This review has been floating about for a while but some might not have read it. I confess that the configuration of Whitehead, Latour (to whom Melanie introduced me), Stengers and Deleuze in one article is almost too much for me to bear. If you were to add Badiou, Zizek, and Lacan I would have a breakdown borne of pure jouissance. At some point it looks like I’ll have to read this book. Reading Badiou in French is one thing, but I confess that I’m a bit intimidated by Stenger’s prose. Does anyone know if there’s a translation in the works?
UPDATE: Keith Tilford has drawn my attention to a paper by Stengers on Whitehead here. There are a number of other interesting papers at this site as well.
May 28, 2007 at 12:13 pm
The line about bifurcation puts me in mind of Laruelle…
May 28, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Don’t know about any translations in the works, but if you go here: http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/csisp/source/authors.html#stengers, there is a PDF of Stengers’ “A Constructivist Reading of Process and Reality” – with which you may already be familiar. Several related papers abound.
May 29, 2007 at 2:27 am
I didn’t like his dissing of the other ‘W’, Wittgenstein of course, but man did I like everything else I read. I’ve never even dipped into Whitehead, but this makes me want to read him a great deal.
If this doesn’t get one fired up, goodness knows what will. And Dominic, yeh, that recalled (again) what little I know of Laurelle.
May 29, 2007 at 2:36 am
Reading Whitehead is a total adrenaline rush once you penetrate a bit of his bizarre vocabulary and get a sense of what he’s trying to articulate. It’s a shame that he was hijacked by the process theologians as so much of what he’s developing is so relevant to contemporary debates.
May 29, 2007 at 3:11 am
Alex, I will say that I’m deeply irritated by your comment. You’re supposed to say that my posts on Whitehead have gotten you all fired up! I don’t know if I can get that pint with you now. :-)
May 29, 2007 at 12:21 pm
You know what, the post at Larval Subjects on Whitehead get me all fired up.
(PS E-mail me closer to the time and we will actually arrange something: I’ll try to get Anthony to come and you two can have a “sit down” Mafisio style)