sphaleotas

Doctor’s orders

Fellow Christian Gentleman Dan Cruickshank has drawn my attention to a solo exhibition mounted by erstwhile spiritual advisor to Màlik Yimayama, Kristen Alvanson.

A keen student of all matters numerological, Sphaleotas urges your attendance.

Tell Mrs Broadhurst I can’t make it to the Red Mercury meltdown either

[...] [A]ided by the English translations which finally became available between 1980-90, the reception of [Deleuze and Guattari’s] oeuvre progressed noticeably: “In England, ‘deleuzians’ sought neither to commentate on his work, nor to apply it. They tried rather to ‘assemble with it’ – in cinema, in sculpture, in performance art, in rock music.” The Warwick philosopher, Keith Ansell-Pearson, clearly engaged with deleuzian positions and even qualifies Deleuze as a “difference engineer”.

Nick Land, a character become mythical because invisible since he abandoned teaching, also taught philosophy at the University of Warwick. He sought to connect the two volumes of “Capitalism and Schizophrenia” with Norbert Wiener’s work on cybernetics, but also with esotericism and science-fiction. In the 90s, he organised several cultural happenings on themes like “Virtual Futures”, “Afro-Futures” and “Video-Technics”, bringing together in the same event conferences and techno-parties at the venerable University of Warwick, little-accustomed to such types of rhythm.

— François Dosse, Gilles Deleuze et Félix Guattari: Biographie Croisée (Paris: La Découverte, 2007), pp. 568-569.

Everything begins to gel

Oh, surely not...

You’re fired.

Virtual Terrorism and the Internet E-learning Options

DAVID R. COLE University of Tasmania, Australia

doi: 10.2304/elea.2007.4.2.116

E-learning on the Internet is constituted by the options that this global technology gives the user. This article explores these options in terms of the lifestyle choices and decisions that the learner will make about the virtual worlds, textual meanings and cultural groupings that they will find as they learn online. This is a non-linear process that complicates dualistic approaches to e-learning, such as those which propose real/virtual distinctions. It also sets up the notion of virtual terrorism, which is explained in terms of the political forces that have come about due to e-learning. This article uses the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze as a best fit in order to understand the ways in which the e-learning of the Internet options is apparent in contemporary society. Deleuze made a division between unconscious learning and apprenticeship learning, that makes sense in terms of the virtual and cultural worlds that inform the lifestyle choices on the Net. This is because the navigation of virtual worlds involves imaginative processes that are at the same time an education of the senses of the type that the apprentice will receive. Furthermore, in his work with Félix Guattari, he developed the notion of the plane of immanence, which is used to pinpoint the presence of virtual terrorism in e-learning practices.

http://www.wwwords.co.uk/elea/content/pdfs/4/issue4_2.asp

Is This the Face of ’08?

Màlik Yimayama (not his real name) this month shocked and appalled the Greenwich scholarly community by not referring once to the “cybernetic paradigm” during the course of a three-hour position paper.

For this reason alone, Sphaleotas cannot sufficiently recommend the sureness and subtlety of this young scholar’s oeuvre, and therefore implores all readers to address the challenge it presents to their various research projects.

“These are two very different and unrelated issues.”

Date: Sat, 19 May 2007 20:30:35 +0100
Reply-To: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event, Constructivism"
Sender: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event, Constructivism"
From: "sdv@krokodile.co.uk" [sdv@KROKODILE.CO.UK]
Subject: Laurelle and ...

Saturday,

I thi8nk it was james who mentioned Laurelle earlier - there is a book by John Mullarkey which some interesting comments on Francois Laurelle and non-philosophy. Along with a sketchmap of the relations to Deleuze, Henry, Badiou....I wouldn't callit essential or particularlly good but worth checking out for the Henry and Laurelole...

I wonder why academics like Mullarkey remain as sexist as they are, because just as in the seminar earlier today where the psychoanalyst/therapist could inexcusably speak for 45 minutes on 'Meeting' without a single reference to a single female theorist, so Mullarkey can choose to write of philosophy as if philosophy was the unique preserve of men. He and the publishers should be ashamed of themselves for producing such a text.

