ABSTRACT – The work of François Laruelle is not often mentioned in the fields of communication and media studies. Those research notes propose to outline three points of intersection. The first point is a short essay Laruelle wrote specifically about communication. Alongside a brief overview of this essay, it is suggested that a model already exists –shared by various authors– that could be for communication what non-philosophy is for philosophy. This model is dubbed “non-standard communication”. The notes proceed to offer two additional ways in which this non-standard communication intersects with Laruelle’s non-philosophy. The first intersection is found in the fact that non-standard communication does not communicate anything other than itself. The second intersection has to do with the fact that non-standard communication does not take place between two agents but instead is how agency occurs in the first place.

Moment Journal: “François Laruelle and (Non-Standard) Communication” by Philippe Theophanidis, Vol 5, No 1, 2018, pp. 15-30. PDF.

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[UPDATE–June 14, 2018] The post I first published here on March 27, 2014 was expanded into a full, peer-reviewed paper. It was published online on June 14, 2018, in an open-access issue of Moment Journal dedicated to the topic of “Philosophy of Communication”. The issue was edited by Burcu Canar & Briankle G. Chang. The paper can now be accessed here. I’m thankful for the close reading and generous comments of the anonymous reviewers. Below, I share the updated list of references.

• • •

References:

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Mercury, the Roman adaptation of Hermes, is seen spreading letters on this St. Lucia stamp from  1949. Retrieved from Wikimedia commons.
Mercury, the Roman adaptation of Hermes, is seen spreading letters on this St. Lucia stamp from 1949. Retrieved from Wikimedia commons.

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