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 third session on 02 April (1500-1700, PCH 5.08) we will discuss three chapters from Jan Overwijk's new monograph Cybernetic Capitalism: A Critical Theory of The Incommunicable (Fordham UP, 2025).  Jan is an NWO Postdoctoral Fellow at Frankfurt’s Institut für Sozialforschung and assistant professor at the University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, and he will be joining us in person to talk more about his book.

On 08 May (155—1700, room TBA) we will be joined by Stefan Niklas (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, UvA), who will discuss with us Ernst Cassirer's concept of "symbolic form." 

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