Onto-Cartography: An Ontology of Machines and Media - Paperback

by Levi R. Bryant (Author)

Onto-Cartography gives an unapologetic defense of naturalism and materialism, transforming these familiar positions and showing how culture itself is formed by nature. Bryant endorses a pan-ecological theory of being, arguing that societies are ecosystems that can only be understood by considering nonhuman material agencies such as rivers and mountain ranges alongside signifying agencies such as discourses, narratives and ideologies. In this way, Bryant lays the foundations for a new machine-oriented ontology.
This theoretically omnivorous work draws on disciplines as diverse as deconstruction, psychoanalysis, Marxism, media studies, object-oriented ontology, the new materialist feminisms, actor-network theory, biology and sociology. Through its fresh attention to nonhumans and material being, it also provides a framework for integrating the most valuable findings of critical theory and social constructivism.

Back Jacket

'This book finally rescues materialism from the dilution of social historical theory. But rather than rejecting the lessons of Marxism, Bryant substantially extends the material underpinnings of life. Lucid, far-reaching, and urgent, Onto-Cartographies is the book many object-oriented ontology skeptics have been waiting for.' Ian Bogost, Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies, Georgia Institute of Technology An investigation of how material agencies structure social and ecological relations Onto-Cartography gives an unapologetic defense of naturalism and materialism, transforming these familiar positions and showing how culture itself is formed by nature. Bryant endorses a pan-ecological theory of being, arguing that societies are ecosystems that can only be understood by considering nonhuman material agencies such as rivers and mountain ranges alongside signifying agencies such as discourses, narratives and ideologies. In this way, Bryant lays the foundations for a new machine-oriented ontology. This theoretically omnivorous work draws on disciplines as diverse as deconstruction, psychoanalysis, Marxism, media studies, object-oriented ontology, the new materialist feminisms, actor-network theory, biology and sociology. Through its fresh attention to nonhumans and material being, it also provides a framework for integrating the most valuable findings of critical theory and social constructivism. Levi R. Bryant is Professor of Philosophy at Collin College, Texas. He is the author of Difference and Givenness: Deleuze's Transcendental Empiricism and the Ontology of Immanence (2008) and The Democracy of Objects (2011). Cover image: Old Water Wheel (c) Eduardo Leite/iStockphoto. Cover design: [EUP logo] www.euppublishing.com

Author Biography

Levi R. Bryant is Professor of Philosophy at Collin College outside of Dallas, Texas. He is the author of Difference and Givenness: Deleuze's Transcendental Empiricism and the Ontology of Immanence (Northwestern University Press, 2008), The Democracy of Objects (Open Humanities Press, 2011), and co-edited The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism (Re.Press, 2011). He has written widely on Lacan, Deleuze, Badiou, Zizek, speculative realism, and object-oriented ontology.