Reading Immanence

The following text opened the conference, “The Concept of Immanence in Philosophy and the Arts”, held in Vienna in May 2016. It is a reader consisting of key passages on immanence by Gilles Deleuze, Baruch de Spinoza, Giorgio Agamben, Henri Bergson, François Laruelle, Antonin Artaud and Friedrich Nietzsche. The reader was put together by Arno Böhler and Elisabeth Schäfer, and a collage of its content arranged by Susanne Valerie Granzer, who read out these text fragments at the start of the conference. Her reading was sporadically interrupted by Alice Lagaay, whose comments served to draw lines of connection between the dense theoretical texts and the performative immanent context in which they were being read and digested—the context of the conference. We present here the readings and their lighthearted—and at times deadly serious—commentary as performed. Readers are invited to imagine and re-enact the live-ness of this event, letting their own comments, questions and musings interrupt the proposed interruptions of reading

Civility, Enlightenment, and Society: Conceptual Confusions and Kantian Remedies

Originally published in American Political Science Review, http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=PSR. Copyright American Political Science Association

Així parlà Zaratustra. Fragments

El document forma part dels materials docents programats mitjançant l'ajut del Servei de Política Lingüística de la Universitat de ValènciaFragments d'Així parlà Zaratustra traduïts al catal

Destí i història (Conferència del cercle «Germania». Primavera de 1862)

Si poguéssim contemplar amb una mirada lliure i sense prejudicis la doctrina cristiana i la història de l’església, ens veuríem obligats a expressar algunes opinions oposades a les idees generals. Però, atès que des dels primers dies de vida estem sotmesos al jou del costum i dels prejudicis, dificultats en el nostre desenvolupament natural i condicionats en la formació del nostre temperament per les impressions de la nostra infantesa, creiem que hem de considerar gairebé com un delicte el fet d’escollir un punt de vista més lliure, que ens permetés emetre un veredicte imparcial i adequat al nostre temps sobre la religió i el cristianisme. Un intent com aquest no és l’obra d’algunes setmanes, sinó l’obra d’una vida. Ja que, com es podria destruir l’autoritat de dos mil·lennis, el fiançament dels homes més ingeniosos de tots els temps, mitjançant els resultats de cabòries juvenils, com podria un sobreposar-se mitjançant fantasies i idees immadures a tots els dolors i tot allò beneït pel progrés d’una religió profundament arrelada en la història del món

How We Became Authentic

This is a postprint (accepted manuscript) version of the article published in Ethos 37(1):148-53. The final version of the article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1352.2009.01034_1.x (login required to access content). The version made available in Digital Common was supplied by the author.Accepted Manuscriptye

Schopenhauer som opdrager

Teksten er en oversættelse af en af Nietzsches tidlige tekster fra 1874 (den tredje Utidssvarende), hvor han med afsæt i en forståelse af mennesket som et enestående mirakel udfolder forskellige refleksioner over den dannelsesmæssige fordring, der medfører en klar selvbesindelse på sine opdragere og formgivere - for Nietzsches eget vedkommende Arthur Schopenhauer. Denne for Nietzsche sande filosof lærte ham at være enkel og ærlig i liv og tanke: at være utidssvarende i ordets mest omfattende forstand, og bibragte ham endvidere en virkelig befordrende munterhed samt standhaftighed i forhold til omverdenen i hans vedvarende søgen efter menneskets sande væsen

Einstein on the beach: A study in temporality

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Performance Research, 17(5), 34 - 40, 2012, copyright @ Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13528165.2012.728438.In this paper I seek to examine and analyse the sense of duration induced by performances of Einstein on the Beach, and the entailed sense of time which its internal structure creates. I initially sketch out the stylistic context and artistic intentions of this work's creators, Glass and Wilson, and I briefly describe the process of its creation. Certain features of this process indicate how the work may be interpreted. Having cited the creators' thoughts on structure and temporality, I address directly aspects of Einstein's temporal effects, comparing it to works of similar lengths. I give the briefest synopsis of its staging and motifs. I then outline three kinds of devices which seem to inform our temporal sense of this work as spectators. In the final section I invoke two ideas which serve as analogies to help characterise this work's overall effect on us: Heidegger's notion of the ‘hermeneutic circle’ and, more speculatively, Nietzsche's ‘theory’ of Eternal Recurrence

Cryogenic Q-factor measurement of optical substrates for optimization of gravitational wave detectors

Future generations of gravitational wave interferometers are likely to be operated at cryogenic temperatures because one of the sensitivity limiting factors of the present generation is the thermal noise of end mirrors and beam splitters that occurs in the optical substrates as well as in the dielectric coatings. A possible method for minimizing thermal noise is cooling to cryogenic temperatures, maximizing the mechanical quality factor Q, and maximizing the eigenfrequencies of the substrate. We present experimental details of a new cryogenic apparatus that is suitable for the measurement of the temperature-dependent Q-factor of reflective, transmissive as well as nano-structured grating optics down to 5 K. In particular, the SQUID-based and the optical interferometric approaches to the measurement of the amplitude of vibrating test bodies are compared and the method of ring-down recording is described