Angelaki, Volume 24, Issue 1 & Routledge
ISBN 9781032087801156 PagesPublished June 30, 2021 by Routledge
Alien vectors: accelerationism, xenofeminism, inhumanism.
editors: Tia Trafford & Pete wolfendale
Angelaki, 24:1, i-xv, DOI:
10.1080/0969725X.2019.1606485
This special edition of the Angelaki journal propsed that;
The figure of the Other has held critical thought in its sway for decades, to the point that we now sufferfrom a surfeit of alterity. Whether it is thought under the sign of radical transcendence or radical immanence, its extremes are indistinguishable: an ineffably abstract and purportedly inexhaustible excess over reason, representation, and often concreteness as such. Awash in amorphous otherness, it is all too easy to fall back on familiar forms, disavowing every explicit universal while enforcing implicit universals, and thereby preserving assumptions about the “naturalness” of given modes of community, sexuality, and embodiment. The supposedly indescribable openness of the space of socio-cultural possibilities tends to conceal limits that have simply been supposed, rather than described.
This book works through the notion of the alien in contemporary philosophy. The authors attempt to think through politics, posthumanism, and alienation beyond and across the circuitry of thought that would otherwise enfold the alien in its regressive and parochial trappings.
This book considers whether the figure of the alien can offer us something better. It traces the outlines, intersections, and problems of emergent vectors of thought that coalesce around a renewed relationship to alienation: left accelerationism, xenofeminism, and inhumanism. Their common thread is the embrace of alienation as a positive force, transforming our progressive exile from a series of edenic harmonies – be they economic, sociological, or biological – into an esoteric genealogy of freedom
Appeals to alien forces can mask all too familiar prejudices, repackaging old assumptions in the language of sublime strangeness or harsh reality. This book seeks to move beyond this by looking at how the notion of the alien interacts with present problems and politics. It was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki.
The figure of the Other has held critical thought in its sway for decades, to the point that we now sufferfrom a surfeit of alterity. Whether it is thought under the sign of radical transcendence or radical immanence, its extremes are indistinguishable: an ineffably abstract and purportedly inexhaustible excess over reason, representation, and often concreteness as such. Awash in amorphous otherness, it is all too easy to fall back on familiar forms, disavowing every explicit universal while enforcing implicit universals, and thereby preserving assumptions about the “naturalness” of given modes of community, sexuality, and embodiment. The supposedly indescribable openness of the space of socio-cultural possibilities tends to conceal limits that have simply been supposed, rather than described.
This book works through the notion of the alien in contemporary philosophy. The authors attempt to think through politics, posthumanism, and alienation beyond and across the circuitry of thought that would otherwise enfold the alien in its regressive and parochial trappings.
This book considers whether the figure of the alien can offer us something better. It traces the outlines, intersections, and problems of emergent vectors of thought that coalesce around a renewed relationship to alienation: left accelerationism, xenofeminism, and inhumanism. Their common thread is the embrace of alienation as a positive force, transforming our progressive exile from a series of edenic harmonies – be they economic, sociological, or biological – into an esoteric genealogy of freedom
Appeals to alien forces can mask all too familiar prejudices, repackaging old assumptions in the language of sublime strangeness or harsh reality. This book seeks to move beyond this by looking at how the notion of the alien interacts with present problems and politics. It was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki.
The invitation to contribute to a Journal volume which explicitly exlores notions of the other seemed aposite.
This work continues the practice developed of articulating theoretical postions through experimenting with the application of atypical neurodiverse approaches to communication, in this instance challenging the journal article as a form that privileges narrowly normative forms such as the text based essay.
The essay considers the ways in which, throughout human history, maps have defined our limits as much as charted our exploration. These images act as a kind of ghost vision – a spectral overlay of the world created and accessed as data sets, satellite imagery, and geopolitical mapping, merged in an algorithmically generated 3D mesh.
This brings with it a view of the world in which complementary and competing navigational vectors collage and collide. Yet, for all its apparent hyper-modern otherness, its novelty and dexterity is still oriented around and contingent upon the temporal and electromagnetic limits of our biological inheritance.
This work continues the practice developed of articulating theoretical postions through experimenting with the application of atypical neurodiverse approaches to communication, in this instance challenging the journal article as a form that privileges narrowly normative forms such as the text based essay.
The essay considers the ways in which, throughout human history, maps have defined our limits as much as charted our exploration. These images act as a kind of ghost vision – a spectral overlay of the world created and accessed as data sets, satellite imagery, and geopolitical mapping, merged in an algorithmically generated 3D mesh.
This brings with it a view of the world in which complementary and competing navigational vectors collage and collide. Yet, for all its apparent hyper-modern otherness, its novelty and dexterity is still oriented around and contingent upon the temporal and electromagnetic limits of our biological inheritance.