The Brooklyn Rail

Guest Critic

NEW FRENCH THEORY
Not New, Not French, Not Theory

By Donatien Grau

French Theory is no theory. It is a well-known fact that “Theory,” as in “French Theory,” is neither a theoretical endeavor nor a theoretical manifestation of thought. “Theory” as in “French Theory” has evidently little to do with Plato’s apex of human evolution: contemplation of the ideal form as such. In the Platonic sense, theory is the ultimate abstraction.

Like an Atmosphere:
Philosophy as a Climate of Knowledge

By Emanuele Coccia

The emergence of philosophy has not been a single, definitive historical event. Rather than a discipline notable for its purpose or method, or for questions and objectives universal across space and time, philosophy is a sort of atmospheric condition, arising suddenly—everywhere and at all times. It can hold sway over human knowledge for a certain period, but also abruptly vanish, often for reasons unknown, just as mild spring weather or a storm can dissipate at a moment’s notice.

What I Am Working On

By Camille de Toledo

Vertigo, in-between-ness, translation, expansion of the real, of what is named “real,” understanding our task, both as thinkers, poets, writers, artists, and political bodies, as an effort to expand our conception of the real, struggling against the domination of conservative narratives [. . .]

Fragile, Necessary History

By Patrick Boucheron

“On the Use and Abuse of History for Life”—we should always start from there. You will doubtless have recognized the title of Nietzsche’s second Untimely Meditation, a joyous tilt at the ponderous historicism of his time. Nietzsche was writing in 1874, aware that the discipline of history was becoming modernity’s new religion. The discipline, yes—with its rigorous method, staid procedures, and acute sense of social importance.

The Submersion of Personal Memory

By Maël Renouard

Every time I write an account of some personal episode, it seems more impossible to rely on my memory alone. I need only attempt to describe a city neighborhood or cite a news item from the era in question, and I naturally resort to Google to hone or complete my memories. If it hopes to describe the twists and turns of a mind as accurately as possible, the literature of introspection, whether autobiography or psychological novel, ought now to mention the name Google every sentence or two.

The Academy in Peril

By Mehdi Belhaj Kacem

I undertake my philosophical endeavors outside the university. As everyone knows, philosophy has for two centuries been the university’s private game preserve, and that, except for a mere dozen names, all philosophers of note have been professors: that is, civil servants. Philosophy since Kant has essentially become philosophical commentary, the philosophy of philosophy.

Against Theory

By Barbara Carnevali

A simulacrum of philosophy has risen in university departments all over the world: theory, fake philosophy for non-philosophers.

Deconstructing the Philosophical Resistance to Biology

By Catherine Malabou

Does deconstruction have a future? Is there still a discernable living theoretical practice within it? Deconstruction, as practiced by Derrida, could still make a great contribution in biology and contemporary definitions of life, but this same area reveals the changes that deconstruction must undergo to unleash its power, which even now certain metaphysical allegiances tend to curb.

In the Prison of the Open World:
Breach of Negative Dialectics

By Agnès Gayraud

Looking upon a page generated by a search engine of worldwide use, with its saturation of relevance-ranked results, we have the illusion of seeing everything. An open world comes to be on the screen.

Laid Out Flat:
Of Maps, Being Run Over, and Virtual Reality

By Nora Philippe

Beneath the summer sun of 2016 the adolescents of Italy are roaming the city, all the way out onto the jetty, in search of Pokémon. The choicest such creatures make but a fleeting appearance, like the Virgin Mary at the end of Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. “I saw her! The Virgin Mary!” exclaim two chosen children. “She was there!” And the fervent crowd follows, craning for a glimpse of the invisible. Then the children run in the other direction: “No! She’s over there! Look!”

Here and Elsewhere

By Mathieu Potte-Bonneville

May, 2016—A small village in the Mâconnais region. A festival is being held beneath a capital, with debates, lectures, and conferences in alternation. Big names have made the trip, drawn by the prospect of a full four days’ literary coterie, where yesterday’s interrupted discussion can always take up on the morrow.

The Community of Lovers

By Olivier Zahm

In order to think we must begin with the present—what we experience, what we hope for, what destroys us, what we cannot bear—for the present is probably but the mirror image of our broken dreams. And dreams (that is, the true present) are to be reinvented. Thought, in the splendid words of Ernst Bloch, is a “principle of hope:” a gay science in the midst of a new obscurantism, invasive and electronic.

to Phong Bui
Between Skin and Paper

By Joachim Pissarro

This is not an apology for ignorance. Rather, this is an attempt to suggest that there are many more avenues of knowledge than we think—or, that knowledge cannot be the preserve of a happy few, especially when it comes to art.

Twelve Rules to Orient Thought

By Tristan Garcia

Maximize the possible. Entertain the possibility of material things, of real as well as imaginary things, of each part of every thing, of each occurrence of every thing throughout time, of contradictory things, of impossible things;