Thinking Through the End of Mental Life

Through the work of Bernard Stiegler and Giles Deleuze, I intend to explore techniques for combatting right-wing isolationism and the paralysis of political imagination. Is there an alternative to the choice between the unimaginative, passive, reaffirmation of neoliberal globalisation and the populist withdrawal from global networks? Technological automation has so far threatened to exacerbate our current political impasse to accelerating the proletarianisation of thought and labour - but can it also be harnessed to 're-noetcize' la vie de l'esprit? My central research question concerns how to create the kinds of environments in which automation becomes life enhancing, and not merely disruptive.