Steven Shaviro (; born April 3, 1954) is an American academic,

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

and

cultural critic A cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole. Cultural criticism has significant overlap with social and cultural theory. While such criticism is simply part of the self-consciousness of the culture, the social positions of ...

whose areas of interest include

film theory Film theory is a set of scholarly approaches within the academic discipline of film or cinema studies that began in the 1920s by questioning the formal essential attributes of motion pictures; and that now provides conceptual frameworks for und ...

time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

panpsychism In the philosophy of mind, panpsychism () is the view that the mind or a mindlike aspect is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality. It is also described as a theory that "the mind is a fundamental feature of the world which exists thro ...

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...

, affect and

subjectivity Subjectivity in a philosophical context has to do with a lack of objective reality. Subjectivity has been given various and ambiguous definitions by differing sources as it is not often the focal point of philosophical discourse.Bykova, Marina F ...

. He earned a PhD from Yale in 1981, and teaches Film, Culture and English, first at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

, and now at

Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...

Work

His most widely read book is ''Doom Patrols'', a "theoretical fiction" that outlines the state of

postmodernism Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or Rhetorical modes, mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by philosophical skepticism, skepticis ...

during the early 1990s, using poetic language, personal anecdotes, and creative prose. He has also written extensively about

music videos A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device ...

as an artform. Shaviro has written a book about film theory, ''The Cinematic Body'', which according to the preface is "about postmodernism, the politics of human bodies, constructions of masculinity, and the aesthetics of masochism." It also examines

Julia Kristeva Julia Kristeva (; born Yuliya Stoyanova Krasteva, bg, Юлия Стоянова Кръстева; on 24 June 1941) is a Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic, semiotician, psychoanalyst, feminist, and, most recently, novelist, who has ...

's concept of

abjection Abjection is a concept in critical theory referring to becoming cast off and separated from norms and rules, especially on the scale of society and morality. The term has been explored in post-structuralism as that which inherently disturbs conven ...

and the dominance of

Lacanian Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, , ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and pu ...

trope Trope or tropes may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Trope (cinema), a cinematic convention for conveying a concept * Trope (literature), a figure of speech or common literary device * Trope (music), any of a variety of different things ...

s in contemporary academic film theory. According to Shaviro, the use of

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...

has mirrored the actions of a

cult In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. This ...

, with its own religious texts (essays by

Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts in ...

and Lacan). Shaviro's book ''Connected, Or, What It Means to Live in the Network Society'', appeared in 2003. A later book, ''Without Criteria: Kant, Whitehead, Deleuze, and Aesthetics'' was published in May 2009. Five years later, he wrote a book about

speculative realism Speculative realism is a movement in contemporary Continental-inspired philosophy (also known as post-Continental philosophy) that defines itself loosely in its stance of metaphysical realism against its interpretation of the dominant forms of p ...

in philosophy, inspired by

Alfred North Whitehead Alfred North Whitehead (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found applicat ...

Bibliography

* Shaviro, Steven (1990). ''Passion and Excess: Blanchot, Bataille, and Literary Theory'', Tallahassee: Florida State University Press. * ——— (1993). ''The Cinematic Body'', Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. * ——— (1997):
Doom Patrols: A Theoretical Fiction about Postmodernism
', London: Serpent's Tail. * ——— (2003). ''Connected, or What it Means to Live in the Network Society'', Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. * ——— (2009). ''Without Criteria: Kant, Whitehead, Deleuze, and Aesthetics'', Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. * ——— (2010). ''Post Cinematic Affect'', Winchester: Zer0 books. * ——— (2014). ''The Universe of Things: On Speculative Realism'', Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. * ——— (2016). ''Discognition'', Repeater Books. * ——— (2017). ''Digital Music Videos'', Rutgers University Press, 2017. * ——— (in progress).

'. * ——— (in progress).

'.

References

External links

* Shaviro'
website
an
weblog
* Podcast of lecture at the UCD Humanities Institute
Discognition

Speculative Futures
- podcast discussion with Shaviro and Alexander R. Galloway, moderated by

Eugene Thacker Eugene Thacker is an American philosopher, poet, and author. He is Professor of Media Studies at The New School in New York City. His writing is often associated with the philosophy of nihilism and pessimism. Thacker's books include ''In the Dus ...

from November 2014. {{DEFAULTSORT:Shaviro, Steven 20th-century American philosophers 21st-century American philosophers American critics Continental philosophers Film theorists Living people Philosophers of art Postmodernists University of Washington faculty Wayne State University faculty Yale University alumni 1954 births