Title of the talk: The Politics of Things: Status Report
by
Graham Harman
, Philosopher & Distinguished Professor of Philosophy,
Southern California Institute of Architecture, LA

Abstract: In their widely read book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity,
David Graeber and David Wengrow rightly complain about the stale alternative in modern
political theory between Rousseauian optimism and Hobbesian pessimism about human nature.
Yet inexplicably, they counter these two alternatives with the principle that humans are
imaginative and experimental rather than naturally good or evil. The obvious problem with this
proposal is that it leaves humans at the center of political theory, just at the moment when the
climate crisis is emphasizing the crucial role of non-human entities. In this keynote lecture I
will sketch the basic features of the politics of things that began in Actor-Network Theory
before spreading beyond the walls of this discipline.