Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 5-28-2020 10:30 AM com-posing abolitionist≠posthumanism: notes on incommensurability, incomputability and incognita syn-aesthetics Michelle Liu, The University of Western Ontario Supervisor: Biswas Mellamphy, N., The University of Western Ontario A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the Master of Arts degree in Theory and Criticism © Michelle Liu 2020 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Liu, Michelle, "com-posing abolitionist≠posthumanism: notes on incommensurability, incomputability and incognita syn-aesthetics" (2020). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 7016. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/7016 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. com-posing abolitionistposthumanism: notes on incommensurability, incomputability and incognita syn-aesthetics abstract This thesis is an exercise in theoretical com-position, an arrangement in genre/generic speculation on the figure abolitionist≠posthumanism. Working para-critically to consider textures, postulations and challenges posed by decolonial thought, Indigenous critical theories, Black studies, critical race feminisms, non-philosophy and theories on digitality, i pose incommensurability, incomputability and incognita syn-aesthetics as moments for desedimenting “the Human” as a genre of being in which the logics of recognition, legibility, exposure and transparency circumscribe a carceral worlding. Attending to the structural antagonisms underlying this figure and its afterlife—one predicated on racial capitalism, slavery and settler-colonialism as its conditions of possibility—i trouble liberal relationality as a procedure which functions with the cut of Difference to write this “World” as standard. i install abolitionist oneirology—dreaming—as a practice of immanent revolt in the outside and without of civil society, staying extendedly with the World-destroying mandates of the non- of non-human and non-relation. keywords relation, difference, recognition, para-, non-, tactics-without-program, fugitivity, incommensurability, incomputability, non-standard procedure, incommunicability, mu, racial capitalism, settler colonialism, abolition, exposure, opacity, spill. ii summary for general audience This thesis engages in an exercise of abolitionist com-position (a non- and para- disciplinary theoretical installation) implicating questions of the Human, the posthuman and nonhuman in the ongoing violence of racial capitalism, the afterlife of slavery and settler colonial worlding. Drawing textures, postures, and challenges from decolonial thought, Black studies, Indigenous critical theory, critical race feminisms, non-philosophy and theories on digitality, i place “abolitionist” with “posthumanism” in inequality (≠), to hold in tension an image of incongruence in this construction, refusing resolution, equation, incorporation and overcoming to attend to what might be possible in the not-directly-related or the absence of obligatory relation. i pose relationality in the Western philosophical tradition (moment of thought of and for the “West” as imperial formation) as a procedure of philosophical violence, performing a logic of Difference (Laruelle) predicated on cuts, incisions and distinctions that underwrite a figure of the Human as standard—one genre of being (Wynter) consolidated in what is here described as a carceral worlding. The three chapters on incommensurability, incomputability and incognita remain with the non- and the para- to trouble the logics of recognition, legibility, exposure and transparency as well as sensibility, exchangeability and availability (to thought and to propriation) in standard procedure. Moving para-critically by means of a placement of “images” (prose, moments, provocations, poetics, accents, visual forms, indications of sound), i consider non-relation and non-human as points of a generic philosophical insurrection given in an account of immanent revolt according to an outside and without of civil society, dreaming not only the end of this genre of the Human, but the end of a world in which its logics are possible. iii acknowledgments for incarcerated beings and abolitionists everywhere. for defenders of land and water everywhere. for revenants and ghosts, revolutionary fighters in kaleidoscopic vision—artists, practitioners, workers, teachers, healers, maroons, theory junkies, pick-pocket writers, queers and butterflies—who refuse “things as they are.” for wayward worlds that already exist—outside, alongside and not yet. for loved ones, familiar and unknown that compose social movements—you teach me life. i wish to thank my mentors and fellow students at the Centre for Theory and Criticism, the department of Women studies and Feminist Research and the faculty of Visual Arts. i am grateful to have learned from you. thank you giving me the time to move unhurriedly in what sometimes feels like physical and conceptual foreclosure. thank you for the much-needed friction and support. i want to express appreciation for Melanie Caldwell who has been wonderfully helpful. thank you Christine Sprengler for modeling so many dimensions of a great teacher; Chris Roulston, Mireya Folch Serra, Erica Lawson, Pauline Wakeham for teaching me the numerous ways theory and politics can be made in communities, inside and outside of the university. my deep gratitude to Nandita Biswas Mellamphy for supervising and inspiring this project. thank you so much for your encouragement and for sharing your patience, kindness, and intelligence. many thanks to Nick Dyer-Witheford for your conversations and generous reading of early drafts and for allowing me the pleasure of researching uprisings and digital platforms. to the regulars and “custodians” of the “university” of Asmara Coffee House where i wrote much of this document, thank you keeping a wonderful space of community, laughter and learning. your kindness and openness permitted me a retreat when the University proper grew tiring. thanks Misgna for your craft, wit and hospitality. to Deshkan Ziibing and the grassroots assemblies in the communities surrounding this river dreaming and fighting for economic, social and environmental justice for everyone, thank you for teaching commitment. to Action Beats Collective for sharing the uneasy but fulfilling work of building horizontality with me; for potlucks, meetings, marches and drumming in prefigurative practice. thanks for reminding me of the fullness of a break—a break not only interrupts, it brings about a new time. to the shifting and inspiring anarchist projects, however short lived, that try over and over to iv make collective spaces more reflective of their radical principles: Empowerment Info Shop, Eat Up, Food not Bombs, Black Rose, EVAC—these projects helped me grow and taught me to take risks. to Bread and Roses for keeping a beautiful and inviting space dedicated to a more beautiful future. to Forrest City Zinefiends who always welcomed, inspired, and encouraged me, you allowed me to unfold and release tension, even if i only show up once in a while. thank you for lending me joy in a piece of paper and a pair of scissors. to Interaction Collective for the space to laugh and vent. to Safe Space and Idle No More London for more making this city more livable. to friends and comrades of No One is illegal Deshkan Ziibing and all the folks who make up the constellation of migrant justice, anti-racist and anti-prison work on Turtle Island. you are all my teachers. you are all brilliance. you helped me survive. to my kickboxing friends and teachers, thank you for teaching me how to throw a straight punch, and the poetics and utility of “taking an angle” in seemingly exhausted situations. you taught me to respect what a body, including my own, can do. much gratitude to Jaime, Nick, Jason, Myka, Sage, Avia, Alex and Matt for taking the time to read my drafts. thank you for your thoughtfulness and care. to friends who made London home for two and half years, thank you for sharing meals and drinks and for making me laugh. to friends who keep time, who remain with me even when i fall out of touch, thank you for growing with me and for being stars. to Bonnie Briggs and your tiny house dreams— homelessness will end, we fight to win! to Matt, thank you for making our home a playful and artful place. thank you for always trying and for being there to keep things on the ground during both periods of sadness and exuberance. i’m grateful for your love and care. to Luna, for teaching me to appreciate the combined power of ferocity and cuteness. to Diane, you inspire me to be a better teacher and student in and out of the classroom. to my grandmothers 嫲嫲， 婆婆. to Lily Auntie who passed away as i began to see an end to this project. Your kindness is everything. to my mom, dad and brother, thank you for continuing to raise me. v table of contents abstract…………………………………………………………………………………….ii summary for general audience…………………………………………………………....iii acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………iv table of contents...………………………………………………………………………...vi image list……………...………………………………………………………………….vii introduction: annotations for dreaming the end of this