Call for Papers by London Critical
The Return of Actor-Network Theory:
During the last ten years there has been an unexpected res... more The Return of Actor-Network Theory:
During the last ten years there has been an unexpected resurgence of interest in the body of literature-cum-methodological toolkit known as Actor-Network Theory (ANT), and primarily associated with Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and John Law. A cross-disciplinary revival, it encompasses philosophy and media theory (the new materialisms, ‘thing theory’, and the Object-Oriented Philosophy of Graham Harman and his adherents), the digital humanities (the rise of digital methods for tracing networks in social science research), and the history and sociology of art (through the recent work on networks of human and nonhuman actors in avant-garde genres), amongst other disciplines. But this development is an intriguing one, not least because it was declared as early as the late 1990s that ANT was defunct, and that the name should be discarded. For example, in an essay called ‘On recalling ANT’, Latour announced that there were four ‘nails in the coffin’ for actor-network theory: ‘the word actor, the word network, the word theory and the hyphen!’
Some aspects of this resurgence are simple enough to comprehend. Arriving just ahead of the World Wide Web, ANT would anticipate the vogue for thinking in terms of ‘networks’ as opposed to bordered entities such as ‘nation’, ‘institution’, and ‘society’, even if its own understanding of the concept was different to the topological webs of data it now seems to invoke. Similarly, its controversial injunction to afford agency to human and non-human actors alike, accepting no a priori asymmetry between them, can be seen as an important antecedent to the renewed turn towards materiality and the corresponding critique of anthropocentrism that has been gestating for some time in the humanities. But ANT has been criticised for its philosophical naïveté, its underdeveloped account of power, and its presentism, amongst other things. The time seems ripe to review the merits and limitations of ANT inside of this renewed context, asking whether its takeup in philosophy, media theory, and history of art reinvigorates ANT or repeats its perceived failings.
This stream invites papers that
a) Consider the contemporary currency of ANT as methodological practice:
• Issues of translation: what frictions/novelties emerge when ANT is ‘applied’ outside of the Science and Technology Studies field in which it was originally developed?
• Digital methods and ANT: the World Wide Web as a medium to locate and analyse networks: e.g. political controversies, social networks, art genres and movements etc.
b) Critically engage with the legacy and philosophical presuppositions of ANT:
• Empiricity and the place of the transcendental in ANT.
• The mutation of ANT into Object-Oriented Ontology: Graham Harman as a reader of Latour.
• ANT and ‘posthumanism’, or the critique of anthropocentrism: is there room for the subject in ANT?
• The relationship between ANT and other important accounts of technological mediation, such as Derrida’s concept of originary technicity - recently taken up and expanded by Bernard Stiegler and David Wills.
• Latour’s critique of modernity and the nature-culture / subject-object dichotomy, plus its relationship to earlier (dialectical, phenomenological, structuralist, post-structuralist) analyses.
The Call for Papers for London Conference in Critical Thought 2015 (University College London, 26... more The Call for Papers for London Conference in Critical Thought 2015 (University College London, 26-27th June 2015).
Deadline: Monday 16th March 2015
Authored by the LCCT collective and respective stream organisers.
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Call for Papers by London Critical
During the last ten years there has been an unexpected resurgence of interest in the body of literature-cum-methodological toolkit known as Actor-Network Theory (ANT), and primarily associated with Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and John Law. A cross-disciplinary revival, it encompasses philosophy and media theory (the new materialisms, ‘thing theory’, and the Object-Oriented Philosophy of Graham Harman and his adherents), the digital humanities (the rise of digital methods for tracing networks in social science research), and the history and sociology of art (through the recent work on networks of human and nonhuman actors in avant-garde genres), amongst other disciplines. But this development is an intriguing one, not least because it was declared as early as the late 1990s that ANT was defunct, and that the name should be discarded. For example, in an essay called ‘On recalling ANT’, Latour announced that there were four ‘nails in the coffin’ for actor-network theory: ‘the word actor, the word network, the word theory and the hyphen!’
Some aspects of this resurgence are simple enough to comprehend. Arriving just ahead of the World Wide Web, ANT would anticipate the vogue for thinking in terms of ‘networks’ as opposed to bordered entities such as ‘nation’, ‘institution’, and ‘society’, even if its own understanding of the concept was different to the topological webs of data it now seems to invoke. Similarly, its controversial injunction to afford agency to human and non-human actors alike, accepting no a priori asymmetry between them, can be seen as an important antecedent to the renewed turn towards materiality and the corresponding critique of anthropocentrism that has been gestating for some time in the humanities. But ANT has been criticised for its philosophical naïveté, its underdeveloped account of power, and its presentism, amongst other things. The time seems ripe to review the merits and limitations of ANT inside of this renewed context, asking whether its takeup in philosophy, media theory, and history of art reinvigorates ANT or repeats its perceived failings.
This stream invites papers that
a) Consider the contemporary currency of ANT as methodological practice:
• Issues of translation: what frictions/novelties emerge when ANT is ‘applied’ outside of the Science and Technology Studies field in which it was originally developed?
• Digital methods and ANT: the World Wide Web as a medium to locate and analyse networks: e.g. political controversies, social networks, art genres and movements etc.
b) Critically engage with the legacy and philosophical presuppositions of ANT:
• Empiricity and the place of the transcendental in ANT.
• The mutation of ANT into Object-Oriented Ontology: Graham Harman as a reader of Latour.
• ANT and ‘posthumanism’, or the critique of anthropocentrism: is there room for the subject in ANT?
• The relationship between ANT and other important accounts of technological mediation, such as Derrida’s concept of originary technicity - recently taken up and expanded by Bernard Stiegler and David Wills.
• Latour’s critique of modernity and the nature-culture / subject-object dichotomy, plus its relationship to earlier (dialectical, phenomenological, structuralist, post-structuralist) analyses.
Deadline: Monday 16th March 2015
Authored by the LCCT collective and respective stream organisers.
During the last ten years there has been an unexpected resurgence of interest in the body of literature-cum-methodological toolkit known as Actor-Network Theory (ANT), and primarily associated with Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and John Law. A cross-disciplinary revival, it encompasses philosophy and media theory (the new materialisms, ‘thing theory’, and the Object-Oriented Philosophy of Graham Harman and his adherents), the digital humanities (the rise of digital methods for tracing networks in social science research), and the history and sociology of art (through the recent work on networks of human and nonhuman actors in avant-garde genres), amongst other disciplines. But this development is an intriguing one, not least because it was declared as early as the late 1990s that ANT was defunct, and that the name should be discarded. For example, in an essay called ‘On recalling ANT’, Latour announced that there were four ‘nails in the coffin’ for actor-network theory: ‘the word actor, the word network, the word theory and the hyphen!’
Some aspects of this resurgence are simple enough to comprehend. Arriving just ahead of the World Wide Web, ANT would anticipate the vogue for thinking in terms of ‘networks’ as opposed to bordered entities such as ‘nation’, ‘institution’, and ‘society’, even if its own understanding of the concept was different to the topological webs of data it now seems to invoke. Similarly, its controversial injunction to afford agency to human and non-human actors alike, accepting no a priori asymmetry between them, can be seen as an important antecedent to the renewed turn towards materiality and the corresponding critique of anthropocentrism that has been gestating for some time in the humanities. But ANT has been criticised for its philosophical naïveté, its underdeveloped account of power, and its presentism, amongst other things. The time seems ripe to review the merits and limitations of ANT inside of this renewed context, asking whether its takeup in philosophy, media theory, and history of art reinvigorates ANT or repeats its perceived failings.
This stream invites papers that
a) Consider the contemporary currency of ANT as methodological practice:
• Issues of translation: what frictions/novelties emerge when ANT is ‘applied’ outside of the Science and Technology Studies field in which it was originally developed?
• Digital methods and ANT: the World Wide Web as a medium to locate and analyse networks: e.g. political controversies, social networks, art genres and movements etc.
b) Critically engage with the legacy and philosophical presuppositions of ANT:
• Empiricity and the place of the transcendental in ANT.
• The mutation of ANT into Object-Oriented Ontology: Graham Harman as a reader of Latour.
• ANT and ‘posthumanism’, or the critique of anthropocentrism: is there room for the subject in ANT?
• The relationship between ANT and other important accounts of technological mediation, such as Derrida’s concept of originary technicity - recently taken up and expanded by Bernard Stiegler and David Wills.
• Latour’s critique of modernity and the nature-culture / subject-object dichotomy, plus its relationship to earlier (dialectical, phenomenological, structuralist, post-structuralist) analyses.
Deadline: Monday 16th March 2015
Authored by the LCCT collective and respective stream organisers.