Public Programs And Events

Please join Liberal Studies at the New School for Social Research (NSSR) for a conversation with Gerald Raunig, philosopher and author of the recent Dividuum: Machinic Capitalism & Molecular Revolution (Semiotext(e) - Foreign Agents, 2016). Moderated by McKenzine Wark, Chair of Liberal Studies and NSSR and Culture & Media at Eugene Lang College.

As the philosophical, religious, and historical systems that have produced the “individual” (and its counterparts, society and community) over the years continue to break down, the age of “dividuality” is now upon us. The roots of the concept of the “dividuum” can be traced back to Latin philosophy, when Cicero used the term to translate the “divisible” in the writings of Epicurus and Plato; later, medieval scholars utilized the term in theological discussions on the unity of the trinity. Grounding himself in the writings of the medieval bishop Gilbert de Poitiers and his extensive commentaries on Boethius, Gerald Raunig charts a genealogy of the concept and develops a philosophy of dividuality as a way of addressing contemporary modes of production and forms of life. Through its components of dispersion, subsistence, and similarity, dividuality becomes a hidden principle of obedience and conformity, but it also brings with it the potential to realize disobedience and noncompliant con/dividualities.

Free and open to the public.