Our Western culture more and more moves away from life. It is so much so that speaking about nature is generally understood as alluding to some or other concept that would be more or less adequate, but not as referring to or questioning about life. This situation is all the stranger since we are facing a real danger regarding the survival of the earth and of all the living beings that populate it. It is as if all the discourses we (...) hear about this problem could remain abstract considerations and academic or scientific evaluations and discussions without practical concern about our own life and our living environment. This probably results from the status of our discourse in general and its current relation to the real. There is no doubt that questions are little by little arising about the present situation of the world, and also that some of the recent philosophers have begun to inquire about the truth and their way of approaching it. But it seems that, although they speak about the necessity of overcoming our past metaphysics, they succeed in doing that with difficulty. Could it be possible that the undertaking would be easier for a woman, because she did not actively contribute to the construction of our past metaphysics, and her identity and subjectivity have remained more in harmony with nature—which she is, furthermore, presumed to represent for the patriarchal tradition? Anyway, it seems that Luce Irigaray—in particular her last two books, Through Vegetal Being and To Be Born —offers elements that correspond to what is at stake in our epoch, both at an empirical and a theoretical level. Hence this conversation about her approach to and treatment of issues crucial today for our life, our world, and all living beings. (shrink)

In light of the rising anti-racist and decolonial struggles breaking out in the world, this essay seeks to displace the theoretical dichotomy between ‘violence’ and ‘non-violence’. We begin by revisiting Arendt and Fanon to argue that within the conditions of colonial-racial capitalism, ‘non-violence’ is merely a theoretical abstraction. Building on Fanon, who understands decolonial struggle as setting the ‘atmospheric violence’ of colonization into motion toward a new humanity, we develop our own vocabulary of revolutionary anti-violence that replaces a static dichotomy (...) with a spectrum of spontaneous insurrectional activity, non-retaliatory anti-violence, self-defense, and offensive armed struggle. From these, we reinterpret various struggles and distinguish them from terrorism. By centralizing anti-violence as an ethical ideal and political struggle, we aim to overcome the unproductive pitting of ‘good’ (non-violent) movements from ‘bad’ (violent or terrorist) ones and offer a political theory of violence more appropriate to our times. (shrink)

In light of the rising anti-racist and decolonial struggles breaking out in the world, this essay seeks to displace the theoretical dichotomy between ‘violence’ and ‘non-violence’. We begin by revisiting Arendt and Fanon to argue that within the conditions of colonial-racial capitalism, ‘non-violence’ is merely a theoretical abstraction. Building on Fanon, who understands decolonial struggle as setting the ‘atmospheric violence’ of colonization into motion toward a new humanity, we develop our own vocabulary of revolutionary anti-violence that replaces a static dichotomy (...) with a spectrum of spontaneous insurrectional activity, non-retaliatory anti-violence, self-defense, and offensive armed struggle. From these, we reinterpret various struggles and distinguish them from terrorism. By centralizing anti-violence as an ethical ideal and political struggle, we aim to overcome the unproductive pitting of ‘good’ (non-violent) movements from ‘bad’ (violent or terrorist) ones and offer a political theory of violence more appropriate to our times. (shrink)

In this essay, we revisit the concept of “political spirituality” that we developed in our book The Spirit of Revolution: Beyond the Dead Ends of Man (2016) in light of the profound political upheavals that have happened since its publication. We begin with theories about the breakdown of neoliberalism and the “return of politics” with the rise of so-called populist movements. We argue that notions of the “demos” and the “people” miss the dimension of transindividuality central to our thinking of (...) political spirituality. The second aspect of political spirituality missing from current critical theory is transcendence, or the desire to go beyond the limits of who and what we are. We capture both these dimensions through a notion of “relational finitude,” demonstrating both the poverty of European philosophy in this respect, and celebrating the contribution of feminism, decolonial theory, and African philosophy toward a new praxis of being human. (shrink)

Within the context of questions raised by gender and sexuality studies about the relationship between sex and technics, I develop a theory of sexuation derived from Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of individuation. First, I provide an overview of Simondon’s philosophy of individuation, from the physical to the collective. In the second section, I turn to the question of sexuality, outlining an ontogenetic account in which sexuation is conceived as a process of both individuation and relation that is fundamental to certain living (...) beings. Then, drawing on Simondon’s theorization of technics in its mediating function between humans and the world, I resituate understandings of the relation between sex and technics. While each section – Individuation, Sexuation, Technicity – argues for the significance of these concepts to feminist and queer theory, overall the essay uses Simondon’s work as a new paradigm for gender and sexuality studies and calls for the invention of a sexuate culture. (shrink)