Plasticity and the Neuro-Image
A Response to Catherine Malabou’s What Should We Do with Our Brain?
On 28 and 29 October 2011 Catherine Malabou gave a masterclass and lecture in Amsterdam for the Netherlands Institute of Cultural Analysis (NICA). Below the text of the presentation I gave in response to her important work on continental philosophy’s uneasy relation to (neuro)biology. To be continued.
I would like to thank the organizers, Adam Chambers, Thijs Witty, Gianluca Turricchia, and Baylee Brits for taking the initiative to invite Catherine Malabou to Amsterdam and organizing yesterday’s masterclass and today’s lecture. I feel honored to be asked to give a response to this important work. Before I start doing that, I would like to say that I did not read the lecture beforehand but I agreed with Catherine Malabou that I would reflect on some ideas from the book What Should We Do with Our Brain? and try to make some connections to my own work that deals with the brain in a more cultural analytical way. Therefore my apologies if I repeat some things that have already been addressed by Catherine Malabou herself, or if I do not address directly some issues raised in her lecture but I hope nevertheless to be able to make some remarks for further discussion.