• The Bloomsbury Handbook of Existentialism (edited book)
    with Felicity Joseph and Jack Reynolds
    Bloomsbury. 2023.
  •  2
    Postinformational Education
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 31 (4): 501-521. 2023.
    This paper explores the theme of education and the posthuman from the perspective of French philosophy. It addresses a crisis in eduction today identified by Michel Serres: now that knowledge is widely and freely accessible through information technologies, what is the purpose of education? A response is developed through three conceptual terms prefixed with ‘post’: the postmodern, the posthuman, and through the proposed idea of ‘postinformation.’ The background to the problem is sketched in ter…Read more
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    Being and Information
    Philosophy Today 60 (3): 723-741. 2016.
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    Signifying Nothing: Nihilism, Information, and Signs
    Open Philosophy 6 (1): 147-57. 2023.
    This article explores the theme of nihilism from the perspective of post-continental philosophy by focusing on semiotics and information theory and the question of “meaning” at stake between them. Nihilism is characterised here as an avatar of the counter-Enlightenment tradition. Post-continental philosophy is defined by a positive revaluation of reason, science, and technology, which were critiqued for their nihilistic effects by key continental philosophers. Rather than critiquing nihilism, th…Read more
  • Information and alterity : from probability to plasticity
    In Natasha Lushetich, Iain Campbell & Dominic Smith (eds.), Contingency and plasticity in everyday technologies, Rowman & Littlefield. 2023.
  • Information and alterity : from probability to plasticity
    In Natasha Lushetich, Iain Campbell & Dominic Smith (eds.), Contingency and Plasticity in Everyday Technologies, Rowman & Littlefield. 2023.
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    Nietzsche and the Politics of Difference (edited book)
    De Gruyter. 2022.
    The question of Nietzsche’s use of political theory has a long and vexed history. The contributors of this book re-situate debates around the notion of difference, in relation to historical and scholarly concerns, but with a view to the current political context. Given that today we are faced with a host of political challenges of domination and resistance, the question raised in this volume is how Nietzsche helps us to think through and to address some of the problems. The authors also discuss …Read more
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    Ashley Woodward demonstrates what a new generation of scholars are just discovering: that Lyotard's incisive work is essential for current debates in the humanities. Lyotard's ideas about the arts and the confrontations between humanist traditions and cutting-edge sciences and technologies are today known as 'posthumanism'. Woodward presents a series of studies to explain Lyotard's specific interventions in information theory, new media arts and the changing nature of the human. He assesses thei…Read more
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    Nihilism, Neonihilism, Hypernihilism: ‘Nietzsche aujourd’hui’ Today?
    Nietzsche Studien (1973) 48 (1): 244-264. 2019.
    The ‘French reading’ of Nietzsche crystallized almost 50 years ago at the 1972 conference at Cerisy-la-Salle, Nietzsche aujourd’hui. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual conference of the Friedrich Nietzsche Society, with the theme of ‘The Politics of Difference’, Newcastle University, 20–21 September 2018. Nietzsche’s fortunes have since undergone some dramatic shifts in France, but there are signs that he is once again on the ascendency, in particular the 2016 edited co…Read more
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    Acinemas: Lyotard's Philosophy of Film (edited book)
    with Graham Jones
    Edinburgh University Press. 2017.
    This collection presents, for the first time in English, Jean-Francois Lyotard's major essays on film: 'Acinema', 'The Unconscious as Mise-en-scene', 'Two Metamorphoses of the Seductive in Cinema' and 'The Idea of a Sovereign Film'. Then, eight critical essays by philosophers and film theorists examine Lyotard's film work and influence across two sections: 'Approaches and Interpretations' and 'Applications and Extensions'. These works are complemented by an introductory essay by leading French s…Read more
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    Aesthetics in Continental Philosophy
    Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2016.
    Aesthetics in Continental Philosophy Although aesthetics is a significant area of research in its own right in the analytic philosophical tradition, aesthetics frequently seems to be accorded less value than philosophy of language, logic, epistemology, metaphysics, and other areas of value theory such as ethics and political philosophy. Many of the most prominent analytic philosophers … Continue reading Aesthetics in Continental Philosophy →
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    “White Skin”: Lyotard’s Sketch of a Postcolonial Libidinal Economy
    Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 51 (4): 337-351. 2020.
    In 1975 Jean-François Lyotard published a short text entitled Pacific Wall. A mash-up of philosophy, fiction, biography, and art criticism, it is highly gnomic if read in isolation. Studied alongsi...