Curious how reactionary those who write secondary texts are...he is of course 15 years or so younger than I am, so perhaps I should reference how his entire adult life has existed with the counter-reformation. But the reality is that its 2007 and a popular tv show like Dr Who is less reactive than his text. Appalling, just appalling...

enjoy, it's really quite good on Henry and Laurelle... just that i can't help noticing how...

later.

s

http://www.driftwork.info/blogs/index.php - Weblog Postings Can be Viewed here
http://driftwork.info - Theory-Lyotard-Badiou-Event Web Home

Date: Sun, 20 May 2007 12:23:37 +0100
Reply-To: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event, Constructivism"
Sender: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event, Constructivism"
From: Nina Power
Subject: Re: Laurelle and ...

Yes but Steve, don't forget the time you copied a blog post which was actually written by a woman, you somehow forget to reference it!

Nina

Demonically protean practice of distributed hypersimulation

http://www.truemors.com/

Inconceivable Alienations

Lorem Ipsum

Goldsmiths MA in Culture Industry* [*subject to validation] Theories of the Culture Industry: Work, Creativity and Precariousness This course sets out the key theorisations of the culture industry. Whilst incorporating classical figurations of the culture industry, the course is primarily concerned with assembling a clear engagement with contemporary research, such as that spearheaded by leading researchers at Goldsmiths. The organisation and substance of work and of precarious labour, of the developing debates and mechanisms of ‘intellectual property’, and cultural workers’ development of institutions and networks, as well as contemporary configurations of the professional, will be discussed. You will learn to strategise cultural production and intervention through exploration of relevant material. The globalisation of the culture industry will provide a persistent and ambitious point of reference. Practices of the Culture Industry This module presents a series of lectures and presentations by cultural practitioners. It aims to introduce students to contemporary debates in architecture, the legal framing and development of culture, visual art, design, community art and media, and interactive media. The course will map out the tricky transitions between theory and practice and include a rigorous discussion of the nature and the political, intellectual, and cultural stakes of interdisciplinarity. Driven by questions of practice, this core course is organised around a series of more detailed analyses of specific cultural dynamics, where the theoretical models from part one are brought to bear on individual areas of practice and the ways that they can and cannot be thought of in terms of ‘industry’. Cultural organisation has become increasingly important as a cultural form in itself. Whether this is seen in artists’ self-organisation, or through the changing scope of music distribution set in play by digital networks and other ‘disruptive technologies’, what culture means is increasingly seen as being critically interwoven with how it is ‘done’.

Clever Man Wins Prize For Accelerating Divine Creativity

http://templetonprize.org/purpose.html

Carpe diem

weltarm

David Farrell Krell, ‘The Bodies of Black Folk: From Kant and Hegel to Du Bois and Baldwin’, boundary 2, 27.3 (2000), 103-134 (pp. 103-104):

The bodies of black folk? The title is an impertinence. It ought to be a matter of the souls of black folk—precisely those souls that for entire epochs of European history have been denied spirit and intelligence. Yet have not these peoples also been denied their bodies, their multifarious bodies—bodies of the Earth and the world, bodies of nature, culture, and history? Have they not been denied their erotic and intelligent bodies, their free bodies? This essay consists of four parts. The first part, taking W. E. B. Du Bois’s sojourn in Germany as its inspiration, raises the question of studying abroad, particularly in Europe, for African Americans today. Such study was very important to the intellectual and artistic development of African American philosophers and writers during the past century, but today it is challenged by other pressing educational priorities and by other discourses. The second part turns briefly to Kant’s “physical geography” for a sampler of European wisdom touching the black African. The longer third part turns to Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History and Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences for his general—and generally bleak—account of black Africa. The fourth part turns to a strange passage on Africa and the Africans in Hegel’s “Philosophy of Nature”—where I see something like the bodies of black folk entering on the scene in a way that disturbs the Hegelian system as such in its entirety, if one can say such a thing....

We Are The Champions

Injured Iraq veterans recruited to compete in the Paralympics

Britain's Olympic coaches are to recruit injured veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in an attempt to boost the host nation's medal haul at the 2012 Games in London.

They have agreed a plan with Army chiefs to retrain soldiers returning from the battlefield to participate in the Paralympics, which will take place two weeks after the "main event" in August 2012.

