Sylvère Lotringer (15 October 1938 – 8 November 2021) was a French-born

literary critic Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

and cultural theorist. Initially based in New York City, he later lived in Los Angeles and

Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...

, Mexico.Hultkrans, Andrew
"Bookforum talks with Sylvère Lotringer,"
14 September 2015. Retrieved 7 October 2021.Schwarz, Henry and Anne Balsamo. "Under the Sign of Semiotext(e): The Story According to Sylvere Lotringer and Chris Kraus," ''Critique'', Spring 1996, p. 205–21. He is best known for synthesizing French theory with American literary, cultural and architectural

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

movements as founder of the journal ''

Semiotext(e) Semiotext(e) is an independent publisher of critical theory, fiction, philosophy, art criticism, activist texts and non-fiction. History Founded in 1974, ''Semiotext(e)'' began as a journal that emerged from a semiotics reading group led by Sylv ...

'' and for his interpretations of theory in a 21st-century context.Darms, Lisa
"Semiotext at the Biennial: An Interview with Hedi el Kholti,"
''Hyperallergic'', 17 May 2014. Retrieved 7 October 2021.Whitney Museum of American Art
Semiotext(e)
2014 Biennial. Retrieved 7 October 2021.''Semiotext(e)''
Sylvère Lotringer
Retrieved 7 October 2021. He is regarded as an influential interpreter of

Jean Baudrillard Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as w ...

's theories, among others.Lotringer, Sylvère
"Jean Baudrillard,"
''Artforum'', Summer 2007. Retrieved 7 October 2021.

Life and work

Lotringer was born in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

to Doba (Borenstein) and Cudek Lotringer, Polish Jewish immigrants who left

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

for France in 1930, where they ran a fur shop.Grau, Donatien
Sylvère Lotringer
''purple Magazine'', Fall/Winter 2016. Retrieved 7 October 2021. His early life was marked by the

Nazi occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 ...

of Paris, and like his contemporaries

Georges Perec Georges Perec (; 7 March 1936 – 3 March 1982) was a French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist, and essayist. He was a member of the Oulipo group. His father died as a soldier early in the Second World War and his mother was killed in the Holoc ...

and

Sarah Kofman Sarah Kofman (; September 14, 1934 – October 15, 1994) was a French philosopher . Biography Kofman began her teaching career in Toulouse in 1960 at the Lycée Saint-Sernin, and worked with both Jean Hyppolite and Gilles Deleuze. Her abando ...

, he spent the war as a "hidden child." In 1949, Lotringer emigrated to

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

with his family and returned to Paris the year after to join the left-wing Zionist movement Hashomer-Hatzair (The Young Garde) and became one of its leaders. He left the movement eight years later. In 1957, while still at the lycée, Lotringer joined the editorial collective of ''La Ligne Générale'' headed by Perec. Taking its name from

Sergei Eisenstein Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn, 2=Sergey Mikhaylovich Eyzenshteyn; 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, screenw ...

's famous film ''

The General Line ''The General Line'', also known as ''Old and New'' (russian: Старое и новое, Staroye i novoye), is a 1929 Soviet drama film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov. ''The General Line'' was begun in 1927 as a celebrat ...

'', this group of young Jewish men favored Hollywood westerns, slapstick and pre-Stalinist communism. The project was praised by

Henri Lefebvre Henri Lefebvre ( , ; 16 June 1901 – 29 June 1991) was a French Marxist philosopher and sociologist, best known for pioneering the critique of everyday life, for introducing the concepts of the right to the city and the production of so ...

but strongly criticized by

Simone de Beauvoir Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ; ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, and even th ...

, who found it "politically irresponsible." Entering the Sorbonne in 1958, Lotringer created ''L’Étrave'', a literary magazine, with Nicole Chardaire and contributed to ''Paris-Lettres'', the journal of the French Students' Association (1959–61).Thomas, Jonathan
"Sylvère Lotringer,"
''The Third Rail'', Issue 6, 2016. Retrieved 7 October 2021. As President of the UNEF freshman class at the Sorbonne, he led mobilizations against France's colonial

Algerian War The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...

. In 1964, he entered the

École pratique des hautes études The École pratique des hautes études (), abbreviated EPHE, is a Grand Établissement in Paris, France. It is highly selective, and counted among France's most prestigious research and higher education institutions. It is a constituent college o ...

