Category Crossings

Bruno Latour’s philosophical project has long been conceived as a critique of modernity, starting with enlightenment dualisms (e.g., nature/culture, words/things, sacred/secular) and extending to the cyber age’s promise of unmediated access to knowledge (what Latour calls “Double Click”). Contributors to this special issue consider the relevance of this critique for the study of the medieval premodern and ask how Latour’s call for a renewal of metaphysics—and for a diplomatic encounter between the various modes of existence—might be used to defamiliarize modern intellectual habits.

Contributors: Anke Bernau, Emma Campbell, Marilynn Desmond, Mary Franklin-Brown, Jane Gilbert, Miranda Griffin, Noah D. Guynn, Graham Harman, Catherine Keen, Luke Sunderland