As well as boosting the UK's medal haul, the initiative has been started as a means of preventing injured and disabled soldiers from becoming socially excluded.

Unofficially, there are thought to be as many as 7,000 personnel who have been seriously injured in the Iraq conflict.

The recruitment drive has been partly inspired by a similar scheme involving the United States military and talks in the UK have involved the Ministry of Defence, the British Paralympic Association (BPA) and UK Sport, the Lottery-funded quango that has received £300m to maximise the medal haul for 2012.

It is thought that potential medallists will be identified by the BPA from those servicemen and women who have lost limbs in bomb blasts, been paralysed or blinded. They are expected to provide a rich seam of talent mainly in shooting and sports requiring high levels of stamina, such as athletics, rowing and cycling.

The shadow Olympics minister, Hugh Robertson, who served as an adjutant during the 1990-91 Gulf War in the Life Guards, one of the main tank regiments, said: "I think it is an absolutely fantastic initiative ... The benefits of taking up disabled sports for disabled soldiers injured in conflict are not only obvious in physical terms but also in repositioning their lives."

Because You’re Worth It

Test

The Bitch is Back

http://www.sthelensstar.co.uk/display.var.999446.0.man_who_pursued_young_sportsmen_is_banned_from_town.php

“But what exactly were those psychological factors?”

Badiou, cinéaste

A concerned reader has drawn our attention to disturbing new trends within the field of Persian rocket science.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

http://ms.cc.sunysb.edu/%7Ehsilverman/HJS_VITA/VitaBioList.htm

Continental Philosophy: possible origins

The beginning of Continental Philosophy? But is it a beginning? What is it to name what has already become a name? ‘Continental Philosophy’ as philosophy has now come into its own – so why not give it a name and an avenue for expression? To name continental philosophy is to distinguish it from what it is not, to articulate its difference. It is not analytic philosophy; it is not process philosophy; it is not ancient philosophy, etc. This is not to say that it is opposed to other philosophies. Indeed not. Yet continental philosophy calls out for a space of its own. It already occupies such a space. In occupying a space of its own, continental philosophy claims an identity. It therefore seems to be a philosophy. But is it just another philosophy? Our first volume poses this question, while at the same time asking whether continental philosophy is itself philosophy in the pure, centered, self-defining sense. What is philosophy’s relation to non-philosophy as posed by continental philosophy? Our enterprise begins with this question, a question that has long awaited an answer.

Despite this, or perhaps as a result, they have a friendly character unequalled anywhere

Cunts we may be, but not to that extent

The Power of Things We Know Nothing About

If, like Sphaleotas, you had always considered foilw[e/]ar[/e] to be a praeternaturally puissant ideological fiction, extending the possibility of constructive escape from integrated thinking and all its forms of imposed unity (religious dogma, political ideology, the fine structure constant), then it is imperative that you familiarise yourself with the following research:

http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/

“It must have been an awful sight...”

Poetry Corner.

Yale French Studies beckons

SPEP talk.

You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/rbotoole/entry/presentation_of_blogs/

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

http://www.mailtalk.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0510&L=theory-lyotard-badiou-event&D=1&T=0&O=D&F=&S=&P=3213

Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 09:23:22 +0100
Reply-To: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event"
[THEORY-LYOTARD-BADIOU-EVENT@MAILTALK.AC.UK]
Sender: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event"
[THEORY-LYOTARD-BADIOU-EVENT@MAILTALK.AC.UK]
From: "sdv@krokodile.co.uk" [sdv@KROKODILE.CO.UK]
Subject: [Fwd: [CTHEORY] 1000 Days of Theory: The Rebirth of the Author]
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed

Sadly the main thing wrong with this analysis is the mistaken idea that the author ever went away.... we tried and hoped to kill the
concept off, but perhaps it was only in the US that the idea was actually thought to be successful ?