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    Jean-François Lyotard's work remains a largely untapped resource for film-philosophy. This article surveys four fundamental concepts which indicate the fecundity of this work for current studies and debates. While Lyotard was generally associated with the “theory” of the 1980s which privileged language, signs, and cultural representations, much of his work in fact resonates more strongly with the new materialisms and realisms currently taking centre stage. The concepts examined here indicate the…Read more
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    Continuum Companion to Existentialism (edited book)
    with Felicity Joseph and Jack Reynolds
    Continuum. 2011.
    The Continuum Companion to Existentialism offers the definitive guide to a key area of modern European philosophy. The book covers the fundamental questions asked by existentialism, providing valuable guidance for students and researchers to some of the many important and enduring contributions of existentialist thinkers. Eighteen specially commissioned essays from an international team of experts explore existentialism’s relationship to philosophical method; ontology; politics; psychoanalysis; …Read more
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    A sacrificial economy of the image: Lyotard on cinema
    Angelaki 19 (4): 141-154. 2014.
    :The theme of sacrifice appears in Jean-François Lyotard's writings on cinema not in terms of any representational content but in terms of the economy of the images from which a film is formally constructed. Sacrifice is here understood in a sense derived from Bataille, and related to his notions of general economy, and of sovereignty. Lyotard's writings on cinema have received some attention in English-language scholarship, but so far this attention has been focused almost exclusively on two es…Read more
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    Lesson of Darkness: Phenomenology and Lyotard’s Late Aesthetics
    Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 50 (2): 104-119. 2019.
    This paper examines the relationship of Jean-François Lyotard’s aesthetics to phenomenology, especially the works of Mikel Dufrenne and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It argues that this comparison allows a greater understanding of Lyotard’s late aesthetic writings, which can appear gnomic and which have received relatively little critical attention. Lyotard credits Merleau-Ponty with opening the theme of difference in the aesthetic field, yet believes that the phenomenological approach can never adequa…Read more
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    Eyes
    Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology 3 (1): 77-79. 2016.
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    New Technologies and Lyotard's Aesthetics
    Literaria Pragensia 16 (32): 14-35. 2006.
    One of the less-appreciated modalities of Lyotard’s rethinking of aesthetics is a consideration of the way that technologies, and in particular information technologies, reconfigure the nature of aesthetic experience. For Lyotard, information technology presents a particular problem in relation to the arts and aesthetic experience. When art uses communication technologies themselves as its matter or medium, the “traditional” model of aesthetic experience becomes problematised. Lyotard argues tha…Read more
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    Sensorium: aesthetics, art, life (edited book)
    Cambridge Scholars Press. 2007.
    This book presents a timely reconfiguration of the relations between art, philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics. Through connection with a range of contemporary social and philosophical issues and movements, this collection of essays highlights the imperative of sensorial aesthetics. The book focuses on the radical philosophical approach to aesthetics enabled by the works of Jean-François Lyotard and Gilles Deleuze. From these philosophers an older meaning of aesthetic has been recalled. Before it …Read more
  • A connection is often made between postmodernism and nihilism, but the full meaning of such a connection is rarelyexplored. The contemporary Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo is one of the few philosophers to have devotedmuch work to explaining this connection. Vattimo extrapolates the relevance of Nietzsche’s theory of nihilism forthe postmodern condition, arguing that the concept of the postmodern can only be thought rigorously in relation tothe nihilistic destiny of the West. This article ex…Read more
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    Gianni Vattimo, Dialogue with Nietzsche Reviewed by
    Philosophy in Review 26 (4): 303-305. 2006.
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    Was Baudrillard a Nihilist?
    International Journal of Baudrillard Studies 5 (1). 2008.
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    The Lyotard Reader and Guide (review)
    Philosophy in Review 28 (2): 105-107. 2008.
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    Answering the Question, ‘What is an Event?
    antiTHESIS 16 12-25. 2006.
    This article surveys the notion of the event as it is treated in Lyotard’s works, and examines the implications of this treatment for his method, and for critical theory in general. While the event is of importance to many influential French philosophers, it is arguably Lyotard who has positioned his philosophy most central around the problem of accounting for events. For Lyotard, an event is an occurence which cannot be predicted in advance, and cannot be fully determined in retrospect. An even…Read more
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    The Verwindung of Capital: On the Philosophy and Politics of Gianni Vattimo
    Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy/Revue canadienne de philosophie continentale 13 (1): 73-99. 2009.
    Gianni Vattimo occupies the relatively rare position of being both a prominent philosopher and an engaged politician. This article outlines Vattimo’s philosophy of “weak thought” and his democratic socialist politics, and argues that there is a “gap” between them: his stated political positions seem at odds with aspects of his philosophy. This gap between the phi- losophical and the political is examined with reference to the topic of globalised capitalism. I then apply Vattimo’s own strategy in…Read more
  • Gianni Vattimo, Dialogue with Nietzsche (review)
    Philosophy in Review 26 303-305. 2006.