HOM_Homo Mimeticus

German translation of The Phantom of the Ego now available with Lit Verlag. Free download here: https://lit-verlag.de/isbn/978-3-643-25110-7/

Homo Mimeticus now available also in German with Lit Verlag:

Homo Mimeticus - Nidesh LawtooEine neue Theorie der ImitationISBN978-3-643-25091-9Band-Nr.35Jahr2024Seiten420BindungbroschiertReiheBeiträge zur mimetischen Theorie. Religion - Gewalt - Kommunikation - Weltordnung

Latest HOM output: an article on "Hypermimetic Police Violence" in the case of Rayshard Brooks (by N. Lawtoo) available for free here:

Hypermimetic Police Violence: Racist Somatechnics in the Case of Rayshard Brooks | Somatechnics Extending the new field of mimetic studies to the racist somatechnics of police violence against minorities in the United States, this article focuses on the specific case of the police murder of Rayshard Brooks in 2020 (Atlanta, Georgia) to account for the complex interplay of somatic, technical, a...

📌METAMORPHOSES SEMINAR in collaboration with the Environmental Humanities at LU: April 24, 15:15-17.00 (hybrid event; Zoom link tba; open to all).

Prof. Graham Parkes (U of Vienna), “Managing Humanity’s Insanity: Becoming Truly Human with Planetary Boundaries”

More info: https://hiw.kuleuven.be/hua/events/hom-seminar

Special issue on mimetic studies via Plato, Nietzsche, Wilde, Adorno, Benjamin, verisimilitude, contemporary film & literature. Warm thanks to all contributors & ERC for support!
OA articles here:

Project MUSE - MLN-Volume 138, Number 5, December 2023 More than one hundred twenty-five years ago, MLN pioneered the introduction of contemporary continental criticism into American scholarship. Since then, its reputation for high standards and excellent quality has continued and grown. Critical studies in the modern languages are featured in four issu...

Very last episode of HOM Videos in the Agora where the Socratic art of dia-logos on mimesis as a way of life started.

Ancient Foundations for Mimetic Studies: Nidesh Lawtoo III. Philosophy as a Way of Life What a better place to conclude the Homo Mimeticus project than the ancient Agora of Athens were philosophy was born? It is in fact here that Socrates among ...

Concluding HOM Videos where mimesis was born: at the Great Theater of Dionysus in Athens:

Ancient Foundations for Mimetic Studies: Nidesh Lawtoo II. Dionysian Pathos and Critical Distance In this last episode of HOM Videos, Nidesh Lawtoo returns to the place where mimetic studies begun: the Great Theatre of Dionysus in Athens. It is in fact he...

To conclude HOM Videos, a genealogical re-turn to the mythic origins where mimetic studies begun. Ep. 10.I on the birth of philosophy out of mythic wisdom.

Ancient Foundations of Mimetic Studies: Nidesh Lawtoo. 1 Birth of Philosophy out of Mimetic Wisdom In order to bring the Homo Mimeticus project to an end and launch the field of mimetic studies, Nidesh Lawtoo (prof. at Leiden University) re-turns to the pl...

Unfortunately (New) Fascism is still in the news casting a shadow not only on the U.S but in Europe and the world. Timely Dutch translation out this week with Noordboek.
English version available here for those who want to know why Trump's old mimetic tricks still work: https://msupress.org/9781611863291/new-fascism/
Pure in italiano: https://www.mimesisedizioni.it/libro/9788857564142

https://noordboek.nl/boek/nieuw-fascisme/

[Nieuw] Fascisme - Uitgeverij Noordboek | Sterck & DeVreese | HL Books | Bornmeer [Nieuw] Fascisme - Uitgeverij Noordboek | Sterck & DeVreese | HL Books | Bornmeer

In this interview on the Rebirth of Homo Mimeticus with Asijit Datta, HOM PI Nidesh Lawtoo sums up the main insights of mimetic studies that emerged from his recent books on violence and the unconscious. Check it out!

The Rebirth of Homo Mimeticus (Nidesh Lawtoo interviewed by Asijit Datta) In this discussion on the topic of "The Art of Imitation and the Desire for Violence: The Rebirth of Homo Mimeticus," we have tried to grasp the emerging con...

Volume 2 on Violence and the Mimetic Unconscious by Nidesh Lawtoo is now out with MSU P thanks to ERC support!
https://msupress.org/9781611864656/violence-and-the-mimetic-unconscious-volume-2/

A special session of the MET seminar to close the year:

Asijit Datta (SRM University) will interview Nidesh Lawtoo on "The Art of Imitation and the Desire for Violence: the Rebirth of Homo Mimeticus"

All welcome!