I especially enjoyed this quote:

Jean Baudrillard who has pointed the way out. "As for ideas, everyone has them," he has written. "What counts
is the poetic singularity of the analysis. That alone can justify writing, not the wretched critical objectivity of ideas. here will never be any
resolving the contradictoriness of ideas, except in the energy and felicity of language." [9]

enjoy.

s

Dark Side pataphysics’s new name for Ideology

Kind of metacomment / question:
Could Hyperstition be crudely but productively defined as 'Political Ontology' - a domain of virtual politically efficient objects, realized (in a circuit) through political operations?
Wondering, obviously, because the Anglosphere seems to broadly conform to this definition - and I take it be behind the (sd) insight into Kurzweil's loopy relation to Singularity.

(There's a whole Enochian angle to this as well, but I guess that should wait until our resident nommomaniac fiscal complexicon shows up ...)

Posted by: Nick at September 27, 2005 04:41 PM

“Why can’t I be king?”, pleads Eshun

What is so unreasonable about that proposal?

Brockbank's helpful reminder

Gracious thanks to Infinite Thought for the following link:

http://www.mailtalk.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0509&L=theory-lyotard-badiou-event&D=1&T=0&O=D&F=&S=&P=12242

Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 07:44:28 -0500
Reply-To: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event"
[THEORY-LYOTARD-BADIOU-EVENT@MAILTALK.AC.UK]
Sender: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event"
[THEORY-LYOTARD-BADIOU-EVENT@MAILTALK.AC.UK]
From: "sdv@krokodile.co.uk" [sdv@KROKODILE.CO.UK]
Subject: : Mark Poster @ Middlesex on 'Identity Theft'
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed

FYI

Subject: Mark Poster @ Middlesex on 'Identity Theft'

THE DIGITAL SELF AND IDENTITY THEFT

Special lecture by PROF. MARK POSTER of the University of California,

Irvine.

Monday 3rd October, 2005 at 6:30pm

B Hall, Bevan Building, Trent Park, Middlesex University.

Mark Poster will be talking on 'The Digital Self and Identity Theft' in

a special lecture organised by Middlesex University's Media, Culture and

Communication group.

Beyond Chutzpah

http://www.mailtalk.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0509&L=theory-lyotard-badiou-event&D=1&T=0&O=D&F=&S=&P=6377:

Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2005 16:10:33 +0100
Reply-To: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event"
[THEORY-LYOTARD-BADIOU-EVENT@MAILTALK.AC.UK]
Sender: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event"
[THEORY-LYOTARD-BADIOU-EVENT@MAILTALK.AC.UK]
From: "sdv@krokodile.co.uk" [sdv@KROKODILE.CO.UK]
Subject: Long Sunday: the form
In-Reply-To: [BAY109-F3507F0EFF02C7E5C20FF1DF1A60@phx.gbl]
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

all/infinite thought

A comment of Infinite Thoughts - raises an interesting question -
which is to say is the form of a blog with open comments and counter
papers, a better form than a email list or a virtual bulletin board ?

Please take a look at Long Sunday - is this a better form to encourage
discussion, thought and ultimately action ?

s

Infinite Thought wrote:

> Was my piece
> deemed to be interesting? (in which case why not respond in the
> comments on
> Long Sunday, or at least link to it so I could trace it via
> Technorati?), or is randomly aping the work of others (which in itself is
> no small labour) par for the course on the internet?
>

What matter who's speaking?

http://www.mailtalk.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0509&L=theory-lyotard-badiou-event&D=1&T=0&O=D&F=&S=&P=5750

Quite understandably, logged-in members of the Theory-Lyotard-Badiou-Event mailing list would not have noticed anything out of the ordinary in seeing Brockbank’s email message header displayed thus:

Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2005 11:41:34 +0100
Reply-To: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event"
[THEORY-LYOTARD-BADIOU-EVENT@MAILTALK.AC.UK]
Sender: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event"
[THEORY-LYOTARD-BADIOU-EVENT@MAILTALK.AC.UK]
From: "sdv@krokodile.co.uk" [sdv@KROKODILE.CO.UK]
Subject: humanism, antihumanism and posthumanism
In-Reply-To: [20050908020757.39946.qmail@web81705.mail.yahoo.com]
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Whereas those unlucky enough not to be a member will have seen the following:

Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2005 11:41:34 +0100
Reply-To: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event"
<[log in to unmask]>
Sender: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event"
<[log in to unmask]>
From: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: humanism, antihumanism and posthumanism
In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

What can it all mean, dear reader?