, VIe section (

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

). He received his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in the

sociology of literature The sociology of literature is a subfield of the sociology of culture. It studies the social production of literature and its social implications. A notable example is Pierre Bourdieu's 1992 ''Les Règles de L'Art: Genèse et Structure du Champ ...

from the institution in 1967 after completing a dissertation on

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

's novels under the supervision of

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular ...

and

Lucien Goldmann Lucien Goldmann (; 20 July 1913 – 8 October 1970) was a French philosopher and sociologist of Jewish-Romanian origin. A professor at the EHESS in Paris, he was a Marxist theorist. His wife was sociologist Annie Goldmann. Biography Goldmann wa ...

.Marzoni, Andrew
"A Small but Important Job: Gary Indiana’s “Vile Days,'"
''Los Angeles Review of Books'', 13 December 2018. Retrieved 7 October 2021. His work was aided by his friendship with

Leonard Woolf Leonard Sidney Woolf (; – ) was a British political theorist, author, publisher, and civil servant. He was married to author Virginia Woolf. As a member of the Labour Party and the Fabian Society, Woolf was an avid publisher of his own work ...

and his acquaintance with

T.S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National B ...

and

Vita Sackville-West Victoria Mary, Lady Nicolson, CH (née Sackville-West; 9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962), usually known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author and garden designer. Sackville-West was a successful novelist, poet and journalist, as wel ...

, with whom he conducted interviews published in

Louis Aragon Louis Aragon (, , 3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) was a French poet who was one of the leading voices of the surrealist movement in France. He co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review ''Littérature''. He wa ...

's journal ''Les Lettres Francaises'' during his ten years as a correspondent. Avoiding French military service in Algeria, Lotringer spent 1962 in the United States and then taught for the French Cultural Services as a lecturer at

Atatürk University Atatürk University ( tr, Atatürk Üniversitesi) is a land-grant university established in 1957 in Erzurum, Turkey. The university consists of 23 faculties, 18 colleges, 8 institutes and 30 research centers. Atatürk University's main campus i ...

Erzurum Erzurum (; ) is a city in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. It is the largest city and capital of Erzurum Province and is 1,900 meters (6,233 feet) above sea level. Erzurum had a population of 367,250 in 2010. The city uses the double-headed eagle as ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

from 1965 to 1967.Waltemath, Joan
"A Life in Theory: Sylvère Lotringer with Joan Waltemath,"
''The Brooklyn Rail'', September 2006. Retrieved 7 October 2021. He returned to the United States via Australia (where he briefly taught at the

University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensive ...

) as an

assistant professor Assistant Professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States and Canada. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doctoral degree and general ...

of French at

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...

in 1969. Following two years as an

associate professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. Overview In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a ...

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

, he joined the faculty of

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

as a tenured associate professor of French and

comparative literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

in the autumn of 1972. He was promoted to

full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

in 1985 and retired as

professor emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

in 2009. He was also known for his second marriage (1988-2014; sep. 2005) to writer and filmmaker Chris Kraus. Lotringer died on Monday, 8 November 2021 in Baja California after a long illness."Sylvère Lotringer est mort, la French Theory perd son passeur"
''Liberation'', (in French) November 2021. Retrieved 10 November 2021.

Cultural synthesis

Arriving in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in the early 1970s, Lotringer saw the opportunity to introduce French theorists whose work at that time was largely unknown in the US to the city's artistic and literary community. Playing chess in the

West Village The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The traditional boundaries of the West Village are the Hudson River to the west, 14th Street (Manhattan ...

with

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...

, he sensed similarities between

Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and hi ...

and the "chance operations" being practiced by Fluxus,

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...

Brion Gysin Brion Gysin (19 January 1916 – 13 July 1986) was a British-Canadian painter, writer, sound poet, performance artist and inventor of experimental devices. He is best known for his use of the cut-up technique, alongside his close friend, the ...

and others, and the Nietzsche-inspired post-structuralist theorists.Hond, Paul
"Shoot Shoot, Bang Bang: The visceral cinema of Kathryn Bigelow ’79SOA has heady theoretical roots,"
''Columbia Magazine'', Winter 2009-10. Retrieved 7 October 2021. Uninspired by the doctrinaire post-

Frankfurt School The Frankfurt School (german: Frankfurter Schule) is a school of social theory and critical philosophy associated with the Institute for Social Research, at Goethe University Frankfurt in 1929. Founded in the Weimar Republic (1918–1933), dur ...

Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

of the

American Left The American Left consists of individuals and groups that have sought egalitarian changes in the economic, political and cultural institutions of the United States. Various subgroups with a national scope are active. Liberals and progressives b ...

, he sought to introduce independently the more fluid and

rhizomatic In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (; , ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow hor ...

ideas of power and desire developed by

Gilles Deleuze Gilles Louis René Deleuze ( , ; 18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volu ...

Félix Guattari Pierre-Félix Guattari ( , ; 30 April 1930 – 29 August 1992) was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, semiotician, social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, and ecosophy with Arne Næss, ...

, and

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how ...

. In his book on French Theory's influence in the U.S., François Cusset wrote that Lotringer and ''Semiotext(e)'' "played a breathtaking role in the early diffusion of French theory," positioned along the "porous border between the university and the countercultural networks."Cusset, François
''French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States''
Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Retrieved 7 October 2021. A few years later Lotringer discovered

Paul Virilio Paul Virilio (; 4 January 1932 – 10 September 2018) was a French cultural theorist, urbanist, architect and aesthetic philosopher. He is best known for his writings about technology as it has developed in relation to speed and power, with divers ...

's theory of speed and technology and Baudrillard's analysis of consumer culture's infinite exchangeability, introducing them in turn into American political discourse. A younger contemporary of

, Baudrillard, Virilio and

, Lotringer invited a small group of graduate students to study these thinkers, who were not yet on the curriculum. Together with his partner Susie Flato and graduate student John Reichman, he began the journal ''Semiotext(e)'' in 1973 with the goal of introducing French theory to America.Lvoff Sophie T
"The Center Is Not the Center: An Interview with Chris Kraus,"
''Los Angeles Review of Books'', 23 February 2019. Retrieved 7 October 2021.Lotringer, Sylvère
"My ’80s: Better Than Life,"
''Artforum'', April 2003. Retrieved 7 October 2021. The group expanded and produced three issues on the epistemology of

semiotics Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes ( semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something ...

. In 1975, they staged the provocative ''Schizo-Culture'' conference on ''Madness and Prisons'' at Columbia University, where more than 2,000 attendees witnessed "show-downs" between Foucault, conspiracy theorist

Lyndon LaRouche Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche Jr. (September 8, 1922 – February 12, 2019) was an American political activist who founded the LaRouche movement and its main organization the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC). He was a prominent conspiracy ...

, Guattari, feminist

Ti-Grace Atkinson Grace Atkinson (born November 9, 1938), better known as Ti-Grace Atkinson, is an American radical feminist activist, writer and philosopher. Life and career Atkinson was born into a prominent Louisiana family. Named after her grandmother, Gra ...

, Ronald D. Laing, and others.Hultkrans, Andrew
"Empire State of Mind,"
''Artforum'', 20 November 2014. Retrieved 7 October 2021.Fletcher, Jim
"Semiotext(e)’s Schizo-Culture,"
''Artforum'', April 2014. Retrieved 7 October 2021.Hothi, Ajay
“Schizo-Culture: Cracks In The Street,”
''Artforum'', 2014. Retrieved 7 October 2021. The event helped define a new mode of cultural discourse over the coming decade, and set the stage for future issues of ''Semiotext(e)'', which abandoned its scholarly format in favor of collaged images and texts by Deleuze, Foucault,

Jean-François Lyotard Jean-François Lyotard (; ; ; 10 August 1924 – 21 April 1998) was a French philosopher, sociologist, and literary theorist. His interdisciplinary discourse spans such topics as epistemology and communication, the human body, modern art and ...

Guy Hocquenghem Guy Hocquenghem (; 10 December 1946 – 28 August 1988) was a French writer, philosopher, and queer theorist. Biography Hocquenghem was born in the suburbs of Paris and was educated at the Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux and the Ecole Normale Supéri ...

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...

Heiner Müller Heiner Müller (; 9 January 1929 – 30 December 1995) was a German (formerly East German) dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. His "enigmatic, fragmentary pieces" are a significant contribution to postmodern drama and postdr ...

and their (as Lotringer saw it) American counterparts: Cage, Burroughs,

Richard Foreman Richard Foreman (born June 10, 1937 in New York City) is an American avant-garde playwright and the founder of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater. Achievements and awards Foreman has written, directed and designed over fifty of his own plays, b ...