For info and Zoom Link: https://hiw.kuleuven.be/hua/events/hom-seminar/index.html

See you in 3 days at the next MET Seminar with JANE BENNETT on "The Mimetic Morphosis of Position and Disposition".

November 9, 4:30 pm CET (online)

Zoom link, readings, info here: https://hiw.kuleuven.be/hua/events/hom-seminar

🎥NEW HOM Video:

Interview to Vittorio Gallese on "The Neuroscience of Mimesis"

➡️ https://youtu.be/zmb52PNtrF0?si=UrUPjqq7AGOk4CYr

KU Leuven Bibliotheken Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte
KU Leuven - Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte

HOM Videos, ep. 9, The Neuroscience of Mimesis: Vittorio Gallese. I.History of a Discovery As HOM Videos moves toward a conclusion, Nidesh Lawtoo travels to Parma, Italy, to interview neuroscientist Vittorio Gallese who, along with Giacomo Rizzolat...

✨We are pleased to announce that the special issue "Mimetic Inclinations with Adriana Cavarero" is now out on Critical Horizons, vol. 24 (2).

With contributions by Isabell Dahms, Thimoty J. Huzar, Nidesh Lawtoo, Giulia Rignano, Andrea Timár, Willow Verker and a precious dialogue between Nidesh Lawtoo and Adriana Cavarero.

Check it out: https://genderedmimesis.com/publications/

KU Leuven Bibliotheken Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte
KU Leuven - Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte

PUBLICATIONS “Mimetic Inclinations with Adriana Cavarero”. N. Lawtoo, W. Verkerk (eds.), Critical Horizons, Volume 24, Issue 2 (2023). Willow Verkerk, “A Feminist Genealogy of the Post-Enlightenment…

ALL Welcome to the next MET Seminar, Thursday, September 28, at 4:30 pm CET (online) with Esa Kirkkopelto, "A Scenic Turn: From Mimetology to Logomimesis."

Readings and Zoom link (TBA) here: https://hiw.kuleuven.be/hua/events/hom-seminar/index.html

KU Leuven Bibliotheken Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte
KU Leuven - Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte
MA in Dance Performance at Uniarts Helsinki
Lund University

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqCWGRJLbM8&t=19s

Plastic Mimesis / Mimetic Plasticity: Catherine Malabou & Nidesh Lawtoo in Dialogue In this dialogue, Catherine Malabou and Nidesh Lawtoo explore the genealogical continuities between mimesis and plasticity to foster metamorphoses for the pr...

Video recording of the book launch of Violence and the Oedipal Unconscious with N. Lawtoo, M. Garcia-Granero, W. Johnsen in Paris:

Violence and the Oedipal Unconscious: Book Launch In this book launch of a diptych on Violence and the Unconscious, Nidesh Lawtoo, Marina Garcia-Granero and William Johnsen present the latest output of the E...

Special Lecture by Willow Verkerk on “Nietzsche’s Eternal Return and its Existensial Promise”, June 27, 2023, Meiji University (Tokyo).
If you happen to be there 😉

KU Leuven Bibliotheken Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte
明治大学 チャンネル - Meiji University -

"Who better to explore the post-Enlightenment attitude of the philosophical present than the Marquis de Sade’s terrible Juliette? Written during the French Revolution and after the Reign of Terror when Sade was imprisoned for “moderantism,” Juliette explores the instrumentalization, inversion, and perversion of Enlightenment ideals. While the bloody horrors of this period may have inspired Sade’s text, Juliette has relevance beyond the events of the Revolution. This text, along with others written by Sade, has given life to a body of diverse commentary by post-war French thinkers and critical theorists of the twentieth century. A return to the story of Juliette now can help us to refocus Foucault’s meditation on the philosophy of the present without abandoning the epistemic problem of truth".

➡️Willow Verkerk, "A Feminist Genealogy of the Post-Enlightenment Subject with the Marquis de Sade's Juliette".

Fully available here: https://www.academia.edu/99923513/A_Feminist_Genealogy_of_the_Post_Enlightenment_Subject_with_the_Marquis_de_Sades_Juliette

Enjoy the reading!

KU Leuven Bibliotheken Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte

📌METAMORPHOSES SEMINAR: Session 4: Next Friday, May 26, 2023, 4:30 pm CET, online.

With Federica Pedriali, "Bioclastic Living (Latour’s Final Lockdown)"

All welcome!

