Prince of Networks

I think the Christmas gift that I was most excited about receiving this year (except perhaps these) was one of the books I'm currently reading: Graham Harman's Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics. This is not only a fabulous, fascinating reading of Latour (a French science and technology studies scholar, but that doesn't quite do him justice: anthropologist? social theorist? philosopher? yes, but...), but I've also already laughed out loud several times, and I'm only on page 53.

To give you a quick taste (out of context, but it doesn't really matter):

"Let's imagine that, in our efforts to counter the dominance of Kant's Copernican Revolution in philosophy, we hire Karl Rove as a consultant. Since Kant has the reputation of a quiet, ascetic seeker after truth, Rove might begin by spreading rumors of moral turpitude. To simplify the tale, let's imagine that the rumors are actually true. In a surprising discovery, Rove's research team uncovers previously suppressed correspondence between Kant and the jailed Marquis de Sade, along with a shocking diary that records midnight deflowerings and Baudelairean hymns to triple-great Satan (Harman 2009, p. 52)."

And that's just the beginning - this is fun reading. If only my academic writing could be half this lively! (Indeed, if only there were more academic writing this fun in general...)

In any case, I may occasionally post about this book, for you philosophical types out there. I'm eager to find out what happens! (i.e., to get to his critique. Back in 2006, I sat in on a great seminar with Bruce Braun at Minnesota, in which we read portions of Latour's Reassembling the Social and Harman's Tool-Being - alas, this book hadn't yet been published, so we could only speculate about what they would say to each other. Now there's a whole blog devoted to the actor-network/Heidegger encounter.)