About
Ekin Erkan is a Turkish philosopher, a researcher in art history, and an art and cinema critic. Erkan’s research in philosophy primarily concerns Kant & Hegel’s theoretical philosophy, the philosophy of mind/perception, and aesthetics/the philosophy of art. Erkan’s area of concentration in art history is currently on revisionist histories of 20th century Abstract Expressionism and how the story of the State Department’s co-optation of Abstract Expressionism relates to the utopian (viz. “California Ideology”) self-conception of nascent internet art (see: NetTime listservs of the late 1990s and early aughts) and its eventual co-optation by commodity capital (e.g., NFTs, the uniform flat aesthetics of ”corporate Memphis”, and the machinations of the “big five” digital oligopolies). Erkan also works on the art of Gerda Wegener and Lili Elbe. Education
Current, Philosophy
Spring 2019 – 2020
Post-Graduate study, Critical Philosophy, The New Centre for Research & Practice
+ Teaching Assistant Fellowship + Rapporteur for Sites of Cinema
+ Researcher for Prof. Thomas Elsaesser
Fall 2013 – Spring 2018
B.A., Major in Art History, Philosophy, University of Cincinnati, DAAP (Cincinnati, OH)
B.A., University of Rochester, Political Science & Philosophy (Rochester, NY)
+Dean’s List, 4.0 GPA (for all semesters)
+ Summa Cum Laude with Highest Distinctions Work Shared in CORE
Articles
Other Publications
Articles
- “Review of David Papineau, The metaphysics of sensory experience.”, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-023-09891-5
- “Charles Ray and the Uncanny at the Met.”, White Hot Magazine June 2022.
- “Kant’s Metaphysics of the Self: The Self as a “Clear” Representation.”, Philosophia 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-022-00595-9
- “Charles Ray and the Uncanny at the Met.”, White Hot Magazine June 2022.
- “Nellie Mae Rowe’s Story of Freedom.”, Hyperallergic December 22, 2022.
- “A Hero.”, Cineaste Vol. XLVII, No. 3, 2022.
- “Life and Actuality: On Placing Possibility in Hegel’s Modal Metaphysics.”, Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 17.3, 2021, pp. 171-195.
- “Anja Jauernig, The World According to Kant: Appearances and Things in Themselves in Critical Idealism. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press 2021, xii+380 pp.”, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 65.4 vol. 103, no. 4, 2021, pp. 764-769. https://doi.org/10.1515/agph-2021-2023
- “Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant by Paul Guyer, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020, viii + 361 pp., €41.85 ($50.00) (hbk), ISBN: 9780198850335 Ekin Erkan Pages 268-274”, International Journal of Philosophical Studies 29.2 (2021), pp. 268-274.
- “Étienne Balibar, On Universals: Constructing and Deconstructing Community”, Philosophy Today 65.4 (2021), pp. 971-978.
- “Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant”, International Journal of Philosophical Studies 29.2 (2021), pp. 268-274.
- “Barwich, A. S. (2020). Smellosophy: What the Nose Tells the Mind”, Perception (2021), pp. 1-3.
- “Westphal, Kenneth, Kant’s Critical Epistemology: Why Epistemology Must Consider Judgment First”, Argumenta 12 (2021), pp. 366-373.
- “Béatrice Longuenesse and Ned Block Vide Kant”, Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 17.1 (2021), pp 405-452.
- “Kant’s Transcendental Deduction: A Cosmology of Experience”, Philosophy in review 14.1 (2021), pp. 29-36.
- “Mentality and Object: Computational and Cognitive Diachronic Emergence”, Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 16.2 (2020), pp. 296-356.
- “A Promethean Philosophy of External Technologies, Empiricism, & the Concept: Second-Order Cybernetics, Deep Learning, and Predictive Processing”, Media Theory Journal 4.1 (2020), pp. 87–146.
- “Nahum Brown, Hegel on Possibility: Dialectics, Contradiction, and Modality”, pli: Warwick Journal of Philosophy 32 (2020).
- “The Post-Cinematic Gesture: Redhack”, Zapruder World: An international journal for the history of social conflict 6 (2020).
- “The Inhuman Overhang: On Differential Heterogenesis and Multi-Scalar Modeling”, La Deleuziana 11 (2020), pp. 202–235.
- “Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals by Pamela Hieronymi (review)”, The Review of Metaphysics 74.1 (2020), pp. 150-153.
- “The First Person in Cognition and Morality by Béatrice Longuenesse (review)”, The Review of Metaphysics 73.4 (2020), pp. 846-848.
