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Blog postTHE ONTOLOGY OF THE TITLE
A) WITHDRAWAL AND THE LEAP
In this chapter I begin my discussion of Slavoj Zizek’s SEX AND THE FAILED ABSOLUTE. To begin, I’m going to talk about the title and its ontology. And in fact, this is how Zizek himself starts his theoretical discussion, but not right at the beginning. He begins the consideration of the title in the second paragraph of the Introduction: The Unorientable Space of Dialectical Materialism.
The first paragraph is a plea -
Blog postIn this chapter I begin my discussion of Slavoj Zizek’s SEX AND THE FAILED ABSOLUTE and present its overall structure and general argument. Subjects discussed: withdrawal and the leap of reflection, the ontology of the title, quantum ascent and descent, … Lire la suite →
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Blog postThis completes my general presentation of Laruelle’s TETRALOGOS Subjects discussed: new foundations for science fiction, general formula for non-standard science fiction, possible objections to the formula, arguments for introducing more genericity, potential falsifiers to the formula; open, flexible, extended heuristic … Lire la suite →
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Blog postThis chapter deals with Badiou’s set of requirements for an « absolute ontological referent »: immobility, non-atomicity, axiomatic prescription, maximality.
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Blog postThis first chapter contains an overview of the structure, themes, and movement of Laruelle’s magnum opus TETRALOGOS. Subjects discussed: amplitude, inventivity, mega-text, cognitive estrangement, futurality, neologism, transformed language, hard and soft SF, cosmicity, space opera, worlds, the Earth, Universe, aliens, … Lire la suite →
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Blog postThis chapter gives us an overview of the conceptual trajectory of the book by means of the analysis of « Youth », a poem by Arthur Rimbaud. This poem is not discussed in the book, but the analysis figures in the first class in Badiou’s seminar on THE IMMANENCE OF TRUTHS. I have followed and expanded upon Badiou’s discussion in session 1, 24th October 2012.
Subjects discussed: the world of finitude and its sad affects, the capacity of everyone to encounter and par -
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Blog postWe all know Darko Suvin’s definition of science fiction as “the literature of cognitive estrangement”. This is a bold hypothesis (in the best of the Popperian tradition of conjectures and refutations) and so capable of falsification, and thus more scientific, because falsifiable, than nominalist definitions of the sort “science fiction is whatever I point at … Continue reading Science fiction as the literature of cognitive estrangeletment
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Blog postLIGHT CHASER is a short novel written by Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell and logically should have been a science fiction novel, but a certain disconnect between the narrative point of departure and a key point of the underlying world-building deflected it from this goal.
Very impatient to read this novel as soon as it was released, I came across a mixed review on the blog The Cult of Apophis which left me perplexed. Reading this review I wondered if it was a bit too harsh, but -
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Blog postIn our first chapter on section two of the introduction we investigated the three traits of the immanence of truths. In this second chapter we examine the difference between reasoning in finite cases and reasoning in infinite cases. Badiou discusses a particular theorem from set theory, the power-set theorem, and explains its philosophical ramifications from the point of view of its content and also from the perspective of its mode of proof.
Subjects discussed:
Finite proofs v -
Blog postLIGHT CHASER est un court roman écrit par Peter F. Hamilton et Gareth L. Powell et logiquement aurait dü être un roman de science fiction, mais un certain décalage entre le point de départ narratif et un point clé de la construction du monde sous-jacente l’a dévié de ce destin.
Très impatient de lire ce roman dès sa sortie je suis tombé sur une critique mitigée sur le blog Le culte d’Apophis qui me laissa -
Blog postThis is a philosophical video book (or VOOK), a work in progress aimed at giving the first book length commentary on Alain Badiou’s THE IMMANENCE OF TRUTHS.
Badiou himself distinguishes two possible approaches to his philosophy:
1) the systematic approach by way of his three full-scale volumes (BEING AND EVENT, LOGICS OF WORLDS, and THE IMMANENCE OF TRUTHS, and
2) a phenomenological approach by way of his seminars, talks, smaller books giving a more intuitive access to -
Blog postIn section one we examined the four traits of truths, in section two we investigate the three traits of immanence.
Subjects discussed: three traits of immanence of truths – production in determinate worlds, inherent relation to absoluteness, subjective relation to truth process. The absolute value of truths is explicated by their infinity. Different proof procedures apply to finite cases and to infinite cases.
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Blog postThis video-chapter finishes the summary and discussion of Introduction Section I: Speculative Strategy. Subjects discussed: Badiou’s general methodological advice, dangers of mathematicism, the human as subject of truths vs the human animal as object of finitude. Badiou’s four great books, … Lire la suite →
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Blog post“How we lost the moon, a True Story by Frank W. Allen” est une courte nouvelle par Paul McAuley, publiée il y a une vingtaine d’années. Je suis redevable au blog Le culte d’Apophis por avoir attiré mon attention sur cette nouvelle. Elle est disponible sur audible.fr, et l’audio dure 36 minutes.
Le récit est très agréable, bien écrit, comportant assez peu d’action. La partie la plus importante du récit est composée de descr -
Blog postIs there something special about reading science fiction? does it require a special mindset? does reading science fiction over a long period of time, or over a whole life, change you in any way? Any long-time reader of science fiction may want to ask themselves these questions, with the feeling that it may give some insight into our life and our approach to life.
Over at the excellent blog Classics of Science Fiction, Jim Harris discusses the long-term evolution of his “changing attit -
Blog postPostmodernism began as a critical and democratising force, questioning the hegemony of the original over the copy. It proclaimed the aesthetic, ethical, political, and ontological superiority of the copy pushed to the point where the original was seen as itself just one copy amongst many, and not the ideal to which they must conform. The … Continue reading THE ORIGINAL – Kowal and Sanderson’s hypermodern novella
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Blog post0) INTRADIEGETIC SUMMARY AND THE APTNESS OF NAMES
THE DOORS OF EDEN begins and ends with two young women, Lisa Pryor and Elsinore Mallory, who call each other Lee and Mal respectively. They are in love with each other but are separated at the beginning of the novel, at the age of nineteen, as Mal falls into a crack in the world and disappears. They are reunited four years later, when Mal reappears and drags Lee into an adventure to save the multi-verse.
Mal aptly and concisely -
Blog postI just bought and read Neal Asher’s new novella THE BOSCH. This is a very gripping and entrancing story, and at 2€76 (e-book) for 59 pages it is well worth the purchase.
In discussing science fiction stories about vastly superior alien intelligences or about far future civilisations it is customary to cite Clarke’s Third Law:
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.
This law applies to the enunciative content of a story, and signals a -
Blog postCO(S)MIC YA SPACE OPERA
THE LAST HUMAN is a new science fiction novel by Zack Jordan. A great pleasure to read, this book synthesizes a lot of influences and several genres of SF. It combines the sense of wonder of a big idea space opera, the thrilling adventures and realisations of a cosmic young adult coming of age story, with the whimsical humour of post-Douglas Adams jaunt through a bio-culturally diverse galaxy.
PLEASURE
The novel is very pleasant to read, and the -
Blog postThis is my side of a discussion with Marc Arimini, who very kindly commented on my last post.
In my re-writing of Darko Suvin’s definition of science fiction (“the literature of cognitive estrangement”) as the literature of noetic estrangement I referred to the incipit to Gene Wolfe’s THE SHADOW OF THE TORTURER as an example, making use of indeterminacy as one mode of estrangement.
Estrangement is the more generic term, and indeterminacy, taken for example however metaphorical
Titles By Terence Blake
