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This book is the first monograph on the u
in
theme of ‘new materialism,’ an emerging
trend in 21st century thought that has already
left its mark in such fields as philosophy,
cultural theory, feminism, science studies,
and the arts. The first part of the book con-
tains elaborate interviews with some of the
most prominent new materialist scholars
of today: Rosi Braidotti, Manuel DeLanda,
Karen Barad, and Quentin Meillassoux. The
second part situates the new materialist tra-
dition in contemporary thought by singling
out its transversal methodology, its position
on sexual differing, and the ethical and
political consequences of new materialism.
OPEN HUMANITIES PRESS
Cover design by Katherine Gillieson · Illustration by Tammy Lu
New Materialism:
Interviews & Cartographies
New Metaphysics
Series Editors: Graham Harman and Bruno Latour
The world is due for a resurgence of original speculative metaphysics. The New Metaphys-
ics series aims to provide a safe house for such thinking amidst the demoralizing caution
and prudence of professional academic philosophy. We do not aim to bridge the analytic-
continental divide, since we are equally impatient with nail-filing analytic critique and the
continental reverence for dusty textual monuments. We favor instead the spirit of the intel-
lectual gambler, and wish to discover and promote authors who meet this description. Like
an emergent recording company, what we seek are traces of a new metaphysical ‘sound’
from any nation of the world. The editors are open to translations of neglected metaphysical
classics, and will consider secondary works of especial force and daring. But our main inter-
est is to stimulate the birth of disturbing masterpieces of twenty-first century philosophy.
Rick Dolphijn and Iris van der Tuin
New Materialism:
Interviews & Cartographies
OPEN HUMANITIES PRESS
An imprint of MPublishing – University of Michigan Library, Ann Arbor, 2012
First edition published by Open Humanities Press
Freely available online at http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.11515701.0001.001
Copyright © 2012 Rick Dolphijn and Iris van der Tuin and the respective authors
This is an open access book, licensed under a Creative Commons By Attribution Share
Alike license. Under this license, authors allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify,
distribute, and/or copy this book so long as the authors and source are cited and resulting
derivative works are licensed under the same or similar license. No permission is required
from the authors or the publisher. Statutory fair use and other rights are in no way affected
by the above. Read more about the license at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0
Design by Katherine Gillieson
Cover Illustration by Tammy Lu
The cover illustration is copyright Tammy Lu 2012, used under a
Creative Commons By Attribution license (CC-BY).
ISBN-10 1-60785-281-0
ISBN-13 978-1-60785-281-0
Open Humanities Press is an international, scholar-led open access publishing collective
whose mission is to make leading works of contemporary critical thought freely available
worldwide. Books published under the Open Humanities Press imprint at MPublishing are
produced through a unique partnership between OHP’s editorial board and the University
of Michigan Library, which provides a library-based managing and production support
infrastructure to facilitate scholars to publish leading research in book form.
OPEN HUMANITIES PRESS
www.publishing.umich.edu www.openhumanitiespress.org
Contents
Acknowledgements 9
Introduction: What May I Hope For? 13
I Interviews
1. Interview with Rosi Braidotti 19
2. Interview with Manuel DeLanda 38
3. Interview with Karen Barad 48
4. Interview with Quentin Meillassoux 71
II Cartographies
Introduction: A “New Tradition” in Thought 85
5. The Transversality of New Materialism 93
6. Pushing Dualism to an Extreme 115
7. Sexual Differing 137
8. The End of (Wo)Man 158
Bibliography 181
Permissions 195
Matter can receive a form, and within this form-matter
relation lies the ontogenesis.
– Gilbert Simondon
Acknowledgements
This book is the result of intense interaction between the two authors and
many others. Giving names to the particular elements that form this swarm
is an impossible but necessary undertaking, since the two names on the
cover of this book definitely do not exhaust what made the book. Most of
all, of course, the four wise and generous minds that are given a voice in
the first part of this book, and whose voices are rewritten in the second
part, should be thanked: Prof. Rosi Braidotti, Prof. Manuel DeLanda, Prof.
Karen Barad, and Prof. Quentin Meillassoux. Our long-distance interview of
Prof. Barad at the “7th European Feminist Research Conference” (Utrecht
University, June 2009) opened up the idea of the interviews. We would like
to thank Heleen Klomp for transcribing the encounter with Prof. Barad, and
we would like to thank Prof. Wolfgang Schirmacher (the European Graduate
School) for getting us in touch with Prof. Manuel DeLanda. Thank you to
Dr. Marie-Pier Boucher for translating the interview with Prof. Quentin
Meillassoux and Sterre Ras for formatting the entire book. Also, we would
like to thank the editors that run the series “New Metaphysics” at Open
Humanities Press, Prof. Graham Harman and Prof. Bruno Latour, for their
enthusiasm, their support and care, and their inspiring scholarly work that
has also been of great influence on this book.
Let us also thank our home institution, the Department of Media
and Culture Studies, Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University, and in