- “Béatrice Longuenesse, I, Me, Mine: Back to Kant and Back Again“, Croatian Journal of Philosophy 20.3 (2020), pp. 513-516.
- “Morphing Intelligence: From IQ Measurement to Artificial Brains”, Chiasma: An international journal of theory and philosophy 6:1 (2020), pp. 248-260.
- “Cinema/politics/philosophy”, New Review of Film and Television Studies 18:3 (2020).
- “Yuk Hui’s Axio-Cosmology of the Unknown: Genesis and the Inhuman”, New Formations 100-101, pp. 209-213 (2020).
- “Analytical vs Ontological: Gilbert Ryle & the Question of Behaviorism”, Triple Ampersand (2020).
- “The Post-Human Media Semblance: Predictive Catastrophism”, Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge 36 (2020).
- “Post-Continental Naturalism: Equipollence between Science and Ontological Pluralism”, Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge 36 (2020).
- “Tristan Garcia’s Electric Ontology: Thought and its Deracinated Image”, Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge 36 (2020).
- “Physics Avoidance & Cooperative Semantics: Inferentialism and Mark Wilson’s Engagement with Naturalism Qua Applied Mathematics”, Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 16:1 (2020), pp 560–644.
- “Against the Virtual: Kleinherenbrink’s Externality Thesis and Deleuze’s Machine Ontology”, Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 16:1 (2020), pp 492–559.
- “Apperceptive Patterning: Artefaction, Extensional Beliefs and Cognitive Scaffolding”, Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 16:1 (2020), pp 225–278.
- “Jonathan Gilmore: Apt Imaginings, Feelings for Fictions and Other Creatures of the Mind”, The Journal of Value Inquiry (2020), pp 1-9.
- “From organic subjectivity to internal reality”, Radical Philosophy 2.7 (2020), pp 119–122.
- “Review of Alain Badiou, The Pornographic Age”, Theory, Culture & Society (2020).
- “The Depth Conditions of Possibility: The Data Episteme”, Theory & Event 23.2 (2020), pp 496–500.
- “Jean-Louis Schefer’s The Ordinary Man of Cinema”, Comparative Cinema 8:14 (2020), pp 82–85.
- “Dependence, Addiction and Arrest: A Eulogy to Stiegler by Ekin Erkan”, Media Theory Journal (2020).
- “On New Authoritarianism and its Historical Ontology: A review of David Renton’s The New Authoritarians: Convergence on the Right”, Barricade (2020).
- “Review of Failure, and Discussion with Neta Alexander, by Ekin Erkan”, Media Theory Journal (2020).
- “Animality, Metaethical Judgments and Predictive Justice”, Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture (2020; online).
- “The Call of Being: On Pure Phenomenality and Radical Immanence”, Labyrinth: An International Journal for Philosophy, Value Theory and Sociocultural Hermeneutics 21.2 (2020), pp 197–203.
- “On Action-Oriented Predictive Patterning”, Plutonics: A Journal of Non-Standard Theory 13 (2020), pp 91–97.
- “Omnicide: Mania, Fatality, and Future-in-Delirium (review)”, Philosophy East and West 69.4 (2020), pp 3–6.
- “Laruelle Qua Stiegler: On Non-Marxism and the Transindividual”, Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture 16.1-2 (Summer – Winter 2019), pp 48–66.
- “European Cinema and Continental Philosophy: Film as Thought Experiment”, Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media 18 (2019), pp 232–238.
- “On Laruelle and the Radical Dyad: Katerina Kolozova’s Materialist Non-Humanism”, Cultural Logic: Marxist Theory & Practice 23 (2019), pp 72-82.
- “Technology as the God-Command”, Labyrinth: An International Journal for Philosophy, Value Theory and Sociocultural Hermeneutics 21:1 (2019), pp 201-206.
- “David Lapoujade’s Powers of Time”, Media Theory (2019)
- “Psychopower and Ordinary Madness: Reticulated Dividuals in Cognitive Capitalism”, Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, 15:1 (2019), pp 214-241.
- “Unveiling Thomas Moynihan’s Spinal Catastrophism: The Spine Considered as a Chronogenetic Media Artifact”, Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, 15:1 (2019), pp 564-571.
- “Review of Media heterotopias: digital effects and material labor in global film production”, New Review of Film and Television Studies,(2019).
- “Control societies and machine ecology”, Cultural Studies, 33:6 (2019).
- “Societies of Disindividuated Hyper-Control: On the Question of a New Pharmakon”, Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge, 35 (2019).
