TY - JOUR
T1 - There’s something about things: feeling around for object-disoriented politics
AU - Bayly, Simon
N1 - Bayly, S. (2021) ‘There’s something about things: feeling around for
object-disoriented politics’ Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 26
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - This essay explores the centrality and ambiguity surrounding the thing in recent attempts to articulate an object-oriented politics. Attempting to reconnect seemingly divergent ways in which the thing has been theorized – as object, as assembly, as the Freudo-Lacanian Ding – the discussion analyses the persistence of libidinally charged scenes of “naked” human encounter within efforts to orient politics around objects. Subtending a Western conception of assembly as the ideal modern political form, this persistent political object is described as the meeting, a social genre that has received little sustained philosophical attention but which shapes the everyday experience of the political. The meeting as an emotionally ambivalent scene of collective sensual encounter is articulated as a space of anti-politics in which political work is both done and undone. The essay concludes by illustrating the political dynamics of meeting within the emergence of European capitalism through the brief analysis of a painting by Rembrandt.
AB - This essay explores the centrality and ambiguity surrounding the thing in recent attempts to articulate an object-oriented politics. Attempting to reconnect seemingly divergent ways in which the thing has been theorized – as object, as assembly, as the Freudo-Lacanian Ding – the discussion analyses the persistence of libidinally charged scenes of “naked” human encounter within efforts to orient politics around objects. Subtending a Western conception of assembly as the ideal modern political form, this persistent political object is described as the meeting, a social genre that has received little sustained philosophical attention but which shapes the everyday experience of the political. The meeting as an emotionally ambivalent scene of collective sensual encounter is articulated as a space of anti-politics in which political work is both done and undone. The essay concludes by illustrating the political dynamics of meeting within the emergence of European capitalism through the brief analysis of a painting by Rembrandt.
U2 - 10.1080/0969725X.2021.1963074
DO - 10.1080/0969725X.2021.1963074
M3 - Article
SN - 0969-725X
VL - 26
SP - 3
EP - 19
JO - Angelaki - Journal of the Theoretical Humanities
JF - Angelaki - Journal of the Theoretical Humanities
IS - 5
ER -