, Jack Smith,

Kathy Acker Kathy Acker (April 18, 1947 isputed– November 30, 1997) was an American experimental novelist, playwright, essayist, and postmodernist writer, known for her idiosyncratic and transgressive writing that dealt with themes such as childhood trau ...

, and others.Griffin, Tim
"Theoretical Physic,"
''Artforum'', April 2010. Retrieved 7 October 2021.''The New York Times''

1 December 1978, p C11. Retrieved 7 October 2021. In 1978, Lotringer staged ''The Nova Convention'', a three-day homage to Burroughs at New York University and in the East Village. Featuring performances and talks by

Patti Smith Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter and author who became an influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album '' Horses''. Called the "punk poe ...

Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by wikt:nonconformity, nonconformity, Free improvisation, free-form improvisation, sound experimen ...

Laurie Anderson Laurel Philips Anderson (born June 5, 1947), known as Laurie Anderson, is an American avant-garde artist, composer, musician, and film director whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and ...

Terry Southern Terry Southern (May 1, 1924 – October 29, 1995) was an American novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and university lecturer, noted for his distinctive satirical style. Part of the Paris postwar literary movement in the 1950s and a companion to ...

Robert Anton Wilson Robert Anton Wilson (born Robert Edward Wilson; January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007) was an American author, futurist, psychologist, and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized within Discordianism as an Episkopos, pope and saint, Wilson ...

Timothy Leary Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. He was "a her ...

, and Burroughs himself, the event acclaimed Burroughs as "a philosopher of the future ..the man who best understood

post-industrial society In sociology, the post-industrial society is the stage of society's development when the service sector generates more wealth than the manufacturing sector of the economy. The term was originated by Alain Touraine and is closely related to si ...

," and popularized his work among New York's

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

" no-wave" generation. This provocative mix of street and academy, theory, art and politics, would become ''Semiotext(e)s trademark.Morris, David
"Four Decades of Semiotext(e),"
''Frieze'', 9 September 2013. Retrieved 7 October 2021.Apter, Emily
"The Whitney Biennial,"
''Artforum'', May 2014. Retrieved 7 October 2021. Determining that the collectivity that marked New York's cultural life was disappearing in the 1980s, Lotringer ceased regular publication of the ''Semiotext(e)'' journal in 1985, though book-length issues appeared into the 1990s. In its place, he instituted the Semiotext(e) "Foreign Agents" series—a collection of "little black books" by French theorists. Published with no introductions or afterwords, the books were conceived to present "theory brut" (like

champagne Champagne (, ) is a sparkling wine originated and produced in the Champagne wine region of France under the rules of the appellation, that demand specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes exclusively from designated places within it, spe ...

) into the American cultural marketplace. The series debuted in 1983 with Baudrillard's ''Simulations'', excerpted by Lotringer from ''Symbolic Exchange and Death'' (1977) and ''Simulacra and Simulations'' (1981). ''Simulations'' spawned a new art movement and served as the theoretical template for the

Keanu Reeves Keanu Charles Reeves ( ; born September 2, 1964) is a Canadian actor. Born in Beirut and raised in Toronto, Reeves began acting in theatre productions and in television films before making his feature film debut in '' Youngblood'' (1986). ...

movie, ''

The Matrix ''The Matrix'' is a 1999 science fiction action film written and directed by the Wachowskis. It is the first installment in ''The Matrix'' film series, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantolia ...

'' (1999). ''Simulations'' was followed later that year by ''Pure War'', his book-length conversation with Paul Virilio, in which the "philosopher of speed" expounded his vision of bunker archeology, accidents and dromology. The last, ''On the Line'', by Deleuze and Guattari, included ''Rhizome'', which anticipated

Internet culture Internet culture is a culture based on the many way people have used computer networks and their use for communication, entertainment, business, and recreation. Some features of Internet culture include online communities, gaming, and social media ...

. In 2004,

Hedi El Kholti Hedi El Kholti (born February 24, 1967, in Rabat, Morocco) is a writer and editor based in Los Angeles. He is co-editor of Semiotext(e) alongside Chris Kraus and Sylvère Lotringer. He was partner at the now defunct Dilettante Press and currently e ...

began working as an art director with Lotringer and Kraus on ''Semiotext(e)'' and soon after joined them as a co-editor.

