Erin Stapleton researchs destruction, archival imperfection, material volatility, resistance and ambiguity in digital and visual cultures, identity and media. Her current project, Catastrophic Loss, investigates how colonial logics continue to inform everyday digital media cultures and practices, the fragility of these systems, and the losses they threaten and produce.We discuss her book, The Intoxication of Destruction in Theory, Culture and Media: A Philosophy of Expenditure After Georges Bataille, which was published in 2022 by Amsterdam University Press (and published in paperback by Routledge in 2025). In it, she takes destruction as the founding operation of culture and trace it through philosophy, the media of September 11 and disaster films, end-of-the-world narratives, execution and eroticism, before addressing the effects of the displacement of linear destruction on the culture and media produced in digital systems. In other words, it’s got sex, death, explosions… and computers. And an unexpected amount of Walter Benjamin for some reason. And a joke that will only be funny to people who are intimately familiar with Australian slang and Georges Bataille.She completed her PhD with the London Graduate School at Kingston University, and my other qualifications at the University of Melbourne, where she now teaches in Media and Communications.Stapleton's site: https://drerinkstapleton.wordpress.com/Book link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intoxication-Destruction-Theory-Culture-Media/dp/9463724532--- Become part of the Hermitix community: Hermitix Twitter - ⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/Hermitixpodcast⁠⁠⁠ Support Hermitix: Patreon - ⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hermitix⁠⁠⁠ Donations: - ⁠⁠⁠https://www.paypal.me/hermitixpod⁠⁠⁠ Hermitix Merchandise - ⁠⁠⁠http://teespring.com/stores/hermitix-2⁠⁠⁠ Bitcoin Donation Address: 3LAGEKBXEuE2pgc4oubExGTWtrKPuXDDLK Ethereum Donation Address: 0x31e2a4a31B8563B8d238eC086daE9B75a00D9E74