ISSUE ARCHIVES

Sea Ice & Icebergs, East Antarctica [Earth Observatory, NASA]

Speculations I

Speculations I, July 2010, ISBN: 978-0557573448

. . . the ultimate challenge for speculative realism—and for philosophy as a whole if this movement is indeed a product of our zeitgeist—is to clarify its position in the historical dialectic between the natural sciences and whatever responds to the name of ‘humanities’ (a term which clearly appears increasingly unfit to designate any philosophy that aims at overcoming the strictures of anthropocentric thought). A new kind of philosophy—whose label as ‘Post-Continental’ is defended by John Mullarkey—is attempting to place itself at that juncture between the radical science-skeptical positions that preceded it on one side and the danger of losing any identity and being swallowed whole by empirical science on the other.

~Fabio Gironi, "Science-Laden Theory: Outlines of an Unsettled Alliance"

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Table of Contents HERE.

Speculations II

Speculations II, May 2011, ISBN: 978-1257654079

The ferris wheel of speculative realism, object oriented ontology and queer theory have been shown to be interlocking or each perhaps as tiny wheels imagined inside each other. If [Levi] Bryant hopes that speculative realism and OOO will create projects for others then what we need to ensure is that the wheels keep spinning and that we never try to pin things down. If we refuse to spell out a programmatic content for speculative thought then it will always retain the power to wrench frames and whenever and wherever queer theory (or better, queer theories) and specualtive realism (or better, speculative realisms) meet the "fantastic explosion" promises an irreducible openness to everything.

~Michael O'Rourke, "Girls Welcome!!! Speculative Realism, Object Oriented Ontology, and Queer Theory"

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Table of Contents HERE.

Speculations III, September 2012, ISBN: 978-0988234017

Into what, precisely, do we plummet when we fall into love? What, exactly, is produced when we make it? When we are hungry for love, what stomach is nourished by that strange food? Colloquialisms are littered with a language that objectifies love, that turns it into a thing—not just something we can feel, but something we can touch, something that hits us, changes us, throws us, consumes us, drives us. Popular parlance makes the love relation into something almost tangible, concrete, autonomous: love is some thing we fall into, love is a master key, love is a war, love is a bite of heaven, love is a virus. Such language begins to suggest that the “love object” is not, exactly, the person for whom you pine. Instead, it begins to look as though the “love object” is the relation, itself. Love takes on thing-like contours, becomes its own sort of creature. It does its own little cosmic dance.

--Beatrice Marovich, "Thing Called Love: That Old Substantive Relation"

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Table of Contents HERE.