Steven Shaviro
Steven Shaviro (born April 3, 1954) is an American academic, philosopher and cultural critic whose areas of interest include film theory, time, science fiction, panpsychism, capitalism, affect and subjectivity. His most widely read book is Doom Patrols, a "theoretical fiction" that outlines the state of postmodernism during the early 1990s, using poetic language, personal anecdotes, and creative prose. He has also written extensively about music videos as an artform.
Additionally, Shaviro has written a book about film theory, The Cinematic Body, which examines the dominance of Lacanian tropes in contemporary academic film theory. According to Shaviro, the use of psychoanalysis has mirrored the actions of a cult, with its own religious texts (essays by Freud 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.
Shaviro earned a PhD from Yale in 1981. After several years teaching at the University of Washington, he now teaches literature and film at Wayne State University. He is currently at work on his latest book, tentatively titled The Age of Æsthetics, a series of essays on contemporary consumer culture, and the relationship between aesthetic values (style, specifically) and Marxist theory.
Bibliography
- Shaviro, Steven (1990): Passion and Excess: Blanchot, Bataille, and Literary Theory, Tallahassee: Florida State University Press.
- Shaviro, Steven (1993): The Cinematic Body, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Shaviro, Steven (1997): Doom Patrols: A Theoretical Fiction about Postmodernism, London: Serpent's Tail.
- Shaviro, Steven (2003): Connected, or What it Means to Live in the Network Society, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Shaviro, Steven (2009): Without Criteria: Kant, Whitehead, Deleuze, and Aesthetics, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
- Shaviro, Steven (2010): Post Cinematic Affect, Winchester: Zer0 books.
- Shaviro, Steven (2014): The Universe of Things: On Speculative Realism, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
- Shaviro, Steven (2016): Discognition
- Shaviro, Steven (in progress): Stranded in the Jungle.
- Shaviro, Steven (in progress): Critical Beatdown.
External links
- Shaviro's website and weblog.
- Podcast of lecture at the UCD Humanities Institute - Discognition
- Speculative Futures - podcast discussion with Shaviro and Alexander R. Galloway, moderated by Eugene Thacker from November 2014.