Research Associate in the Centre for Social Accountability at NOSM University
Available here – a good way to end 2014. The book was a pleasure to read, as well as his earlier work in On Diaspora. I anticipate engaging with Barber’s work on the secular in the first chapter of my masters thesis (more on that here in the next few months).
Happy New Years everyone,
If any readers are in Winnipeg this weekend I will be giving a talk at the 6th Biennial Toronto Mennonite Theological Centre Graduate Student Conference at the Canadian Mennonite University on Saturday. The talk is titled “A Proposal for Nonviolent Metaphysics: Examining Ontological Violence” and it extends the Mennonite Metaphysics project that I’ve been working on. The link for the conference is here: https://uwaterloo.ca/toronto-mennonite-theological-centre/events/tmtc-graduate-student-conference-0
Some of my recent writing:
• An update on the Mennonite Metaphysics project, which is no longer my thesis project, but something that I will continue on my own time.
• A reflection on Anabaptist Mennonite Systematic Theology, that arose from a class I took this year.
• An old reflection on Postmodern Theology, posted for the first time.
Hi All,
An edited version of my UWO Theory Session, “What is a Compendium? Parataxis, Hypotaxis, and the Question of the Book“, has just been published by the wonderful folks at Continent. Here is their abstract for the piece:
Through his analyses of figures such as parataxis, hypotaxis, compilation, and selection — and a reading of Derrida on Jabès, specifically — Maxwell Kennel plots a reminder — for all of those concerned with fragmentary or hierarchical writing — of the importance of the figure of the Compendium and the figure of the Book as indispensible metonymies for grand theories of anything..
Thanks to the amazing folks at Punctum Books, Dialectics Unbound: On the Possibility of Total Writing is now public, published, and publicized, and available in print and as an open access PDF!
The next month or so should see the following pieces of writing available for download 🙂
• Dialectics Unbound: On the Possibility of Total Writing. Dead Letter Office Series (Brooklyn, New York: Punctum Books, Spring 2013)
• “What is a Compendium? Parataxis, Hypotaxis, and the Question of the Book” Continent 3.1 (Spring 2013)
(!Link Added) • “The Spirit of Contradiction” An Encounter with Introduction to Antiphilosophy by Boris Groys, PhaenEx: Journal of Existential and Phenomenological Theory and Culture, Volume 8, No. 1 (2013)
See the outline here!
WHEN: Thursday, March 28 from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.
WHERE: Critical Media Lab, 158 King St. W., Kitchener
Abstract
I plan to share some material from a few forthcoming pieces of writing. The first is an article on the ‘compendium’ as a figure for writing and discourse, the second is a book on dialectics (Punctum Books, Spring 2013), and the third is a manuscript on a ‘binary metaphysics’. In addition to a few excerpts and an overview of my project, I’ll also share some thoughts on open access publishing and the book as a medium in transition from materiality to virtuality.
Dialectics Unbound: On the Possibility of Total Writing
by Maxwell Kennel
FORTHCOMING: Spring 2013
Dialectics Unbound: On the Possibility of Total Writing re-imagines figures of ontological totality, in and out of writing, first by exploring some lineages of the dialectic, and second by engaging thinkers such as Theodor Adorno and his assertion of nonidentity, Julia Kristeva and her positing of a fourth term of the dialectic, and Fredric Jameson’s treatment of the dialectic as an open totality. By articulating a concept of totalization-without-totality, Dialectics Unbound seeks to free the concept of the dialectic from the violence of closure, and then to take this unbound dialectics to the work of writing through a brief examination of parataxis and aphoristics as approaches to writing, both possible and impossible.
Maxwell Kennel is a student of philosophy, rhetoric, and writing based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. His research is focused on the ontology of identity and totality and the intersection of philosophy and theology. He works in the Mennonite Church of Eastern Canada, and is affiliated with Conrad Grebel University College at the University of Waterloo.
Cover Image: details from Sarah Lewis, Time Machine (2008).
It appears that my review essay is available online, and Peter Gratton got to it before I did.
Or: http://tinyurl.com/communismreviewessay
Speculations III is out now, and my review of Circus Philosophicus is available here. I’ll post more thoughts on it soon, perhaps a little postscript.
Also, the poster for the Fall Theory Sessions is available here.
Dr. Maxwell Kennel