The Whitehead Research Project is very pleased to announce the second volume of the Contemporary Whitehead Studies series: Butler on Whitehead: On the Occasion.
This volume is based on the first set of formal conversations which brings together the dynamic philosophies of two eminent thinkers: Judith Butler and Alfred North Whitehead. Each has drawn from a wide palette of disciplines to develop distinctive theories of becoming, of syntactical violence, and creative opportunities of limitation. In bringing together internationally renowned interpreters of Butler and Whitehead from a variety of fields and disciplines—philosophy, rhetoric, gender and queer studies, religion, literary and political theory—the editors hope to set a standard for the relevance of interdisciplinary philosophical discourse today. This volume offers a unique contribution to and for the humanities in the struggles of politics, economy, ecology, and the arts, by reaching beyond their closed circles toward understandings that may serve as the basis for the activation of humanity today. Considered together, Butler and Whitehead delineate a whole new cadre of approaches to long-standing problems as well as never-before asked questions in the humanities.
Judith Butler and Alfred North Whitehead are both important philosophers, but they come out of quite different traditions and are not usually considered together. This book provides the occasion for an encounter between the two thinkers, with results that are always illuminating and often surprising. Together with Butler’s reflections on how Whitehead’s work both challenges and inspires her own, we get a range of commentaries on the resonances between the two thinkers and on how they both offer us valuable resources for thinking about language and embodiment, memory and mourning, liveliness and loss. – Steven Shaviro, Wayne State University
Editors
Roland Faber, Michael Halewood, Deena M. Lin
Contributors
Jeffrey A. Bell, Vikki Bell, Judith Butler, Daniel A. Dombrowski, Jeremy D. Fackenthal, Kirsten M. Gerdes, Sigridur Guðmarsdóttir, Catherine Keller, Matthew S. LoPresti, Astrid Lorange, Randy Ramal, Alan Van Wyk