisi, U of London; Keith Robinson, U of Arkansas at Little Rock; Isabelle Stengers, Free U of Brussels; James Williams, U of Dundee.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780816679966
Publisher:	University of Minnesota Press
Publication date:	10/01/2014
Pages:	496
Product dimensions:	8.40(w) x 5.40(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Nicholas Gaskill is assistant professor of English at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.

A. J. Nocek is a PhD candidate in comparative literature at the University of Washington.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations

Introduction: An Adventure of Thought
Nicholas Gaskill and A. J. Nocek

Part I. Speculation beyond the Bifurcation
1. A Constructivist Reading of Process and Reality
Isabelle Stengers
2. Scientism and the Modern World
Jeffrey A. Bell
3. What Is the Style of Matters of Concern?
Bruno Latour
4. The Technics of Prehension: On the Photography of Nicholas Baier
Nathan Brown

Part II. The Metaphysics of Creativity
5. Whitehead’s Involution of an Outside Chance
Peter Canning
6. Multiplicity and Mysticism: Toward a New Mystagogy of Becoming
Roland Faber
7. The Event and the Occasion: Deleuze, Whitehead, and Creativity
Keith Robinson
8. Whitehead and Schools X, Y, and Z
Graham Harman
9. Whitehead’s Curse?
James Williams
10. Cutting away from Smooth Space: Alfred North Whitehead’s Extensive Continuum in Parametric Software
Luciana Parisi

Part III. Process Ecology
11. Possessive Subjects: A Speculative Interpretation of Nonhumans
Didier Debaise
12. Another Regard
Erin Manning
13. Of “Experiential Togetherness”: Toward a More Robust Empiricism
Steven Meyer
14. The Order of Nature and the Creation of Societies
Michael Halewood
15. Imaginative Chemistry: Synthetic Ecologies and the Construction of Life
A. J. Nocek

Contributors
Index