Assessing the Legacy of That Thing That Happened After Poststructuralism » non
A related point, one that’s a bit more zoomed in. After the end of poststructuralism and the subsequent reorganization of knowledge that
has taken place in recent years, two new factions have emerged. First
are the Reticular Empiricists formed mostly by followers of
Deleuze (along with Whitehead as well), and flanked by a formidable army
of Latourians. Here we find the process philosophers and affect
theorists, including a number of interesting authors like Isabelle
Stengers, Brian Massumi, and Steven Shaviro. I would classify several of the new materialists here as well, particularly those Carl Sagan Deleuzians
who offer their reflections on slime mold or quantum weirdness. And
some of the people affiliated with SR/OOO, but certainly not all, are
Reticular Empiricists of one kind or another.Second are the Generic Communists assembled from the newly
revitalized remains of Marxist theory. The great champion here is
Badiou. But also Zizek, and those in Negri’s circle. I’m thinking also
of people like Peter Hallward, Bruno Bosteels, Alberto Toscano, Jodi
Dean, McKenzie Wark, Jason Smith, and Benjamin Noys. The anarchists and
communization theory folks are here too, Tiqqun, Invisible Committee,
Endnotes. And, despite a number of nontrivial discrepancies, I would
also put Laruelle here. In my reading Laruelle is essentially an
Althusserian Marxist, albeit one mixed with healthy doses of gnosticism
and mysticism. He has a theory of generic communism that rivals even
that of Badiou.