Teaching and influence

Teaching 20th century French literature and philosophy at Columbia University for 35 years, Lotringer elaborated connections between modernist literature and fascism in his lectures, interpreting the "crazed modernists"

Antonin Artaud Antoine Marie Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud (; 4 September 1896 – 4 March 1948), was a French writer, poet, dramatist, visual artist, essayist, actor and theatre director. He is widely recognized as a major figure of the E ...

Georges Bataille Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille (; ; 10 September 1897 – 9 July 1962) was a French philosopher and intellectual working in philosophy, literature, sociology, anthropology, and history of art. His writing, which included essays, novels, ...

Louis-Ferdinand Céline Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches (27 May 1894 – 1 July 1961), better known by the pen name Louis-Ferdinand Céline ( , ) was a French novelist, polemicist and physician. His first novel ''Journey to the End of the Night'' (1932) won the ''Pri ...

, and

Simone Weil Simone Adolphine Weil ( , ; 3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943) was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist. Over 2,500 scholarly works have been published about her, including close analyses and readings of her work, since 1995. ...

as harbingers of the Jewish

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

.Kelsey, John
"Electroconvlusive Lit: Sylvère Lotringer’s Mad Like Artaud,"
''Texte Zur Kunst'', Issue No. 100/ December 2015. Retrieved 7 October 2021.Lewis, Pau

''The New York Times'', 20 November 1999. Retrieved 7 October 2021. As a scholar of the 20th century, he emphasized the experiential, "pre-modern" political roots of French theories that are often misread as cavalier orgies of cruelty, envisaging them as an attempt to create symbolic antidotes to both fascism and consumerism. Lotringer influenced the work of former students including filmmaker

Kathryn Bigelow Kathryn Ann Bigelow (; born November 27, 1951) is an American filmmaker. Covering a wide range of genres, her films include ''Near Dark'' (1987), ''Point Break'' (1991), '' Strange Days'' (1995), '' K-19: The Widowmaker'' (2002), ''The Hurt Locke ...

,Dargis, Manohla
"Action!"
''The New York Times'', 18 June 2009. Retrieved 7 October 2021. semiotician Marshall Blonsky, art critics

Tim Griffin John Timothy Griffin (born August 21, 1968) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the 20th lieutenant governor of Arkansas since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he previously was the United States Attorney for the Eastern Dist ...

and John Kelsey,French Culture
"France Honors David Lang and Tim Griffin,"
Awards. Retrieved 7 October 2021. actor Jim Fletcher, and poet

Ariana Reines Ariana Reines is an American poet, playwright, performance artist, and translator. Her books of poetry include ''The Cow'' (2006), which won the Alberta Prize from Fence Books; ''Coeur de Lion'' (2007); ''Mercury'' (2011); and ''Thursday'' (2012) ...

.Museum of Modern Art
"A Cine Virus Evening with Michael Oblowitz and Sylvère Lotringer,"
Events. Retrieved 7 October 2021. He appears as a quasi-fictional character in Kathy Acker's ''Great Expectations'' and ''My Mother: Demonology'',Acker, Kathy
''Great Expectations''
New York: Penguin Classics, 1983. Retrieved 7 October 2021.Acker, Kathy
''My Mother: Demonology: A Novel''
New York: Grove Press, 1994. Retrieved 7 October 2021. in Chris Kraus' ''I Love Dick'', ''Alien & Anorexia'' and ''Torpor'',Kraus, Chris
''I Love Dick''
New York: Semiotext(e), 1997. Retrieved 7 October 2021.Kraus, Chris
''Aliens & Anorexia''
New York: Semiotext(e), 2000. Retrieved 7 October 2021.Kraus, Chris
''Torpor''
Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2006. Retrieved 7 October 2021. and in

Eileen Myles Eileen Myles (born December 9, 1949) is a LAMBDA Literary Award-winning American poet and writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, libretti, plays, and performance pieces over the last three decades. No ...

' ''Inferno''.Myles, Eileen
''Inferno (A Poet's Novel)''
New York: OR Books, 2010. Retrieved 7 October 2021. Lotringer was also

Chair and Professor of Philosophy at

The European Graduate School The European Graduate School (EGS) is a private graduate school that operates in two locations: Saas-Fee, Switzerland, and Valletta, Malta. History It was founded in 1994 in Saas-Fee, Switzerland by the Swiss scientist, artist, and therapist, Pa ...

