A talk given at Conference : Orsi e umani in Trentino.
Videorecording available at https://www.youtube.com/live/P8ZSYzYg7Lo?feature=shared&t=10883
A talk given at Conference : Orsi e umani in Trentino.
Videorecording available at https://www.youtube.com/live/P8ZSYzYg7Lo?feature=shared&t=10883
« … on se retrouve de plus en plus spinozistes … »
Une conférence de Deleuze en mai 1977
Abstract. The paper advances a proposal for binding together the insights of biosemiotics and those of semiophysics. The task of achieving an intelligible ontology, in opposition to both mechanical reductionism and is metaphysical vitalism, is shared by these two approaches. Yet, there are architectural differences between the two theories. The paper reviews such a differendum, focusing in particular on the difference between Thom’s two-fold construction of saliences and pregnances, and Peircean three-fold categorial construction encompassing firstness, secondness and thirdness. An integrated semiophysical-biosemiotic graph thus encompasses five key categories. This paper suggests to arrange them as a “W” shape to chart their possible dynamical interactions.
Keywords: semiophysics; biosemiotics; theory of meaning; salience/pregnance; firstness/secondness/thirdness
>>> Draft available upon request.
Out now in Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy
Abstract. The notion of elemental reality is parsed here as instrumental to a renewal of the understanding of social formations, orders, processes, events, and, more generally, social life. An attempt is made to revisit the element notion drawing insights from the classical imagination, so as to develop an ‘elementalism’ that does not imply a simple return to atomism, but rather retrieves some important insights from the Aristotelian tradition. Elementalism, it is suggested, enables us to see the limitations of both individualist and collectivist takes on social life, allowing for a more ‘environmentalist’ idea of what constitutes society. In an attempt to analyze how an elemental reality can be said to be at play, the category of ‘the visible’ is considered, so as to evince some of its constitutive dimensions, properties, and moments.
Keywords: social theory; medium theory; social environment; elemental reality; the visible
Link to OA article : https://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/1168
Also here
(with Tali Hatuka)
Out in April 2025 – Now announced at : https://www.routledge.com/A-New-Index-for-Public-Space-After-Distancing/Hatuka-Brighenti/p/book/9781032555836
With three generous endorsements from:
“This erudite and provocative book melds social and political theory with design thinking to produce a new set of terms to understand both the nature and the phenomenology of publicness. Inspired by the challenges of physical distancing that accompanied the global pandemic, the authors show the durability of the public realm while offering new ways to interpret and produce a range of disordered, agonistic, and spatially-situated interactions that will continue to make public spaces the lifeblood of cities.”
Diane E. Davis, Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism, Harvard Graduate School of Design
*
“How can we talk about public space and make sense of its continuous mutations in contemporary cities? As the authors suggest, we need to explore patterns of experience and affect along with efforts to conceptualize sociospatial crises. This book is an inventive and highly successful experiment in analyzing publicness that offers to city dwellers and planners alike an index of terms to be used in thinking about city life as a multifarious set of realities and possibilities.”
Stavros Stavrides, Professor of Architectural Design and Theory, School of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens
*
“Triggered by the contemporary challenges and appreciation of the post-pandemic future of urban space the authors continue the quest to understand and assess public space. Through a new index they introduce us to a series of fresh and inspiring methods and prompts that traverse disciplinary boundaries and help explore the experiential and phenomenological dimensions of public space. The book is a welcome addition that introduces researchers, teachers, and students in the built environment and social science disciplines to innovative ways of examining the future of public space and eventually to show new ways to “read” the city.”
Vikas Mehta, Fruth/Gemini Chair, Ohio Eminent Scholar of Urban/Environmental Design, and Professor of Urban Design, University of Cincinnati
(with Carlo Brentari and Federico Comollo)
Abstract. We propose the notion of bioability as the subjective correlate to biodiversity. Bioability entails the capacity to maximize the forms and patterns of life within given ecosystems. Cutting across the natural and social sciences, the bioability approach opens up a field for research and intervention, which focuses on the imaginational and aspirational dimensions of terrestrial politics. In the context of increased awareness of climate tipping points, developing bioabilities help advancing experimental practices in ecological conversion.
>>> Draft available upon request.
Co-edited with Alberto Brodesco & Carlo Brentari
Chek it out at : https://www.losquaderno.net/?p=2409
A Keynote Speech at Planning Studies Academic Year Opening, University of Florence, 23 September 2024
Originally written in 2012, now proudly out after 14 years, in the first issue of Les Temps Qui Restent: https://www.lestempsquirestent.org/fr/numeros/numero-1/theorie-des-territoires
Terrestrial territories: From the Globe to Gaia, a new ground for territory
by Alexis Gonin, Jeanne Etelain, Patrice Maniglier and Andrea Mubi Brighenti
OUT NOW in Dialogues in Human Geography – https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20438206241240213
…
Tu es seul le matin va venir
Les laitiers font tinter leurs bidons dans les rues
La nuit s’eloigne ainsi qu’une belle Métive
C’est Ferdine la fausse ou Léa 1′attentive
Et tu bois cet alcool brulant comme ta vie
Ta vie que tu bois comme une eau-de-vie
Tu marches vers Auteuil tu veux aller chez toi à pied
Dormir parmi tes fetiches d’Océanie et de Guinée
ils sont des Christ d’une autre forme et d’une autre croyance
Ce sont les Christ inférieurs des obscures ésperances
Adieu Adieu
Soleil cou coupé
Apollinaire, Alcools (1913)
Now out in Etnografia e Ricerca Qualitativa
The womb accepts the seed which has fallen into it and protects it as it takes root – for first the navel grows in the womb, as Democritus says, as an anchorage against rolling and drifting, as a rope and a branch for the fruit which is being generated and coming to be.
Plutarch
Out now in European Journal of Social Theory – https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/13684310241230167
Abstract
The reactive complexion of social relations, though empirically pervasive, is analytically neglected. Yet, reaction seems a surprisingly useful category to make sense of the extensive environmental links of behavior/action lying at the very junction of social phenomenology (the here-and-now) and social ecology (the elsewhere-at-other-times). To advance a deeper theorization of this category, we start by mobilizing Mauss’s notion of ‘counter-gift’, elaborating on three interactionist properties (investments, rhythms, and the psyche-society nexus) which make the moment of reaction pivotal. Next, we show how reactions are less deterministic than usually assumed, by examining a series of counterintuitive configurations where the action-reaction link is nonlinear and circuitous. Since receptions and consequent responses to others’ acts are determined by factors of speed and intensity, we then address both dromological and morphogenetic aspects of reaction processes. The last part of this article looks into war as a large-scale reactive formation, proposing that social interaction gets ‘activated’ mainly through mutual (and, not infrequently, adverse) replies among actors.
Keywords
Theories of social action; interactionism; structuralism; behaviorism; exchange theory; action and reaction; political conflict; war.
Now out in Gary Bratchford, Dennis Zuev (Eds) Vision and Verticality. A Multidisciplinary Approach. Berlin: Springer. ISBN: 9783031398834.