On Bernard Stiegler’s Confinement

Authors

Keywords:

Bernard Stiegler, Posthumanism, Prison, Reading, Technology

Abstract

This short essay addresses the special theme topic of literary geographies in isolation by considering the question of confinement in the philosopher Bernard Stiegler's account of reading and technics in prison. Before his recent passing, Stiegler revisited this period of isolation in a Le Monde piece, speaking to the conditions of isolation imposed by Covid-19. This short essay offers a greater context to this piece in relation to Stiegler's philosophy, and considers, along with Stiegler, the potential of reading in transforming self, space, and society, in the Anthropocene.

Author Biography

C. Parker Krieg, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

C. Parker Krieg is postdoctoral researcher in environmental humanities at the University of Helsinki, affiliated with the Faculty of Arts and the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science.

References

Berlant, L. (2011) Cruel Optimism. Durham: Duke University Press.

Davis, A. (2003) Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Seven Stories Press.

Marx, K. (1973) Grundrisse. Trans. M. Nicolaus. New York: Penguin.

Mbembe, A. (2019) Dialogue: Achille Mbembe and Bernard Stiegler, APL-TCS-AAU Conference. [Online] [Accessed 1 September 2020] https://youtu.be/w6gP8Z6NQ3o.

Shankman, S. (2013) ‘Turned Inside-Out: Reading the Russian Novel in Prison after Levinas.’ In Davis, S. and Roswell, B. (eds) Turning Teaching Inside Out: A Pedagogy of Transformation for Community-Based Education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 143-154.

Stiegler, B. (1998) Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus. Trans. R. Beardsworth and G. Collins. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Stiegler, B. (2009a) Acting Out. Trans. D. Barison, D. Ross, and P. Crogan. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Stiegler, B. (2009b) For a New Critique of Political Economy. Trans. D. Ross. New York: Polity.

Stiegler, B. (2010) Taking Care of Youth and the Generations. Trans. S. Barker. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Stiegler, B. (2020) ‘Turning Confinement into the Freedom to Create an Experience.’ Trans. D. Ross. [Online] [Accessed 1 September 2020] https://www.academia.edu/ 42802435/Bernard_Stiegler_Turning_Confinement_into_the_Freedom_to_Create_an_Experience_2020; published originally as ‘Retourner le confinement en liberté de faire une expérience.’ Le Monde 19 April 2020. [Online] [Accessed 1 September 2020] https://www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2020/04/19/bernard-stiegler-retourner-le-confinement-en-liberte-de-faire-une-experience_6037085_3260.html.

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Published

2020-12-23

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 2 (2020)

Section

Thinking Space

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