Das Buch werde ich mir mal näher ansehen. Klingt spannend.

This is happening, as any outside observer may see, whether or not one does anything.

Indeed, in this case one may put an interesting new value on “observerhood” in a quantum context.

bevor die Sprachverwirrung komplett wird mache ich mal auf deutsch weiter. Ich dachte, diese Geschichte würde vor allem Leute im Ausland interessieren, daher die Übersetzung in Englische.

Mir ist schon klar, dass Kulturwissenschaft und Cultural Studies nichts miteinander zu tun haben. Deswegen habe ich die deutschen Begriffe beibehalten und “cultural studies” klein geschrieben, in der Annahme, dass Leserinnen und Leser, die sich für dieses Thema interessieren, die Unterschiede ungefähr kennen. Die Pluralform stammt nicht von mir sondern aus dem Ankündigungstext, die Belehrung wäre dann also eher an diese Stelle zu richten.

Interessant finde ich, dass deine Kommentare meine Vermutungen noch bestätigen – Isolation ist von manchen anscheinend tatsächlich gewollt. Aber wie darf man sich das vorstellen: Allein in Deutschland findet sich die reine Lehre, die dann durch inadäquate Übersetzungen langsam aber sicher verwässert wird? Und wie wäre es dann umgekehrt? Die Tatsache, dass ein so zentraler Begriff wie “Dispositiv” letztlich einer Nicht-Übersetzung der entsprechenden französischen Vokabeln entspringt, scheint ja auch niemanden zu veranlassen, die Legitimität der deutschen Begriffsentwicklung in Frage zu stellen.

Viele Grüße,
Theo

PS: Zur Nicht-Übersetzbarkeit von Heidegger würde ich Hubert Dreyfus Berkeley-Vorlesungen bei iTunes empfehlen: http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/berkeley.edu.1623153808 Ich bin weiß Gott kein Experte, aber ich würde doch annehmen, dass er es schafft, den einen oder anderen Gedanken adäquat ins Englische zu übertragen.

PPS: Zum “Vergnügen”, in Deutschland zu leben, würde ich Tocotronic empfehlen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JeeV9mOxrA Aber vielleicht ist Hamburg auch schon zu weit weg von Berlin

Fundamentally speaking, you seem, who have had the pleasure to visit Germany for some time, seem t share a general misunderstanding about what Humboldianians call “Kulturwissenschaft”. Please, be aware of the fact that this word in written in sigular. And that small discret distinction makes the difference. Because in Berlin we choose to differentiate between the sigular Kulturwissenschaft and Kulturwissenschaften in plural. The meaning behind this very fact has been discribed in all introductory texts to Kulturwissenschaft which you seem to share any knowledge of. The reason why we differentiate is that Kulturwissenschaft in singular happens in German language only whereas Kulturwissenschaften in plural happens also in other languages. Therefore, one should be aware of the fact that Germans do consider the bigger international picture whilst also focussing on rather generic mechanisms of understanding that might be unique and may make the German language the more so valuable when regarded as being an academic werkzeug (tool).

I do believe that this adds up to the very legacy to why each country might consider trying to re-iterate their academic “findings” on the basis of social alienisation theories and psychological as well as language inherent precursors which all together interfunction as a matrix of constituting prerequisites (with language of course being Kulturtechnik number one).

And than try to imagine if Friedrich Kittler could have read Marx Kapital when claiming “everything is hardware” (like you might translate from German: “Alles ist Hardware”).

Best regards and all the best,
Peter

(And we all heard of the Dilemma finding oneself being lost in translation:)

thanks for your comments, I’ll definitely have a closer look at the Future Maps text. Seems like it fits this discussion perfectly. The OII workshop probably won’t result in a paper, since it’s mainly discussion based. But check out the book from the Deep Search conference coming up in June at Transaction Publishers. My chapter contains similar points on governmentality and it’s going to be a very interesting collection altogether.

Best,
Theo

I am pleased that you find my Guattari text useful: the idea was to resituate his and Deleuze’s work within the rather vast social-science context that is only indicated rather elusively in their writing. So your response is exactly the kind I was looking for! In turn I find quite fascinating and pertinent your abstract on “Predictive Consumer Modeling as a Mode of Governance.” The question of asymmetry is fundamental. We are constantly told in the neoliberal societies that we are all free, and so are massive corporations, to which commercial law gives the status of legal persons (despite the fact that they are immortal). But these corporate-persons now increasingly have (or can purchase) extraordinary capacities of data-gathering, analysis and modeling that allow them to map out the ways that flesh-and-blood individuals act, and even trace the contours of our desire. Their advantage over the rest of us is immense: with their information about our intimate existence they are able to shape the architectures of interaction that we inhabit on a daily basis. Not only cultural critique of the kind I do, but serious and disciplined social-scientific research is needed in these areas now, and it should be brought to the center of academic and governmental institutions. That’s why I am curious to read your forthcoming paper.

You might also be interested in my text “Future Map,” which attempts both to establish the archaeology of predatory data-gathering systems (again, with extensive reference to postwar cybernetics), and to work out a Foucaultian interpretation of the way the use of this data structures contemporary capitalist society, drawing on the later Foucault who was no longer so concerned with discipline but rather with internalized governmentality. That text is here:

http://brianholmes.wordpress.com/2007/09/09/future-map

all the best, Brian