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New Materialisms Reading Group 2016 Spring & Summer Terms
Research and Practice MA and PhD students from all disciplines are welcome to participate.
Topic: The New Materialisms [NM], in their focus on the actions of cultural materials, and the relevance of
NM theories for the creative arts. We will read a range of critical approaches, consider different theoretical
positions, and influences. Foregrounded will be work by Feminist New Materialist thinkers who have
advanced the theoretical area, such as Donna Haraway, Karan Barad, Rosi Braidotti, and Iris van der Tuin,
in addition to a range of speculative realist thinkers, including Catherine Malabou, and theorists and
philosophers of art and media art technologies, including Bernard Stiegler, Kathryn Hayles, Jussi Parrika.
Format: Each meeting of the two-hour group will consist of an in-depth reading and discussion of a text by
a New Materialist thinker, sometimes alongside secondary texts by other theorists or philosophers.This is
not a seminar, and all participants should do the core readings prior to the meeting.
Participants are expected to acquire the literature themselves, but wherever possible I will make pdf files
available.
Time: 15.00-17:00 Monthly Wednesdays
Location: MIRIAD. Righton Building. Upstairs open space .
Reading group convener: Felicity Colman contact: f.colman@mmu.ac.uk
Please email Felicity with your expression of interest to attend
2016 Spring + Summer term Meeting Dates + topics:
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Jan 20 : Diffractive methodology

Feb 3: Agency, intra-actions, and agential realism
March 9 Historical Materialism, and Cultural Materialisms
April 13 Onto-Epistemology
May 11 Technology
June 15 Industrial temporalization
July 6 Posthuman materialisms

Background Reading Materials:

Cole, Andrew. 2015. Those Obscure Objects of Desire, Artforum (Summer) : 318 323.
Dieter, Michael New Materialism and Non-Humanisation, an Interview with Jussi Parikka Published in
the Speculative Realities ebook.
http://v2.nl/archive/articles/new-materialism-and-non-200bhumanisation
*Dolphijn, Rick and Iris van der Tuin. 2012. New Materialism: Interviews and Cartographies. Ann Arbor,
MI: Open Humanities Press. (section 5)
Online: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/o/ohp/11515701.0001.001
Iliadis, Andrew. 2014. Iris van der Tuin [Interview] (December 28th) Figure/Ground http://
figureground.org/interview-with-iris-van-der-tuin/?print=pdf
McLean-Ferris, Laura (2013) Indifferent Objects Art Monthly (368: July-August):
http://www.artmonthly.co.uk/magazine/site/article/indifferent-objects-by-laura-mclean-ferris-julyaugust-2013

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SESSION 1: NM & diffractive methodologies

Reading Materials:
Haraway, Donna. 1992. The Promises of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others in
Cultural StudiesLawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, Paula A. Treichler (eds.), New York; Routledge, pp.
295-337. http://www.zbi.ee/~kalevi/monsters.html
Barad, Karen (2003) Posthumanist Performativity. Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to
Matter, in Signs, Vol. 28, No. 3, pages 801-831. http://humweb.ucsc.edu/feministstudies/faculty/barad/
barad-posthumanist.pdf
Further Reading:
Bergson, Henri. Matter and Memory. New York: Zone. [Intro + Chapter 1.] http://files.cargocollective.com/
616824/henri-bergson-matter-and-memory-zone-books-edition-1.pdf
Barad, Karen. 2012. Interview with Karen Barad. In Dolphijn, R. and van der Tuin, I. (eds),
New Materialism: Interviews and Cartographies. Ann Arbor: Open Humanities Press, 4870
Online: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/o/ohp/11515701.0001.001
Van der Tuin, Iris 2014. Generational Feminism. New Materialist Introduction to a Generational
Approach. Lexington.

SESSION 2: The NM concepts of agency, intra-actions, and agential realism

Reading Materials:
Barad, Karan. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and
Meaning, Duke University Press.
Coole, Diana and Frost, Samantha (eds) (2010). Introduction in New Materialisms:
Ontology, Agency, and Politics, Durham: Duke University Press.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/9780822392996
Further Reading:
Grattan, Peter. 2014. Speculative Realism: Problems and Prospects. Bloomsbury

SESSION 3: NM, Historical Materialism, and Cultural Materialisms

Reading Materials:

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Kolozova, Katerina (2015) Toward a Radical Metaphysics of Socialism: Marx and Laruelle by Brooklyn,
NY: Punctum, http://punctumbooks.com/titles/toward-a-radical-metaphysics-of-socialism/ [free ebook
available]
Hands, Joss (2014) From Cultural to New Materialism and Back: The Enduring Legacy of Raymond
Williams in Culture, Theory and Critique, DOI:10.1080/14735784.2014.931782 [also available at: https://
www.academia.edu/7467132/
From_Cultural_to_New_Materialism_and_Back_The_Enduring_Legacy_of_Raymond_Williams ]