Nemesis

Battling technical difficulties to which fellow members of the Theory-Lyotard-Badiou-Event mailing list had proved strangely immune, Infinite Thought has finally pronounced upon this curious affair of pulled blogs and postmodern heutagogy.

http://www.mailtalk.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0509&L=theory-lyotard-badiou-event&D=1&T=0&O=D&F=&S=&P=4244:

Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2005 12:45:59 +0000
Reply-To: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event"
[THEORY-LYOTARD-BADIOU-EVENT@MAILTALK.AC.UK]
Sender: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event"
[THEORY-LYOTARD-BADIOU-EVENT@MAILTALK.AC.UK]
From: Infinite Thought
Subject: Re: stealing...
In-Reply-To: [3584.80.241.72.42.1126087330.squirrel@www.krokodile.co.uk]
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed

Dear all,

As the author of the piece on humanism originally posted on Long Sunday (http://www.long-sunday.net/long_sunday/2005/08/humanism.html), I thought I would respond on this list (as a version of my piece was apparently also posted over here).

by error on a blog (since made private)

Brockbank’s compelling response...

http://www.mailtalk.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0509&L=theory-lyotard-badiou-event&D=1&T=0&O=D&F=&S=&P=4160:

Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2005 11:02:10 +0100
Reply-To: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event"
[THEORY-LYOTARD-BADIOU-EVENT@MAILTALK.AC.UK]
Sender: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event"
[THEORY-LYOTARD-BADIOU-EVENT@MAILTALK.AC.UK]
From: Steve Devos [sdv@KROKODILE.CO.UK]
Subject: stealing...
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1

all

recently i stole a text from a blog (infinitethoughts), an act which i
have been told over the interveneing time, sometimes humourously sometimes
not was an unethical act. This is possibly true but I'm really not sure
that ethics and property rights can meet in this way.

In amoungst the complaints and insults over this act of plagerism
(stealing) that I've recieved since i posted the stolen text here on the
list and by error on a blog (since made private which it was originally
supposed to be ...). A number of curious things stand out which have some
interesting consequences. Firstly - there is a surprising belief in
intellectual ownership, which is to say in the intellectual property
rights of the writer over the text. Secondly that the commentators do not
appear to understand the extent to which objects/text etc are now being
used in whatever way the reader chooses.

How sweet to be an idiot

[log in to unmask]

All credit to Ray for this illuminating link from the archives of THEORY-LYOTARD-BADIOU-EVENT, Tuesday 23 August 2005:

Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 15:09:17 +0100
Reply-To: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event"
<[log in to unmask]>
Sender: "Discussion of J-F-Lyotard, Alain Badiou,the Event"
<[log in to unmask]>
From: Steve Devos <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: human and anti-human
In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1

Richard/all

Is the spectre of humanism badly raised or not...? I think my implied but unclear suggestion that Richard is merely repeating the errors of humanist critiques, with the implication that the human-condition is central needs some further clarification... so....

Body Horror

Perhaps it was only to be expected.

“We are always interested in buying Modern First Editions”

Steve Brockbank of Hertfordshire booksellers Krokodile Rare Books was so inspired by one of Infinite Thought’s recent essays that he single-handedly paraphrased 395 consecutive words within twenty four hours of its original publication. Sphaleotas investigates:

— Infinite Thought:

Is the question of ‘humanism’ badly posed?

– Steve Brockbank:

Is the spectre of humanism badly raised?

— Infinite Thought:

Current philosophical literature on humanism and antihumanism, not to mention constant casual and vague use of terms such as ‘human rights’, anthropocentrism, ‘humanitarianism’, entails confusion about the status of the ‘human’ relative to other disciplines.

– Steve Brockbank:

I think that we could understand the interesting philosophical perspectives on humanism and antihumanism, which is not to forget to mention the casual and frequently confused use of terms such as rights, anthropocentrism, humanitarianism and so on which guarantees confusion about the status of the human and the non-human relative to other discourses and disciplines.

“On the left we have God, Humanism, the Left and double incontinence, on the right we have spandex, drum loops and a chance to begin again in the off-world colonies.”

Michigan posthuman anarchocapitalist makes good.