----------empyre- soft-skinned space---------------------- Thanks, Adam. Agreed, death is not something bad or to be avoided (as if it could)--a point well made by Derrida in "Eating Well" and by Donna Haraway, among many others. But given that the thanatopolitical drift of biopolitics has always been about the (often excruciating) manipulation and management of the life/death relation, and the life/death interval, it's important to remember Haraway's reminder, in light of bipolitics' "killable but not murderable" status of bare life, that "thou shalt not make killable." Precisely where the force of that admonition falls is an open question, of course, but that's precisely why "life" is such a blunt instrument in what is (as Adam knows better than I do) a very uneven and highly differentiated landscape of forms of life. This is why "flat ontology" will do you no good here; it tells you everything except what you need to know. By the way, and speaking of which, I hope everyone will check out Tim Morton's new book in the Posthumanities series, Hyperobjects.
Cary Wolfe Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie Professor Department of English, MS-30 Founding Director, 3CT: Center for Critical and Cultural Theory Rice University Houston TX 77251-1892 713-348-2601; -5991 3ct.rice.edu Series Editor, Posthumanities University of Minnesota Press http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/series/posthumanities -----Original Message----- From: empyre-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au [mailto:empyre-boun...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Adam Nocek Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2013 11:28 PM To: soft_skinned_space Subject: Re: [-empyre-] First Postings ----------empyre- soft-skinned space---------------------- _______________________________________________ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre