Regulation of the female appetite can be traced back to the Genesis story of how the world began and was subsequently infected, temporarily ruined: “In the Genesis narrative of the fall, sin and death enter the world when a woman eats.”[1] The story of the fall, “the first story of all human stories,” is a prime example of what Helene Cixous calls “libidinal education.”[2] The term libidinal here refers to all “bodily and sexual experience”[3] and to all basic appetites—whether for food, sex, knowledge, or power. The accompanying term, libidinal education, refers to “the individ ..read more

10 minutes. 1,100 Shots fired. 546 injured. 59 dead. In terms of the numbers alone the Las Vegas Shooting was nightmarish on a grand scale. It was hailed as the largest mass shooting in American history (it wasn’t). It sent our country into its normal flurry of arguments about guns: who should be able to have them, what kinds, how do we get them, etc. Lurking beneath this perennial debate was a horror that was only hinted at, a horror we have ceased to talk about now that we are a few months removed. What terrified me about the shooting (and perhaps what has terrified those professio ..read more

Today, we would not think of a book translation as an earth-shattering event, but in 1534, when Martin Luther translated the Bible from Greek to German, a new world was born. Prior to his translation, some Catholic thinkers, like Erasmus, wished for as many people as possible to get their hands on the Bible. Others, like Pope Innocent III, vehemently opposed “untrained minds” interpreting Scripture.[1] These concerns were largely abstract due to so few copies of the Bible existing in languages a common parishioner could read. Luther’s protest and access to the newly invented printing pres ..read more

In his book Laruelle: Against the Digital, Alexander Galloway puts forward an excellent chapter on Laruelle’s ethics. For Laruelle, Christ is the cornerstone of humanity through his victimhood: on the cross—not as the representation of humanity, but as a generic figure of humanity—Christ suffers as a human. He is a victim of violence. For Laruelle, the ethical act is one which shows compassion for this generic human as victim. He cares not for the identity of the prostitute, the tax collector or the leper, but instead treats them as humans who are in need of compassion. Anthony Paul Smith ..read more

What is posthumanism? If you’ve been anywhere near academia the last few years, you’ve likely heard the term “posthuman.” Posthumanism covers a diverse area of thought, branching into areas of study from archeology to computer science to the humanities. Common to all posthuman discourse is a central theme: the rejection of humanism. According to Rosi Braidotti, “The posthuman provokes elation but also anxiety about the possibility of a serious de-centring of ‘Man’, the former measure of all things” (Braidotti 2013, 2). Braidotti traces humanism to Protagoras’s claim that “Man is the measure o ..read more