Latour And The Humanities

Contributors: David J. Alworth, Anders Blok, Claudia Breger, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Yves Citton, Steven Connor, Gerard de Vries, Simon During, Rita Felski, Francis Halsall, Graham Harman, Antoine Hennion, Casper Bruun Jensen, Bruno Latour, Heather Love, Patrice Maniglier, Stephen Muecke, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Nigel Thrift, Michael Witmore

How does the work of influential theorist Bruno Latour offer a fresh angle on the practices and purposes of the humanities? In recent years, defenses of the humanities have tended to argue along predictable lines: the humanities foster empathy, the humanities encourage critical thinking, the humanities offer a counterweight to the cold calculations of the natural and social sciences. The essays in Latour and the Humanities take a different approach. Exploring the relevance of theorist Bruno Latour's work, they argue for attachments and entanglements between the humanities and the sciences while looking closely at the interests, institutions, and intellectual projects that shape the humanities within and beyond the university. The collection, which is written by a group of highly distinguished scholars from around the world, is divided into two sections. In the first part, authors engage in depth with Latour's work while also rethinking the ties between the humanities and the sciences. Essays argue for greater attention to the nonhuman world, the urgency of climate change, and more nuanced views of universities as institutions. The second half of the volume contains essays that reflect on Latour's influence on the practices of specific disciplines, including art, the digital humanities, film studies, and political theory. Inspiring conversation about the relevance of actor-network-theory for research and teaching in the humanities, Latour and the Humanities offers a substantial introduction to Latour's work while discussing the humanities without falling back on the genres of either the sermon or the jeremiad. This volume will be of interest to all those searching for fresh perspectives on the value and importance of humanistic disciplines and thought. Contributors: David J. Alworth, Anders Blok, Claudia Breger, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Yves Citton, Steven Connor, Gerard de Vries, Simon During, Rita Felski, Francis Halsall, Graham Harman, Antoine Hennion, Casper Bruun Jensen, Bruno Latour, Heather Love, Patrice Maniglier, Stephen Muecke, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Nigel Thrift, Michael Witmore

In a new approach to philosophical anthropology, Bruno Latour offers answers to questions raised in We Have Never Been Modern: If not modern, what have we been, and what values should we inherit? An Inquiry into Modes of Existence offers a new basis for diplomatic encounters with other societies at a time of ecological crisis.

This collection of essays responds to the urgent call in the humanities to go beyond the act of negative critique which, so far, has been the dominant form of intellectual inquiry in academia. The contributors take their inspiration from Bruno Latour's pragmatic, relational approach and his philosophy of hybrid world where culture is immanent to nature and knowledge is tied to the things it co-creates. In such a world, nature, society, and discourse relate to, rather than negate, each other. The 11 essays, ranging from early modern humanism and modern theorization of literature to contemporary political ecology and animal studies, propose new productive ways of thinking, reading, and writing with, not against, the world. In carrying out concrete practices that are inclusive, rather than exclusive, contributors strive to exemplify a form of scholarship that might be better attuned to the concerns of our post-humanist era.

Illuminating conversations with one of France's most respected--and controversial--philosophers

With the rise of science, we moderns believe, the world changed irrevocably, separating us forever from our primitive, premodern ancestors. But if we were to let go of this fond conviction, Bruno Latour asks, what would the world look like? His book, an anthropology of science, shows us how much of modernity is actually a matter of faith. What does it mean to be modern? What difference does the scientific method make? The difference, Latour explains, is in our careful distinctions between nature and society, between human and thing, distinctions that our benighted ancestors, in their world of alchemy, astrology, and phrenology, never made. But alongside this purifying practice that defines modernity, there exists another seemingly contrary one: the construction of systems that mix politics, science, technology, and nature. The ozone debate is such a hybrid, in Latour’s analysis, as are global warming, deforestation, even the idea of black holes. As these hybrids proliferate, the prospect of keeping nature and culture in their separate mental chambers becomes overwhelming—and rather than try, Latour suggests, we should rethink our distinctions, rethink the definition and constitution of modernity itself. His book offers a new explanation of science that finally recognizes the connections between nature and culture—and so, between our culture and others, past and present. Nothing short of a reworking of our mental landscape, We Have Never Been Modern blurs the boundaries among science, the humanities, and the social sciences to enhance understanding on all sides. A summation of the work of one of the most influential and provocative interpreters of science, it aims at saving what is good and valuable in modernity and replacing the rest with a broader, fairer, and finer sense of possibility.

Of all the topics of interest in the digital humanities, the network has received comparatively little attention. We live in a networked society: texts, sounds, ideas, people, consumerism, protest movements, politics, entertainment, academia, and other items circulate in and through networks that come together and break apart at various moments. In these interactions, data sets of all sorts are formed, or at the least, are latent. Such data affect what the humanities is or might be. While there exist networked spaces of interaction for digital humanities work, considering in more detail how networks affect traditional and future goals of humanistic inquiry is a timely pursuit. Networked Humanities: Within and Without the University takes up this issue as a volume of collected work that asks these questions: Have the humanities sufficiently addressed the ways its various forms of work, as networks, affect other networks, within and outside of the university? What might a networked digital humanities be, or what is it currently if it does, indeed, exist? Can an understanding of the humanities as a series of networks affect--positively or negatively--the ways publics perceive humanities research, pedagogy, and mission? In addressing these questions, Networked Humanities offers both a critical and timely contribution to the spacious present and potential future of the digital humanities, both within academe and beyond. Contributors include Neil Baird, Jenny Bay, Casey Boyle, James J. Brown, Jr., Levi R. Bryant, Naomi Clark, Bradley Dilger, Kristie S. Fleckenstein, Paul Gestwicki, Tarez Samra Graban, Jeffrey T. Grabill, Laurie Gries, Byron Hawk, John Jones, Nate Kreuter, Devoney Looser, Rudy McDaniel, Derek Mueller, Liza Potts, Jeff Pruchnic, Jim Ridolfo, Nathaniel Rivers, Jillian J. Sayre, Lars Söderlund, Clay Spinuzzi, and Kathleen Blake Yancey.

Participatory art practices allow members of an audience to actively contribute to the creation of art. Annemarie Kok provides a detailed analysis and explanation of the use of participatory strategies in art in the so-called ›long sixties‹ (starting around 1958 and ending around 1974) in Western Europe. Drawing on extensive archival materials and with the help of the toolbox of the actor-network theory, she maps out the various actors of three case studies of participatory projects by John Dugger and David Medalla, Piotr Kowalski, and telewissen, all of which were part of documenta 5 (Kassel, 1972).