The Subject of Rosi Braidotti: Politics and Concepts

Description

Where on our bookshelves are Rosi Braidotti's works — Spinoza, French philosophy, feminism or in a category of their own? For those of us who have followed Rosi's nomadic pathway from analytic philosophy through currents of feminism to post-humanism, this book reminds us not just of her passionate engagement with ideas but also of the impact of her personality. The sheer breadth of her scholarship and her sympathies is mediated by her ability to inform and inspire. The essays here range over her interests and draw us in yet again to the debates close to her heart. Professor Christina Slade, Vice-Chancellor, Bath Spa University Jump, stitch, dance, embrace, repel, think, listen, play, sculpt, write, laugh, repair, resist, read and read again, talk, yearn, leap, build, compose and decompose—all of these only hint at the transformational materialist feminist practice offered to us by and with Rosi Braidotti. Her experiential nomadic ethics position us to move with, through, and for worlds that might yet be less lethal, richer, more attuned to the affectivities of fleshy difference of situated human and more-than-human subjects. The Subject of Rosi Braidotti draws me into its tissues with the same kind of verve that Braidotti herself exemplifies in her performances, writings, activisms, and bodily vitalities. Braidotti reconfigures what and whom she touches; she is a practitioner of feminist transpositions, metamorphoses, and transductions. I know because she has transformed me again and again. The many essays in this book pulsate with the energies—conceptual, political, and affectional—that Braidotti gives us. Donna Haraway, Distinguished Professor Emerita, History of Consciousness Department, University of California at Santa Cruz As a writer and a person, Rosi Braidotti encountered some of the most significant intellectual forces of the late twentieth century, including feminism, poststructuralism and posthumanist thought. These encounters were always transformative in both directions, nowhere more so than in her engagements with Deleuze’s philosophy. The gust of wind that I first encountered in Paris in 1977 became a whirlwind that swept new ideas and activism across the academic landscape and continues to do so. This volume is a fitting tribute to an extraordinary life and work still underway. Scientia Professor Paul Patton, University of New South Wales Rosi Braidotti has been a dynamic presence on the global philosophical stage for over three decades. The extent of her work and influence is reflected in this fine collection of essays by an international array of philosophers, historians, humanities and social science scholars, gender and feminist theorists and activists who have followed her critical and creative engagement with the question of the subject and who in these pages collectively engage the process of becoming-subject that is Rosi Braidotti. Alan D. Schrift, F. Wendell Miller Professor of Philosophy, Grinnell College Title Page Copyright Page Contents Notes on Contributors Acknowledgments Prelude Introduction Thinking subjectivity with Braidotti Biographical roots and bibliographical routes Roadmapping the volume One possible route Notes References Part 1 - The Concept of the Posthuman Chapter 1 Reflections on Ethics, Destructiveness, and Life: Rosi Braidotti and the Posthuman Abstract Keywords Notes Chapter 2 Killing in a Posthuman World: The Philosophy and Practice of Critical Military History Abstract Keywords Notes References Chapter 3 The Future of Scenarios: State Science Fiction Abstract Keywords Notes Chapter 4 Living in Molecular Times Abstract Keywords Life forms and forms of life References Chapter 5 Imagining Posthumanities, Enlivening Feminisms Abstract Keywords Posthuman subjectivity: Raiding the scientific icebox Enlivened ethics and its posthuman subjects Posthuman humanities, enlivening feminisms Conclusions References Chapter 6 Transplanting Life: Bios and Zoe in Images with Imagination Abstract Keywords Becoming-woman: Seeing with her ears and hands Becoming-animal, becoming-earth: A fight between bios and zoe Becoming-minoritarian: Globalized biopolitics Becoming-imperceptible: Theseus’s ship References Chapter 7 Disaster Feminism Abstract Keywords References Chapter 8 Pro-Proteus: The Transpositional Teratology of Rosi Braidotti Abstract Keywords From Anti-Oedipus to Pro-Proteus From philosophy to ecosophy References Chapter 9 Reading Rosi Braidotti: Returning to Transpositions Abstract Keywords On reading Transpositions1 Note Reference Interlude Chapter 10 Patterns of (Dis)appearance Abstract Keywords Redrafting ourselves Drawing a map The old bridge Subject-in-progress Notes References Chapter 11 Encountering the Nomadic Subject with a Smile Abstract Keywords References Part 2 The Politics of the Academic Chapter 12 On Generation(s) Abstract Keywords Existential premise For a critique of the concept of generation “Baby Boomers” and other feminists References Chapter 13 Rosi Braidotti and the Affirmation of European Women’s Studies: Points of No Return Abstract Keywords Friendship as metamorphosis (Annamaria) Institutions as new material (Berteke) European networking as becoming (Aino-Maija) Notes References Chapter 14 For a Baby Boomer Philosopher Abstract Keywords Two nomad women on a Roman street Life and adventures of a baby boomer philosopher Polyglot puzzles X-type encounters Nomadic thinking and transatlantic dis/connections Notes References Chapter 15 The Subject in Question Abstract Keywords Note Chapter 16 Between Two Worlds: Nomadism and the Passion of an Encounter Chapter 17 Transposing NOISE and Voice Abstract Keywords I call the living I mourn the dead I break the lightning Notes Reference Chapter 18 Nomadic Encounters: Turning Difference Toward Dialogue Abstract Keywords References Chapter 19 On Farming the Liberal Arts Abstract Keywords Reform of graduate education More alliance within the disarray of liberal artisans More public love of our subjects A change in our name and thus in our identity Notes Chapter 20 . . . R. B. to Life Abstract Keywords Note References Multimedia Chapter 21 Nomadic Subjects and the Feminist Archives1 Abstract Keywords Notes References Part 3 - The Ethics of the Nomad Chapter 22 Nomadic Subjects and Asylum Seekers Abstract Keywords Notes Chapter 23 Translating Selves: On Polyglot Cosmopolitanism Abstract Keywords Cartographies of selves On being polyglot On translation and cosmopolitanism Notes References Chapter 24 Nomadic Theory as an Epistemology for Transnational Feminist History Abstract Keywords Borders that matter: Feminism as a politics of location Narrating women’s and feminist history across time and space Notes References Chapter 25 The Struggle for Europe Abstract Keywords Notes References Chapter 26 Law’s Nomadic Subjects: Towards a Micropolitics of Posthuman Rights Abstract Keywords From human rights to posthuman rights Conclusion References Chapter 27 Collaboration Abstract Keywords Note Reference Postlude Chapter 28 The Untimely Passion for writing Feminism, philosophy, France The long march through the institutions Feminist genealogies Becoming-nomadic Writing the prehistory of a future Towards the posthumanities Being worthy of the times Notes References Rosi Braidotti Bibliography 1980–2013 Index