“Pessimism, Futility and Extinction”: An Interview with Eugene Thacker – Thomas DEKEYSER

Theory, Culture & Society, 2020, Vol. 37(7–8) 367–381 Abstract: In this interview with Thomas Dekeyser, Eugene Thacker elaborates on the central themes of his work. Addressing themes including extinction, futility, human universalism, network euphoria, political indecision and scientific nihilism, the interview positions Thacker’s work within the contemporary theoretical conjuncture, specifically through its relation to genres…

English Preface to History & Utopia – Eugene THACKER

The desire for utopia is, arguably, as urgent and as necessary as the desire for history. They are the meaning-making activities through which we as human beings project ourselves back into the past and forward into the future. And yet, both are fabrications, products of human intellectual labor, forged and re-forged with all the solidity…

Prefácio à edição inglesa do Breviário de Decomposição – Eugene THACKER

Eugene Thacker é filósofo, poeta, escritor e professor de media studies em The New School , na cidade de Nova York. Sua produção se concentra, em grande parte, em temas como filosofia do niilismo e pessimismo filosófico. Entre seus livros estão In the Dust of This Planet (parte da trilogia Horror of Philosophy) e Infinite…

Cioran’s A Short History of Decay (1949): Foreword by Eugene THACKER

There are writers that one seeks out, and there are writers that one stumbles upon. Emil Cioran is arguably of the latter kind. Such was my own introduction to his work, as a student meandering one rainy afternoon in a used bookstore in Seattle. In the philosophy section, probably squeezed between “Cicero” and “Confucius,” was…

The Black Gravity Of Sound: An Interview With Eugene Thacker

THE QUIETUS, October 28th 2018 Cited as an influence on Warren Ellis and True Detective, Eugene Thacker's philosophical investigations into the "unthinkable world" find new expression in his latest book for Repeater, Infinite Resignation. Here he talks to Michael Brooks about the horrors of philosophy, music, and film On receiving Eugene Thacker’s latest book Infinite Resignation in…

Ceticismo, fragmento e lucidez: “Emil Cioran. A Filosofia como Desfascinação e a Escritura como Terapia”, de Vincenzo Fiore [pt. 2] (Rodrigo Inácio R. Sá Menezes)

Na primeira parte do livro, "Uma juventude entre desespero e fervor político", Fiore perfaz o itinerário de formação do jovem Cioran na Romênia da década de 30, explorando a dualidade de uma juventude dividida entre o desespero existencial e o fervor político. Não se faz política nos cumes do desespero. Schimbarea la faţă a României…

“Cosmic Pessimism” (Eugene Thacker)

Continent, 2.2 (2012), 66-75 We’re Doomed. Pessimism is the nightside of thought, a melodrama of the futility of the brain, a poetry written in the graveyard of philosophy. Pessimism is a lyrical failure of philosophical thinking, each attempt at clear and coherent thought, sullen and submerged in the hidden joy of its own futility. The…

“The Patron Saints of Pessimism: Emil Cioran, Friedrich Nietzsche, and other funsters” (Eugene Thacker)

LITERARY HUB, July 19, 2018 If all is for naught, then why bother writing it down? Caught in a vicious circle, ensnared in the logical absurdities of awkward self-awareness. It seems there are one of two options: either speak to this situation, or remain silent. The writer’s failure is that they know they should choose…

“Weird Mysticism: Philosophical Horror and the Logic of Negation in Thomas Ligotti, Georges Bataille, and E. M. Cioran” – Brad BAUMGARTNER

PhD dissertation, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 2015 Abstract: This dissertation will identify and evaluate a new category of transatlantic, twentieth-century literature by showing the influence of speculative writing on three intersecting critical categories: modern literature, apophatic mysticism, and philosophical pessimism. Historically, the idea of negativity has been approached by focusing on its relegation to one or…