Technophany special issue:
Lyotard and the 21st Century
Edited by Yuk Hui and Pieter Lemmens
Conceived on the occasion of the centenary of Jean-François Lyotard’s birth in 2024, Lyotard and the 21st Century is a special issue of Technophany that revisits his work in light of contemporary technological and ecological conditions.
Lyotard’s account of the postmodern identifies an incredulity towards metanarratives, the decline of universalist discourses, and the dominance of performativity within a global techno-economic system. These concerns remain pressing as digital networks, AI algorithms and transhumanist ideology increasingly subject societies to the demands of that system. The century has also brought crises he did not fully anticipate, including the urgency of the ecological crisis and the enframing of the Earth in the Anthropocene.
Ten contributions from different continents and academic backgrounds explore the figural, the differend, infancy, anamnesis, paganism, the inhuman, performativity and technics, with particular attention to technological acceleration. Together, they draw on the breadth of Lyotard’s work to ask what forms of thought, art, politics and resistance remain possible within, against and beyond the conditions of the twenty-first century.
Edited by Pieter Lemmens and Yuk Hui. With texts by Sunil Manghani, Daan Keij, Ashley Woodward, Sergio Meijide Casas, Kiff Bamford, Gael Caignard, Maaike Bleeker, Futoshi Hoshino, Anna De Martino and Franziska Aigner.
Technophany is founded in view of the need to create a singular and unconventional space for reflections on philosophy and technology, which is diminishing today due to dogmatic academic practices and their reluctance to confront challenges imposed by the industrial world. Technophany aims to facilitate original reflections and provocations on the philosophy and history of technology, and contribute to the reshaping of the contemporary landscape of thought.
Technophany is published by Radboud University Press and Research Network for Philosophy and Technology.
E-ISSN: 2773-0875
Paperback is published by Hanart Press.
ISBN: 978-988-70268-6-0
Book size: 170 x 244 mm
Pages: 218
Language: English
Publish year: 2026