Williams, Raymond. 1978. Problems of Materialism, in New Left Review, (I:109, May/June), pp. 317.
http://newleftreview.org/I/109/raymond-williams-problems-of-materialism
Further Reading:
Latour, Bruno. 2011. Reflections on Etienne Souriaus Les diffrents modes dexistence translated by
Stephen Muecke, in The Speculative Turn: Continental. Materialism and Realism, Levi Bryant,. Nick
Srnicek, and Graham Harman. (eds.), Melbourne: re.press,
http://www.re-press.org/book-files/OA_Version_Speculative_Turn_9780980668346.pdf

SESSION 4 : NM Onto-Epistemologies
Reading Materials:
Haraway, Donna (1988), Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of
Partial Perspective Feminist Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3. (Autumn, 1988), pp. 575-599.
http://www.staff.amu.edu.pl/~ewa/Haraway,%20Situated%20Knowledges.pdf
Stengers, Isabelle. Wondering about Materialisms in in The Speculative Turn: Continental. Materialism
and Realism, Levi Bryant,. Nick Srnicek, and Graham Harman. (eds.), Melbourne: re.press, http://www.repress.org/book-files/OA_Version_Speculative_Turn_9780980668346.pdf Chapter 22.
Hinton, Peta, Tara Mehrabi, and Josef Barla 2014. New materialisms/New colonialisms Position paper
for New Materialisms: How Matter Comes to Matter. COST. IS1307.
http://newmaterialism.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Subgroup-Position-Paper-_-Newmaterialisms_New-Colonialisms.pdf
Further reading:
Myers, Natasha 2015 Introduction in Rendering Life Molecular: Models, Modelers and Excitable Matter,
Duke University Press
https://www.academia.edu/13289091/
Read_the_Introduction_to_Rendering_Life_Molecular_Models_Modelers_and_Excitable_Matter_Duke_A
ugust_2015_
Hickey-Moody, Anna and Tara Page (eds.) 2014. Arts, Pedagogy and Cultural Resistance. Rowman &
Littlefield.
SESSION 5: NM reading Technologies
Reading:

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Hoel, Aud Sissel and van der Tuin, Iris (2013) The Ontological Force of Technicity: Reading Cassirer and
Simondon Diffractively in Philosophy &Technology, (26/2), pp. 187-202.
Available at:
https://www.academia.edu/2131648/
The_Ontological_Force_of_Technicity_Reading_Cassirer_and_Simondon_Diffractively

Ertuna, Irmak2009. Stiegler and Marx for a Question Concerning Technology, in Transformations (17;
Bernard Stiegler and the Question of Technics)
http://www.transformationsjournal.org/journal/issue_17/article_07.shtml
Further Reading:
Stiegler, Bernard. Technics and Time. Vols 1-3. Stanford University Press.

SESSION 6: Industrial temporalization: Technology, memory, things

Reading:
Stiegler, Bernard. Technics and Time. Vol 2: Disorientation. Stanford University Press.
Further reading:
Brown, Nathan. 2014. Speculation at the crossroads [Review of Tristan Garcia,Form and Object: A
Treatise on Things], in Radical Philosophy. (188)
http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/wp-content/files_mf/rp188_reviews_brown_speculative.pdf

SESSION 7: Posthuman materialisms

Grosz, Elizabeth. Davis, H. and Turpin, E. (2013), Time Matters: On Temporality in the Anthropocene:
Elizabeth Grosz in Conversation with Heather Davis and Etienne Turpin, inArchitecture in the
Anthropocene: Encounters among Design, Deep Time, Science, and Philosophy, ed. Etienne Turpin. Ann
Arbor, Mich.: Open Humanities Press.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/o/ohp/12527215.0001.001/1:14/--architecture-in-the-anthropocene-encountersamong-design?rgn=div1;view=fulltext;q1=stiegler

Braidotti, Rosi. 2013. The Posthuman. London: Polity. https://loomio-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/

uploads/9f612029748144abbac532eac972a227/Rosi%20Braidotti-The%20Posthuman-Polity
%20(2013).pdf

Further Readings:
Bozak, Nadia. 2012. The Cinematic Footprint: Lights, Camera, Natural Resources. Rutgers University
Press.

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Dieter, Michael New Materialism and Non-Humanisation, an Interview with Jussi Parikka Published in
the Speculative Realities ebook.
http://v2.nl/archive/articles/new-materialism-and-non-200bhumanisation
Hayles, Katherine.
MacCormack, Patricia. 2012. Posthuman Ethics. Palgrave.