COVID-19: Viral Contagion / Mimetic Contagion

Posted on March 9, 2020 by wp_8686836

What is the link between mimetic contagion and viral contagion? Building on a diagnostic insight that called attention to the danger of “contemporary pandemics that, every year, threaten to contaminate an increasingly globalized, permeable, and precarious world,” and, already in 2016, warned that “the shadow of epidemics looms large on the horizon” (chapter on “The Cooperative Community: Surviving Epidemics in The Shadow-Line“), the HOM project continues the diagnostic in the context of COVID-19 in a series of interviews and posts.

Given the rapid global spread of coronavirus, it is increasingly essential to distinguish between viral contagion based on medical facts, and emotional reactions based on mimetic reflexes. In this radio interview, Nidesh Lawtoo cautions against mimetic affects, like panic, but also distinguishes between ideologically-driven forms of mimetic contagion and empirical viral contagion. If (new) fascist politicians spread lies about COVID-19, the latter should not be downplayed for economic reasons. It should rather lead citizens to listen to scientists and become aware of (and restrain) unconscious mimetic reflexes and habits (e.g., large assemblages, shaking hands etc.). Full radio interview (in Italian) with RSI, Rete 1 here ; written interview for LaRegione here.

Wojciech Kaftanski follows up on the diagnostic with a piece on mimetic contagion and COVID-19 for ABC that shows “how deeply we influence one another: from fights over toilet paper to declarations of war.” Article available here. Nidesh continues with a genealogy of mimesis–via Plato, Nietzsche and The Matrix–to face viral contagion in the Anthropocene in a piece for Fatamorgana. And in an interview for MSU Press’s Podcast, Nidesh discusses his new book (New) Fascism: Contagion, Comunity, Myth (MSU P 2019) in the context of the current pandemic crisis. You can listen to the podcast here.

Daniel Villegas Velez takes a forthcoming HOM interview with Jean-Luc Nancy as a starting point to reflect on the “Allegories of Contagion” that take COVID-19 as a “magnifying mirror” to reflect on (new) fascism. And in Lawtoo’s “The Mimetic Virus“ all these threads are woven together to “rethinking mimesis in the age of COVID-19” in The Contemporary Condition.

HOM Videos ep.3, The Complexity of Mimesis: Edgar Morin

Posted on March 3, 2020 by wp_8686836

In this third episode of HOM Videos, French sociologist, philosopher and founder of complexity theory, Edgar Morin discusses the complexity of mimesis: from the anthropology of the double to cinematic identifications, ethics to politics, mimicry to the birth of art, homo mimeticus turns out to be constitutive of Morin’s complex view of human nature. Trailer here.

New Article on TV Satire and Comic Fascism

Posted on February 18, 2020 by wp_8686836

We all know that TV satirical news shows play an essential role in unmasking political lies, promoting critical thinking, and fighting for free speech in an age under the spell of (new) fascist leaders. But did you know that by focusing so much media attention on apprentice presidents the same comics might also paradoxically (and against their best intentions) play in favor of the comic fascism they critique? If you read this article, you will know.

New Article on Spike Jonze’s Hypermimesis

Posted on February 2, 2020 by wp_8686836

What do contemporary films tell us about the material effects of theatrical, cinematic, and digital simulations? This article considers Spike Jonze’s mimetic aesthetics in Being John Malkovich (written by Charlie Kaufman; 1999) and Her (2013) to diagnose the transition from a society of the spectacle based on embodied forms of mimesis to a network society in which digital simulations have material effects on posthuman bodies and souls, or hypermimesis. Full article available here.

Workshop, “The Mimetic Condition: A Transdisciplinary Approach

Posted on November 25, 2019 by wp_8686836

Since the publication of Gunter Gebauer and Christoph Wulf’s seminal book, Mimesis: Culture- Art-Society in 1992, the realization that mimesis is constitutive of the human condition has become central to the humanities, the arts, the social sciences, stretching to inform the hard sciences as well. Furthering Gebauer and Wulf’s call to examining the productive aspect of mimesis as a “human condition,” the ERC-funded Homo Mimeticus: Theory and Criticism (HOM) project convokes a two-day transdisciplinary workshop at the Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven, to explore the afterlives of the mimetic condition in the twenty-first century.

December 5-6, 2019,Room S, Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven (Belgium) Keynote: Prof. Gunter Gebauer (Free University of Berlin) “Worldmaking of the Hand: The Mimetic Creation of Human Culture”

New Article on Deleuze and the Simulacrum

Posted on November 12, 2019 by wp_8686836

In “Plato and the Simulacrum,” Deleuze distinguishes between two types of mimetic images: the icon, which is based on the model-copy relation, and the simulacrum, which is “a copy without a model.” In this article, Daniel Villegas Velez argues that behind this well-known distinction, however, lies a previously unexplored distinction between the simulacrum and the phantasm. Full article available here.

Inaugural Lecture: Nidesh Lawtoo: ‘Homo Mimeticus. Sameness and Difference Replayed.’

Posted on November 6, 2019 by wp_8686836

In this Inaugural Lecture, PI of ERC-funded HOM Project Nidesh Lawtoo revisits the legendary 1966 Johns Hopkins Conference, “The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man,” an event which was meant to introduce structuralism in the US, yet ended up inaugurating what became known as poststructuralism instead. At one remove, replaying mimesis in the company of Derrida and Girard half a century later still provides a genealogical starting point to rethink the all too human tendency to imitate characteristic of Homo Mimeticus.

November 7, 2019, Institute of Philosophy, Kardinaal Mercierzaal, 5-7pm (followed by reception).

Book launch of (New) Fascism (2019)

Posted on November 1, 2019 by wp_8686836

In conversation with Wojciech Kaftanski, Nidesh Lawtoo presents his last book, (New) Fascism (MSU P 2019) at the Institute of Philosophy (Husserl Archives, KU Leuven, October 2019). A diagnostic of crowd behavior, mythic identifications, and mimetic contagion constitutive of the growing shadow of fascism.

William E. Connolly Lecture: Sophocles, Mary Shelley, and the Planetary (Oct. 10, 2019)

Posted on October 1, 2019 by wp_8686836

In this lecture co-sponsored by the English Literature Research Seminar, RIPPLE, the Husserl Archives and the HOM project, political theorist William E. Connolly (Johns Hopkins Univesity) focuses on three diverse thinkers – Sophocles, Mary Shelley, and Bernard Williams. Writing in different times and places they advanced overlapping insights that, if widely absorbed in major Eurocentric theories, may have advanced insights sooner into the unruliness of the earth.

Thursday October 10, 5 pm, Kardinaal Mercierzaal, Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven. Reception to follow. More details here.

The lecture is followed by a workshop on “Mimetic Politics: Swarms and Crowds” Friday, October 11, 10-12pm. Radzaal, Institute of Philosophy. All welcome. Details and readings here.

Book Launch–(New) Fascism: Contagion, Community, Myth (N. Lawtoo)

Posted on September 21, 2019 by wp_8686836

In this new book, part of the ERC-funded HOM Project, Nidesh Lawtoo confronts the rise of (new) fascist leaders, both in Europe and the US, via a diagnostic of the contagious, communal and mythic powers mimetic leaders convoke to shape mass/public opinion.

Dr. Wojciech Kaftanski presents (New) Fascism and opens the conversation with the author on Friday 27 September, 3-4pm, Salons, Institute of Philosophy, Kardinaal Mercierplein 2, 3000 Leuven. Reception to follow.