“The Forbidden Pleasures of Media Determinism,” Matthew Fuller talk at the Media After Kittler conference.

“The Calculable and the Incalculable: Hölderlin after Kittler,” Samuel Weber’s talk from the Media After Kittler conference.

Interregnum, Week 2

I began the week by finishing the “Media After Kittler” conference, with three incredible talks and a discussion.

 The first talk was by Samuel Weber, a huge name in philosophy and friend of Kittler. His talk, titled “The Calculable and the Incalculable: Hölderlin after Kittler,” was a masterful demonstration of how Kittler’s materialism contaminates idealism.

 The second talk was Matthew Fuller’s “The Forbidden Pleasures of Media Determinism.” Fuller’s strong philosophical acumen is on display as he digs into important areas of media theory, such as a consideration of “social form determinism.”

 The third talk is by Mai Wegener, titled “The Humming of Machines. To the End of History and Back.” While many mentioned history in their Kittler talks, Wegener performs the most rigorous and systematic use of Kittler’s non-anthropocentric media philosophy to push concepts of history to their limit.

 I continued the week with one final session on German Media Studies. This session is from a different occasion than the “Media After Kittler” conference and surveyed a wider range of position. The breadth of the topic allowed each speaker to give really compelling talks. Groy’s short introduction was good at establishing key concepts. Engell and Seigert gave really sharp talks. Engell’s talk in particular is a model for drawing in an audience. Alliez completed the session with some characteristically thoughful interventions.

 I finished the week with a session by socialist feminists on Nancy Fraser’s recent book called The Fortunes of Feminism. Fraser’s argument is that second wave feminism’s liberation of women from the home unwittingly converged with key aspects of the neoliberal project, such as replacing welfare with work. Be sure to check out the discussion, which covered diverging opinions on intersectionality, the state, and international disruptions of how we define neoliberalism.

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Media After Kittler, Martin McQuillan, “A Post Card for Kittler.” Poetic, provocative, pushes the boundary “materialist.”

Media After Kittler conferece, introduction by Eleni Ikoniadou. Precise, excellent survey.