For readings and Zoom link (tba): https://hiw.kuleuven.be/hua/events/hom-seminar

KU Leuven Bibliotheken Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte
KU Leuven
The University of Edinburgh

📖Finally out! Nidesh Lawtoo, "Violence and the Oedipal Unconscious" (MSU P, 2023).

In this first volume, Nidesh Lawtoo reframes current debates on (new) media violence by tracing the philosophical, aesthetic, and historical vicissitudes of the “ hypothesis” from antiquity to modernity into the present via Aristotle, Nietzsche, Bernays, Freud, Girard, Morin among others. In the process, he outlines a new theory of violence, , and the unconscious that does not have desire as a via regia, but rather, the untimely realization that all affects spread contagiously and thus mimetically.

👉 https://msupress.org/9781611864489/violence-and-the-oedipal-unconscious/

European Research Council
KU Leuven
Universiteit Leiden / Leiden University

New HOM essay from deconstruction to the mimetic turn: "The Angel as Host: J. Hillis Miller's Last Flight" in symploke: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/885940/pdf

New output in mimetic studies focusing on Deleuze, Black Mirror, and Jan. 6: "The Insurrection Moment" available OA here thanks to ERC support:

Project MUSE - The Insurrection Moment: Intoxication, Conspiracy, Assault The Storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 took many by surprise, yet mimetic studies had long warned against the powers of leaders that aspire to fascism to turn a mob contra democracy. This essay draws from a genealogy of immanent thinkers of mimetic contagion—from Nietzsche to Deleuze,...

Tomorrow! METAMORPHOSES SEMINAR: Session 3.
Thursday, April 27, 2023, 4:30 pm CET, online.

Presentation by Jorge Estrada, "Deleuzean Sense as Mimetic Precursor"

For readings and Zoom link: https://hiw.kuleuven.be/hua/events/hom-seminar

KU Leuven Bibliotheken Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte
KU Leuven

‼️ Catherine Malabou's keynote lecture: "Mirroring & Conflicting Subliminalities" for the conference Metamorphoses of Mimesis (KU Leuven & Leiden U, February 2023).

In this keynote lecture, Malabou contributes to the mimetic turn by exploring the and conflicting subliminalities that--from Pierre Janet to Breton, Bhabha to Tutuola--open up an immanent conception of the subconscious that finds in both and its genealogical starting point. Joining forces with mimetic studies, Malabou's account of the subliminal challenges an autonomous conception of free subjectivity rooted in a sublime aesthetics along and lines that give new plastic forms to the of mimesis.

KU Leuven Bibliotheken Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte
KU Leuven

Catherine Malabou: Mirroring and Conflicting Subliminalities In this keynote lecture for the Metamorphoses of Mimesis Conference organized by the Gendered Mimesis project (KU Leuven, February 2023), French philosopher ...

🎥Now out! The dialogue between Adriana Cavarero and Nidesh Lawtoo for the conference "Mimetic Inclinations: Gender, Philosophy, and Politics with Adriana Cavarero" (KU Leuven, 18-19 Nov. 2021).

's notion of troubles the autonomous subject, placing into crises the commitment that philosophy has to a vertical metaphysics. In doing so, she urges new generations of theorists, critics, and artists to explore the theoretical and creative potential of what we call “mimetic inclinations,” including imitation, mimicry, identification, simulation, empathy, and affective contagion, among other manifestations of what the ancients called, enigmatically, .

➡️:

Inclining Mimesis: A Dialogue between Adriana Cavarero & Nidesh Lawtoo In this keynote dialogue that concludes an international conference on "Mimetic Inclinations" organized by the Gendered Mimesis project at KU Leuven (Novembe...

THANK YOU to all participants of our "Metamorphoses of Mimesis" conference with Catherine Malabou for your fantastic contributions on and for joining forces in and .

Looking forward to seeing you again! More to come 🤩
KU Leuven Bibliotheken Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte

❗️Catherine Malabou's Keynote is anticipated at 3:00 pm ❗️

"MIRRORING AND CONFLICTING SUBLIMINALITIES"

Join us on Zoom: https://hiw.kuleuven.be/hua/events/hom-seminar/index.html

See you later!

📌📣The final programme of our two-day international conference on the subject of the “Metamorphoses of Mimesis” in the work of contemporary French philosopher Catherine Malabou is out: https://genderedmimesis.com/metamorpohoses-of-mimesis/

The conference will be fully online; for the Zoom link, please write an email to [email protected]

Looking forward to seeing you all!

KU Leuven - Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte