From perspective to narrative, database and beyond, symbolic forms organize experience and shape epistemic horizons. If Lev Manovich’s key insight was to recognize the entanglement of symbolic and technical form, we may now ask how (post)digital culture and seemingly limitless data flows generate a new desire for form in critical theory and cultural production. Situated at the intersection of literary theory, media theory, and the poetics of knowledge, this reading group will explore a wide range of symbolic and literary forms and their epistemic and ideological affordances. We will ask how various new formalisms understand terms such as structure, organization/disorganization, and order/disorder, and how these concepts travel across discourses and scales.

In our inaugural sessions in February and March 2025 we will discuss Anna Kornbluh’s book Immediacy, or The Cultural Style of Too Late Capitalism (2023). Future readings may include Yuk Hui’s Recursivity and Contingency (2019), Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan's Code: From Information Theory to French Theory (2023), or other suggestions by participants. We are eager to discuss participants’ work-in-progress in the group meetings as well.

In our second session we will discuss the chapters "Video," "Antitheory," and the conclusion to Kornbluh's Immediacy.

Please direct any questions to Michael Miller (m.f.miller@uva.nl).