[-empyre-] First Postings

Cary Wolfe cewolfe at rice.edu
Fri Sep 6 23:03:28 EST 2013


Thanks, Adam. Agreed, death is not something bad or to be avoided (as if it
could)--a point well made by Derrida in "Eating Well" and by Donna Haraway,
among many others. But given that the thanatopolitical drift of biopolitics
has always been about the (often excruciating) manipulation and management
of the life/death relation, and the life/death interval, it's important to
remember Haraway's reminder, in light of bipolitics' "killable but not
murderable" status of bare life, that "thou shalt not make killable."
Precisely where the force of that admonition falls is an open question, of
course, but that's precisely why "life" is such a blunt instrument in what
is (as Adam knows better than I do) a very uneven and highly differentiated
landscape of forms of life. This is why "flat ontology" will do you no good
here; it tells you everything except what you need to know. By the way, and
speaking of which, I hope everyone will check out Tim Morton's new book in
the Posthumanities series, Hyperobjects. 

Cary Wolfe
Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie Professor
Department of English, MS-30
Founding Director, 3CT: Center for Critical and Cultural Theory
Rice University
Houston TX 77251-1892
713-348-2601; -5991
3ct.rice.edu
 
Series Editor, Posthumanities
University of Minnesota Press
http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/series/posthumanities
 


-----Original Message-----
From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
[mailto:empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Adam Nocek
Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2013 11:28 PM
To: soft_skinned_space
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] First Postings

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