Michael O'Rourke - “To Speculate— On Queer Theory” (with brief introduction by Katerina Kolozova)

Michael O'Rourke - “To Speculate— On Queer Theory” (with brief introduction by Katerina Kolozova)

Video from Michael O'Rourke's lecture “To Speculate— On Queer Theory”, part of a three day seminar on the subject of contemporary philosophy, realisms and queer theory. The lectures were held 22-24 January at the premises of the ISSH-Skopje.
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“To Speculate— On Queer Theory”
The potential enmeshments of queer theory and Speculative Realism (or rather queer theories and speculative realisms) have barely begun to be sketched out. The speculative realists have been particularly keen to engage with feminist, gender, queer and sexuality studies but this openness has gone for the most part unreciprocated. Indeed, many leading feminists and queer theorists have dismissed speculative realism (and especially its sub-branch Object Oriented Ontology) a priori making the conversation not only fraught but impossible. This paper will introduce speculative realism to the uninitiated, consider some of the potentially productive intersections between the many realisms and queer theories and pay a more generously motivated attention to the possible criticisms of the gender politics of speculative realism. Speculative Realism is better understood as a plurality of positions covering the widest possible spectrum of thought: continental realism, accelerationism, post-continental thought, weird fiction, Object Oriented Ontology, posthumanism, new materialisms, transcendental materialism, actor network theory, non-philosophy, eliminativism, dark vitalism, assemblage theory, black metal theory, process philosophy, transcendental nihilism, phenomenology. The list could go on but this lecture will limit its ambitions to gesturing at the vibrations and connections between current queer thought and just some of this long list of positions.