New politics

Defining himself as a "foreign agent provocateur" in the United States, Lotringer traveled to Italy in 1979 and 1980 to document first-hand Italy's embattled post-Marxist

Autonomia Autonomism, also known as autonomist Marxism is an anti-capitalist left-wing political and social movement and theory. As a theoretical system, it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism (). Later, post-Marxist and anarchist tendenci ...

movement and secure their legacy.Kellogg, Carolyn
"How leftist intellectuals once approached bifurcated Berlin,"
''Los Angeles Times'', 8 November 2009. Retrieved 7 October 2021. His participant-observation with the innovative political movement resulted in ''Italy: Autonomia – Post-Political Politics'', a 1980 special publication of Semiotext(e). In 1992, he sought out former Black Panther Dhoruba al-Mujahid bin Wahad, who had just been provisionally released from prison after spending 19 years incarcerated on a charge of "sedition." Lotringer invited Dhoruba to produce a Semiotext(e) book vindicating and updating the

Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...

's position. The result was ''Still Black, Still Strong'', an anthology of writings by

Assata Shakur Assata Olugbala Shakur (born JoAnne Deborah Byron; July 16, 1947; also married name, JoAnne Chesimard) is an American political activist who was a member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA). In 1977, she was convicted in the first-degree murder ...

Mumia Abu-Jamal Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook; April 24, 1954) is an American political activist and journalist who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1982 for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. While on death r ...

and Bin-Wahad.Dhoruba, Bin Wahad, Assata Shakur and Mumia Abu-Jamal
'' Still Black, Still Strong Survivors of the U.S. War Against Black Revolutionaries''
Jim Fletcher, Tanaquil Jones and Sylvère Lotringer (eds.), Books. Retrieved 7 October 2021. In 2001, Lotringer co-edited the ironically titled ''Hatred of Capitalism: A Semiotext(e) Reader''. Released in the wake of the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

, the anthology strove to clarify Semiotext(e)'s composite vision of politics, intelligence and radical humor.Power, Nina
"Intelligence Agency,"
''Frieze'', 1 September 2009. Retrieved 7 October 2021. Summing up the Semiotext(e) self-styled mission, Lotringer used an observation made to him by filmmaker Jack Smith as an epigraph: "The world is starving for thoughts. If you can think of something, the language will fall into place, but the thought is what's going to do it".Kraus, Chris and Sylvère Lotringer
''Hatred of Capitalism : a Reader''
Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2001. Retrieved 7 October 2021. Realizing that the Foreign Agents books of the 1980s were being absorbed within mainstream academe, Lotringer sought out new works that would address global politics from the perspective of activism. He commissioned Israeli journalist

Amira Hass Amira Hass ( he, עמירה הס; born 28 June 1956) is an Israeli journalist and author, mostly known for her columns in the daily newspaper ''Haaretz'' covering Palestinian affairs in the West Bank and Gaza, where she has lived for almost th ...

' award-winning ''Reporting From Ramallah'' (2003), and French military specialist Alain Joxe's ''Empire of Disorder'' (2002) for Semiotext(e). Resuming his dialogue with Paul Virilio in ''Crepuscular Dawn'' (2002), he pushed the philosopher to elaborate on the historical antecedents and repercussions of

genetic engineering Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism's genes using technology. It is a set of technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells, including t ...

. His third dialogue with Virilio, ''Accident of Art'' (2006), expanded the Virilian notion of "accident" to encompass the impact of war on contemporary art. In 2006, he returned to his interest in Italian political theory, commissioning and publishing works by

Paolo Virno Paolo Virno (; ; born 1952) is an Italian philosopher, Semiotics, semiologist and a figurehead for the Italian Marxism, Marxist movement. Implicated in belonging to illegal social movements during the 1960s and 1970s, Virno was arrested and jail ...

Franco Berardi Franco "Bifo" Berardi (born 2 November 1949) is an Italian Marxist philosopher, theorist and activist in the autonomist tradition, whose work mainly focuses on the role of the media and information technology within post-industrial capitalism. ...

, Christian Marazzi and

Antonio Negri Antonio "Toni" Negri (born 1 August 1933) is an Italian Spinozistic- Marxist sociologist and political philosopher, best known for his co-authorship of ''Empire'' and secondarily for his work on Spinoza. Born in Padua, he became a political ...

