Jonathan Basile
@jonothingeb.bsky.social
1K followers 1.1K following 150 posts
Postdoc at UofT, Institute for Hist & Phil of Sci & Tech, 20th C literature and science, viruses, evolutionary theory, deconstruction, libraryofbabel.info. Author: Virality Vitality (https://sunypress.edu/Books/V/Virality-Vitality)
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jonothingeb.bsky.social
This little pathogen I’ve created now has a life of its own. Virality Vitality, on the subterfuges of reproduction and contagion, has just been published!

Unfortunately, only in hardcover for the time being (sunypress.edu/Books/V/Vira...); if you’d like to read it just get in touch!
A smiling man holding a book of which he is evidently very proud. The title is Virality Vitality and the cover is blue and orange, with an image of a cell being invaded by ghostly bacteriophages, like little lollipops
jonothingeb.bsky.social
Our conference on Dialectical Biology, the Marxist tradition represented by the work of Richard Lewontin, is this weekend! Join us Friday to Sunday, online or in Toronto, register here: ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/diale...

Help spread the word if you can!
jonothingeb.bsky.social
I’m enormously grateful to Ian James, who has written the first review of my book, Virality Vitality. It’s an honor to be read so carefully and generously:

olrsupplement.com/2025/10/06/v...
Overall, then, Basile’s book deserves recognition as a major contribution to the contemporary literature of biodeconstruction. But it is also exemplary of the manner in which biodeconstruction can intervene in an original and important way within the philosophical or conceptual fundamentals of biological theory and the ethics and politics of biological practice. There are, no doubt, many biologists who wish to turn to philosophy and the work of philosophers to better understand the implications and wider importance of their work. This may particularly be so in areas where there is so much dogmatic doctrine and economic interest at play. In this context, the biodeconstructive work of Basile and that of others, like Vitale, deserves to be read. One also gets the sense, reading Virality Vitality, of the ongoing importance of Derrida’s legacy and of the way in which this legacy can offer a useful corrective to some of the tendencies within philosophy in the wake of postmodernism and in the context of the so-called ‘ontological turn’. Similarly, the inventiveness of Basile’s book reminds us that Derrida’s legacy needs to remain open and not restricted by attempts to ensure forms of fidelity to a body of thought that has always questioned the terms in which any gesture of fidelity might first be judged. Thus, Basile’s work should, arguably, be allied, not just with those works that form the emergent canon of biodeconstruction, but also with a range of recent and contemporary work that situates itself with the domain of the life sciences and that inherits more broadly from the post-deconstructive moment. There is a wider field here that also places a key emphasis upon something like the reading and interpretation of life, upon ‘natural lection’, rather than seeking new forms of ontological ground.[8] The open, plural, and above all ceaselessly inventive recasting of Derridean thought, such as one finds in Basile’s book, offers no better way of securing its legacy in both t…
jonothingeb.bsky.social
Virality Vitality is now a paperback! Discount code: SNPF25.

How do viral phenomena undermine basic concepts of the life sciences and philosophy, including the body, immunity, self-reproduction, and species? How does this affect synthetic biology’s attempts to control life?
jonothingeb.bsky.social
This little pathogen I’ve created now has a life of its own. Virality Vitality, on the subterfuges of reproduction and contagion, has just been published!

Unfortunately, only in hardcover for the time being (sunypress.edu/Books/V/Vira...); if you’d like to read it just get in touch!
A smiling man holding a book of which he is evidently very proud. The title is Virality Vitality and the cover is blue and orange, with an image of a cell being invaded by ghostly bacteriophages, like little lollipops
Reposted by Jonathan Basile
ihpst-uoft.bsky.social
Join us in commemorating 40 years of groundbreaking biological insights from October 10-12. Participate at the Goldring Student Centre or virtually to honour the contributions of evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin. Find more details here: ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/diale...
jonothingeb.bsky.social
"Despite the university requiring students to undergo the training, the Trump administration still cut $790m in research funding."
The university emailed students in March to say that the implementation of the training “will adhere to federal policy including President Donald Trump’s 29 January executive order, ‘Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism’”.

Despite the university requiring students to undergo the training, the Trump administration still cut $790m in research funding.
Reposted by Jonathan Basile
dialecticalsys.bsky.social
Dialectical Biology Today: Legacies of Richard Lewontin

A hybrid conference bringing together voices old and new to revisit how The Dialectical Biologist still resonates, and reinvigorates, contemporary biology

www.dialecticalsystems.eu/events/diale...
Reposted by Jonathan Basile
hylomorphic.bsky.social
I’m excited to be part of this hybrid event celebrating Richard Lewontin’s legacy from October 10-12. I’ll be presenting a talk titled “Dialectical Biology as Ideology Critique” on Saturday morning. You can register for the Zoom link and see the program here: ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/diale...
Reposted by Jonathan Basile
hantologique.bsky.social
I wrote a piece for the Oxford Literary Review's online supplement on the cultural significance of darkness and how our relationship to the night has changed in modern times—from theology and poetry to the Copernican Revolution and the proliferation of light pollution in the contemporary world.
jonothingeb.bsky.social
A special autumnal equinox edition of The OLR Supplement: @hantologique.bsky.social on darkness and the night sky, from St. John of the Cross and the Tao Te Ching to Pascal, Trakl, and contemporary science and technology - What has "Enlightenment" cost us? olrsupplement.com/2025/09/22/p...
Plus de lumière: A Few Words on Darkness - The OLR Supplement
For the Autumnal Equinox, a reflection on the night sky, the stars and their disappearance in religion, poetry, philosophy, science, and technology
olrsupplement.com
jonothingeb.bsky.social
That's definitely my plan, barring any technical difficulties. I'll share it here when the recordings are ready!
jonothingeb.bsky.social
We now have this nifty flier for our upcoming conference on Marxist biology - please help spread the word!

(registration including for zoom link here: ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/diale...)
jonothingeb.bsky.social
A special autumnal equinox edition of The OLR Supplement: @hantologique.bsky.social on darkness and the night sky, from St. John of the Cross and the Tao Te Ching to Pascal, Trakl, and contemporary science and technology - What has "Enlightenment" cost us? olrsupplement.com/2025/09/22/p...
Plus de lumière: A Few Words on Darkness - The OLR Supplement
For the Autumnal Equinox, a reflection on the night sky, the stars and their disappearance in religion, poetry, philosophy, science, and technology
olrsupplement.com
Reposted by Jonathan Basile
common-ruin.bsky.social
An upcoming conference highlighting the legacy of Marxist biologist Richard Lewontin. Speakers such as Sonia Sultan and Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda. Worth checking out for those with an interest in ecological-development and niche construction.
jonothingeb.bsky.social
I'm excited to share with you all a conference I'm planning Oct. 10-12: Dialectical Biology Today: Legacies of Richard Lewontin.

It will be hybrid in Toronto and on zoom, so please join us however you can! Register for zoom link here: ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/diale...
Conference title: Dialectical Biology Today: Legacies of Richard Lewontin, and image of Lewontin in Black and White with intense expression in front of a chalkboard holding up a fist, 
When and Where
Friday, October 10, 2025 11:30 am to Sunday, October 12, 2025 2:00 pm
Music Room (218)
Goldring Student Centre
150 Charles St W, Toronto, ON M5S 1K5 | and online via Zoom
Reposted by Jonathan Basile
gregoryrupik.bsky.social
An awesome hybrid conference on the legacies of Richard Lewontin is coming to Toronto. Elliott Sober is the keynote! "Dialectical Biology Today" runs from October 10-12. Learn more and register below! #philbio 🐋🌱
@ihpst-uoft.bsky.social

ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/diale...
jonothingeb.bsky.social
I should have mentioned, Denis Walsh is co-organizing this conference with me
jonothingeb.bsky.social
Here's the schedule!
Keynote: Elliott Sober
Presenters: Sonia Sultan, Ana M. Soto & Carlos Sonnenschein, Denis Walsh, Christopher Shambaugh, Rasmus Winther, Jonathan Basile, Stuart Newman, Alejandro Fabrègas Tejeda, Andrea Gambarotto & Rebecca Riccardo Cuciniello, Fermín Fulda
Friday, October 10th:
Session 1: Sonia Sultan, 12:30-2:00
  Respondent: Jacinda Kalaher
Session 2: Ana M. Soto & Carlos Sonnenschein, 2:15-3:45
  Respondent: Hongyu Chen
Keynote: Elliott Sober, 4-6

Saturday, October 11th:
Session 3: Denis Walsh, 9-10:15
Session 4: Christopher Shambaugh, 10:30-11:45
Session 5: Rasmus Winther, 1-2:30
  Respondent: Emma Sigsworth
Session 6: Jonathan Basile, 2:45-4:00
Session 7: Stuart Newman, 4:15-5:45
  Respondent: David Rattray

Sunday, October 12th:
Session 8: Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda, 9-10:15
Session 9: Andrea Gambarotto & Rebecca Riccardo Cuciniello (they/them), 10:30-11:45
Session 10: Fermín Fulda, 12-1:30
  Respondent: Cassandra Williams
jonothingeb.bsky.social
I'm excited to share with you all a conference I'm planning Oct. 10-12: Dialectical Biology Today: Legacies of Richard Lewontin.

It will be hybrid in Toronto and on zoom, so please join us however you can! Register for zoom link here: ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/diale...
Conference title: Dialectical Biology Today: Legacies of Richard Lewontin, and image of Lewontin in Black and White with intense expression in front of a chalkboard holding up a fist, 
When and Where
Friday, October 10, 2025 11:30 am to Sunday, October 12, 2025 2:00 pm
Music Room (218)
Goldring Student Centre
150 Charles St W, Toronto, ON M5S 1K5 | and online via Zoom
jonothingeb.bsky.social
I'm so grateful to Nick Royle for inviting me to contribute - it's really an amazing line up! You should take a look at the whole issue: www.euppublishing.com/toc/olr/curr...
Edinburgh University Press Journals - Table of Contents - olr: Vol 47, No 1
www.euppublishing.com
jonothingeb.bsky.social
Without knowing where the law ultimately resides, we can be no more certain of our guilt than our innocence, which often leads K. to seek punishment or condemnation, to localize the judgment that otherwise haunts him everywhere and nowhere.
jonothingeb.bsky.social
This comes to a head in a scene that both Derrida and D&G read - for D&G, because no representative of the law is ultimate, they open the line of flight K. follows, but Derrida recognizes that this safe passage is precisely the impasse for Kafka...
jonothingeb.bsky.social
In Derrida, this finds expression as an aporia between literature and law - each depends on the other for its possibility and impossibility, each is destabilized by its dependence on the other. Literature depends on laws of copyright and genre, while law requires narrativity
jonothingeb.bsky.social
D&G's reading only makes sense if there is, somewhere, a real law that can be opposed or resisted, without depending on the intermediaries of representation. This is precisely what Kafka's writing parodied
jonothingeb.bsky.social
D&G also oppose representational readings of Kafka - his writing does not provide metaphors for the law, but is itself the process by which he creates lines of flight or becomings-animal to escape oppressive structures
jonothingeb.bsky.social
Benjamin argues, against the psychoanalytic and theological interpretations of Kafka (law=father or law=god) that Kafka should be read without allegorical referent - he evokes another world without providing it, creating parables without an allegorized doctrine