Nothing to Do With Philosophy

Below is the text from a recent conference (The Fracture of Nothing – On the Return of Nihilism) in which I recently participated. Though I eventually get to Deleuze & Guattari, and a brief reference to Laruelle, the bulk of the paper ended up circling around the work of J Dilla:

“You better stop, and think about what you’re doing.” This is the refrain from a Dionne Warwick song, in 1973, addressed to the lover she is losing, the lover with whom she is in a fractured relationship. What is the lover doing? What is it that the lover ought to stop and think about? Leaving the singer. And if the lover were to stop and think about it, what would the lover realize? The lover would realize what the singer already knows, and what the singer knows is what the song is titled: “You’re Gonna Need Me.”

A Note on Cone on Malcolm X

I’m posting a footnote from the book I’m doing on conversion, as I think it (the note) might be of interest for discussion:

One of the more interesting instances of such a progressive narrative is presented by James H. Cone, in Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare (Orbis, 1992): “As one seeks to understand Malcolm, it is important to keep in mind that his perspective was undergoing a radical process of change and development during the last year of his life. He gradually discarded his Black Muslim beliefs about race and religion and moved toward a universal perspective on humanity that was centered on his commitment to the black liberation struggle in America” (211). I find Cone’s account particularly interesting because, even as he gives way to a narrative of secularization (moving from religion, i.e. “Black Muslim beliefs,” toward a broadenened political orientation), he elsewhere insists on the importance of religion in any attempt to understand Malcolm X. For instance, he calls attention to that fact that even “sympathetic interpreters often miss the central role of religion Malcolm’s thinking,” and that this is because “religion is commonly separated from struggles for justice” (164). Cone here indicates that such separation is unfortunate, that against such separation we should attend to the link between religion and the political. But if this is the case, then why is he apparently so content to present Malcolm X’s life in terms of an overcoming of religion’s narrowness in favor of the “universal perspective on humanity” that a secular, or at least developmentally secularizing, tendency offers?

Review of On Diaspora

I just came across a really thorough and thoughtful review of On Diaspora, which I thought some might be interested to read. This is particularly because the author, Jon Bialecki, puts the book in conversation with recent work in Anthropology of Christianity.

Clayton Crockett on Deleuze

I wanted to bring to the attention of readers a new book by AUFS affiliate, Clayton Crockett. As the title suggests, Deleuze Beyond Badiou presents an account of Deleuze’s philosophy by taking as its occasion Badiou’s polemical reading of Deleuze. The account that emerges will be very useful to many readers of Deleuze. Though I am not here offering anything like a proper review, I should say that I found particularly compelling the way that Crockett emphasized certain concepts or themes — most notably the interstice, the three syntheses of time, and the time-image.

Experimental Life and Ordeal’s Necessity

“How would the eschatological ethos of a transformed people be, per impossible, the ‘lived reality’ of immanence?” (25)

“Some kind of mediation may play a genuinely constitutive role in [Deleuze’s] system, even if the redemptive function of such mediators is not something Deleuze explicitly theorizes. … those who belong to this series of humorous avatars would index the contours of viable experimental life.” (215)

There is no such thing as a philosophy without a practice of reading. This is to say not only that philosophies, in being received, are bound to a reading practice, but also that philosophies themselves, insofar as they are produced, have reading practices as part of their causal nexus. This may be obvious, but it is something worth reflecting on given that our image of thought—where this thought is imagined as being philosophical—tends not to include reading practices. Or, at the very least, it tends not to include reading practices in the way that other images tend to include them. Consider, for instance, the differentiation of philosophy and religion: it is much easier to imagine religion as including reading practices than it is to imagine philosophy as including them. I would even venture that part of the reason for the occlusion of the constitutive role of reading practices in philosophy has to do with philosophy’s interest in differentiating itself from religion.

Anger’s Nonidentity / Occasion Against Universality

I recently looked back at Judith Butler’s response to her having been awarded a “prize” for writing in an especially non-commonsensical style. She observes that the recipients—or “targets,” as she aptly redescribes—of such a prize “have been restricted to scholars on the left whose work focuses on topics like sexuality, race, nationalism and the workings of capitalism.” This then raises “a serious question about the relation of language and politics: why are some of the most trenchant social criticisms often expressed through difficult and demanding language?”

A New Book You Ought to Read

“Your face is stuck to the front of your head, but it is also on the edge of your body, frequently cut out, segmented, made to resemble itself or someone else, carved with archetypal lines. In today’s biocapital, photography poses the question: How do we maintain our face when we are constantly photographed, imaged, screened, gazed at? One participates in visual culture only by preparing oneself–on the molecular level–for a degree of expropriation, for the loss of singularity… Photography provides to biocapital the infrastructure for transmitting generic habits of the body across the networked globe. The face is the initial point at which the body becomes abstract.”

Upcoming Talk on Conversion

For any Toronto area people who might have interest, details on a talk I’m giving next week at University of Toronto are here. I’ll be talking about my current work on the logic of conversion. It’s on November 7, 3pm, at the Jackman Humanities Institute.

Broad But Brutal

James K.A. Smith has recently posted, on his blog, a piece with some wretched claims. I hesitate even to dignify the piece, but certain things must be briefly said in response. It is very disappointing to see Smith, who I know has read many of the critical works regarding the problematic character of the category of religion, make use of the ambiguity in “religion” for ends that are colonializing. Yes, Smith is right that “religion” is used in an inexact way, i.e. it presents itself as ambiguous, but that does not mean it can’t function for specific ends. In reality, it has always functioned for Christian-European domination, the Christian-Europeans created the category, and if it remains ambiguous it is only so as to prevent being too explicit about the racism. Smith, in this post, makes it a bit more explicit.

Speculations III Available

The new issue of Speculations is out, including an essay from me in response to Daniel Whistler’s use of my work in his own essay. Additionally, AUFS presences Beatrice Marovich and Dave Mesing have contributed. And of course lots of other good stuff.