.Lotringer, Sylvère and Antonio Negri
"A Revolutionary Process Never Ends,"
''Artforum'', May 2008. Retrieved 7 October 2021.Lotringer, Sylvère
"The Great Refusal,"
''Artforum'', May 2008. Retrieved 7 October 2021.Smith, Jason
"A New Geometry: Paolo Virno and 'Autonomia,'"
''Artforum'', January 2008. Retrieved 7 October 2021.

Decorations

* Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters (2015)

Publications

"Barthes After Barthes,"
''Frieze'', 2011. * ''Pure War'', with Paul Virilio, Semiotext(e) History of the Present, Cambridge: 2008 (first published by Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents, New York: 1983). * ''Overexposed: Perverting Perversions'', Pantheon, New York: 1987 and Semiotext(e) History of the Present, Cambridge: 2007. * ''David Wojnarowitz: A Definitive History of Five or Six years on the Lower East Side,'' Cambridge: Semiotext(e), 2006 * "Forget Baudrillard," in ''Forget Foucault'', Semiotext(e) History of the Present, Cambridge: 2006. * ''Pazzi di Artaud'', Medusa, Milan: 2006. * ''The Accident of Art'', with Paul Virilio, Semiotext(e), Cambridge: 2005. * ''The Conspiracy of Art'', with Jean Baudrillard, Semiotext(e), Cambridge: 2005. * ''Oublier Artaud'', Sens and Tonka, Paris: 2005. * ''Boules de Suif'', Sens and Tonka, Paris: 2005. * "My '80s: Better Than Life," Artforum, April 2003. * ''Fous d’Artaud'', Sens and Tonka, Paris: 2003. * ''The Collected Interviews of William S. Burroughs'', Cambridge: Semiotext(e), 2002 * ''Crepuscular Dawn'', with Paul Virilio, Semiotext(e), Cambridge: 2002. * "Time Bomb," in ''Crepuscular Dawn'', Semiotext(e), Cambridge: 2002. * ''French Theory in America'', New York, Routledge: 2001 * ''Nancy Spero'', London: Phaedon Press: 1996. * ''Foreign Agent: Kuntz in den Zeiten des Theorie'', Merve Verlag, Berlin: 1992. * ''Germania'', with Heiner Müller, Semiotext(e), New York: 1990. * ''Antonin Artaud'', New York: Scribners & Sons: 1990. * ''Philosophen-Künstler'', Merve Verlag, Berlin: 1986. * "Uncle Fishook and the Sacred Baby Poo-poo of Art," with Jack Smith in ''SchizoCulture'', Semiotext(e) ed. III, 2, 1978.

References

External links

A Life in Theory: Sylvère Lotringer with Joan Waltemath
''The Brooklyn Rail'', 2006
From New York No Wave to Italian Autonomia: an Interview With Sylvère Lotringer
''Interventions'', 2014
Resisting No Matter What. A Conversation with Sylvère Lotringer
''Artpulse'', 2015
Bookforum talks with Sylvère Lotringer
''Bookforum'', 2015
Sylvère Lotringer interview
''purple MAGAZINE'', 2016
Sylvère Lotringer Interview
''The Third Rail'', 2016 * Sylvère Lotringe
Monogamy
This American Life.

WBEZ WBEZ (91.5 FM) – branded ''WBEZ 91.5'' – is a non-commercial educational radio station licensed to serve Chicago, Illinois, and primarily serving the Chicago metropolitan area. Financed by corporate underwriting, government funding and lis ...

. Episode 95: Monogamy)
Antonin Artaud , Sylvère Lotringer; All Paranoiacs
Interview with Paule Thévenin, 2018
Mack Lecture: Sylvère Lotringer on Antonin Artaud
2015
Nietzsche in New York, Der französische Verleger Sylvère Lotringer
Profile, Jean-Claude Kuner, WDR /Deutschlandfunk, 2018
Jean Baudrillard, le cool prophète
various speakers incl. Sylvère Lotringer, 2014
''Verbrennungen der Angs''
von Jean-Claude Kuner, 2021, Hörspiel, SRF (play based on Lotringer’s interviews with Antonin Artaud’s psychiatrists) {{DEFAULTSORT:Lotringer, Sylvere 1938 births 2021 deaths Writers from Paris 20th-century French Jews University of Paris alumni European Graduate School faculty French literary critics Postmodern theory French semioticians Jewish philosophers French male writers Officiers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres