Education
He has a bachelor"s degree in Modern Culture and Media from Brown University, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Literature from Duke University in 2001.
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book
Excommunication: Three Inquiries in Media and Mediation (TRIOS)
(Always connect—that is the imperative of today’s media. B...)
Always connect—that is the imperative of today’s media. But what about those moments when media cease to function properly, when messages go beyond the sender and receiver to become excluded from the world of communication itself—those messages that state: “There will be no more messages”? In this book, Alexander R. Galloway, Eugene Thacker, and McKenzie Wark turn our usual understanding of media and mediation on its head by arguing that these moments reveal the ways the impossibility of communication is integral to communication itself—instances they call excommunication. In three linked essays, Excommunication pursues this elusive topic by looking at mediation in the face of banishment, exclusion, and heresy, and by contemplating the possibilities of communication with the great beyond. First, Galloway proposes an original theory of mediation based on classical literature and philosophy, using Hermes, Iris, and the Furies to map out three of the most prevalent modes of mediation today—mediation as exchange, as illumination, and as network. Then, Thacker goes boldly beyond Galloway’s classification scheme by examining the concept of excommunication through the secret link between the modern horror genre and medieval mysticism. Charting a trajectory of examples from H. P. Lovecraft to Meister Eckhart, Thacker explores those instances when one communicates or connects with the inaccessible, dubbing such modes of mediation “haunted” or “weird” to underscore their inaccessibility. Finally, Wark evokes the poetics of the infuriated swarm as a queer politics of heresy that deviates from both media theory and the traditional left. He posits a critical theory that celebrates heresy and that is distinct from those that now venerate Saint Paul. Reexamining commonplace definitions of media, mediation, and communication, Excommunication offers a glimpse into the realm of the nonhuman to find a theory of mediation adequate to our present condition.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226925226/?tag=2022091-20
Dark Nights of the Universe (Novo Pan Klub)
(Preface to the Four Nights. Last Spring, members of the C...)
Preface to the Four Nights. Last Spring, members of the Cascadian School gathered for a discussion on abattoirs, illumination, and misanthropy. Our findings tended not to reveal anything we didn't already suspect, which is as good an excuse as any for reconvening, one year later. And so Daniel, Nicola, Alex, and myself have gathered here for four nights, to talk about mysticism. Our take-off point is a short text by François Laruelle entitled Du Noir univers, published in 1988 in the journal La Décision philosophique. The text has four parts, and each of us have decided to speak alongside each of those four parts, on four consecutive nights.--Eugene Thacker
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/098405667X/?tag=2022091-20
Alexander Galloway
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Galloway is known for his writings on philosophy, media theory, contemporary art, film, and video games.
Works
book
-
Excommunication: Three Inquiries in Media and Mediation (TRIOS)
(Always connect—that is the imperative of today’s media. B...)
-
Dark Nights of the Universe (Novo Pan Klub)
(Preface to the Four Nights. Last Spring, members of the C...)
-
Excommunication: Three Inquiries in Media and Mediation (TRIOS)
