Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Notes on Philadelphia Summer School in Continental Philosophy with John Caputo (on Brassier, Meillassoux, Latour, and Malabou)

We had a number of very good submissions, so I am very, very excited about this event.  A good range of topics in Continental metaphysics and religion: whether Latour, Levinas, Badiou, Heidegger, Malabou, or Meillassoux, there's something for everyone.  Those accepted into the school will get the good news today.  As After Nature readers know by now, Caputo will be giving two one hour seminars with a lunch break in between.  The first seminar will cover Meillassoux and Brassier, the second Latour and Malabou.  Before and after the Caputo seminar folks will be presenting their own research having ample time for feedback and sustained discussion.

As an aside, I am thinking about streaming the event live on Ustream.tv.  This would give more folks a chance to watch the event.  Although, I am considering as an alternative trying to stream through Google Hangouts.  That way more could participate.  We'll see which works better as it could just be an issue of logistics versus ease of working technology.  As a last resort I'd just record and post online here at After Nature.

My presentation is actually just a small talk that will set the stage for the summer school.  A provisional title for my talk is "Continental Metaphysics: Realism, Materialism, and Religion?" where it will essentially paint the picture of where Continental speculative philosophy stands today: who the major players are, who we should be paying attention to, where things seem to be heading, regarding the possible infusion of religious philosophy into current speculative metaphysics.  I also have a special section on Adrian Johnston and Brassier as I have been engaging their naturalisms as of late, in addition to reading more and more of Laruelle whenever I get the chance.

It's nice because we have plenty of time for conversation, and as the school is really designed to be a workshop geared toward open collaboration I am envisioning good sustained conversations where all involved benefit and gain insight into each others' perspectives, as well as hopefully are able to gain enhanced vision of their own projects.

So, yes, I am very excited about this!