- “Cryptophasia and the Question of Database”, Triple Ampersand, (2019).
- “The Generic Unmasked: Reproducibility and Profanation”, Triple Ampersand, (2019).
- “Review of François Laruelle’s A Biography of Ordinary Man: On Authorities and Minorities”, Cincinnati Romance Review, 46 (2019).
- “Arrest: the Politics and Transcendence of Aesthetic Arrest Qua Protest”, AEQAI.
- “Aleatory Aesthetics: Appraising the Aesthetics of Change in Gerhard Richter’s Cage Paintings”, AEQAI.
- “Vasily Kandinsky: Around the Circle”, AEQAI.
- See author’s website
- See author’s art criticism
Projects
“Internation.World” by Ars Industrialis and Institut de recherche et d’innovation (spearheaded by Bernard Stiegler & Giacomo Gilmozzi)
“The centenary of the League of Nations is on Friday 10th January 2020. In response, we are launching an international critical discussion to send a memorandum to the United Nations with the aim of creating an internation. An internation is an agreement between different localities working together in order to invent and to experiment with a new macro-economic model more likely to address the urgent challenges of the Anthropocene.”
On the Arrest of Oktay Ince: Activism for Turkish Video Artist and Political Voice
In Turkey, the amorphous term “terrorist” has adopted folk-lore speculative projections: from a baklava magnate to journalist dissenters and high school teachers, from professors to artists, the unpredictability of being labeled a “terrorist” blankets all such dissenters who dare problematize the ruling AK Party/President Erdoğan. One such case is that of Oktay Ince, a video activist/filmmaker whose work, spanning the last twenty years, was recently confiscated by Turkish authorities after his most recent arrest/being taken into police custody on May 30, 2019. Ince had raised suspicions after attempting to organize a protest in front of a courthouse in the capital of Ankara; he was quickly arrested. Similarly, a month prior, Ince had organized a protest in Izmir and was arrested once again, labelled a “terrorist” and charged with “insulting the president.” The state’s response soon began to appear pathological. Ekin Erkan and other Turkish academics, writers, and intellectuals have worked to spread awareness regarding the unlawful arrest of Oktay Ince, with hopes of helping Ince recover his video archive. Upcoming Talks and Conferences
July 21, 2021
Invited Respondent, Book Panel: Hegel on Possibility, The Society for Systematic Philosophy
May 18-21 Speaker, Olfactory Semantics and Cognitive Handles; Dubrovnik Conference on Cognitive Science—Linguistic and cognitive foundations of meaning Dubrovnik Conferences on Cognitive Science
May 14, 2021
Speaker, Thought as Determination: Bestimmung des Menschen, Fichte’s Measuring Device and Hegel’s Debt; The North American Fichte Society Early Career Researcher Workshop
April 23, 2021
Speaker, On Conceptualizing the Binding Problem through a Naturalized Kantian Framework; 24th Annual Texas State University Phi Sigma Tau Student Philosophy Symposium
February 26-27, 2021
Speaker, Artificial Generative Intelligence and Externalization; Rutgers University
July 15, 2020
Lecturer, On Predictive Processing and Second-Order Cybernetics; Arter Araştırma Programı Istanbul, Turkey
November 22-23, 2019
Speaker, Technology and the God-Command; “Voices” – Italian Graduate Society Conference, Rutgers University
April 5-6, 2019
Speaker, Poto and Cabengo: Beyond Lev Manovich’s Database Logic; “39th Cincinnati Conference on Romance & Arabic Languages and Literatures,” University of Cincinnati
March 28, 2019
Speaker, On Cryptophasia; Medusa Graduate Conference (Linguistic/Anthropology Graduate Student Union), University of Toronto
February 15, 2019
Speaker, Radical Cryptophasia; “‘The Re/active Image’: 2019 NYU Cinema Studies Student Conference,” New York University
April 2017
Speaker, Thomas Demand’s “Pacific Sun”; Dr. Jonathan B. Riess Annual Colloquium, University of Dayton
April 2017
Speaker, Gerhard Richter and Thomas Demand: Inverted Photo-projection; Architecture and Media Conference, University of Cincinnati
December 2015
Organizer, Love, D. A Celebration of Douglas Crimp: Gregg Bordowitz; Craig Owens Memorial Lecture, University of Rochester Memberships
Ars Industrialis
Pharmakon.fr
The New Centre for Research & Practice
Internation.World
Institut de recherche et d’innovation
AEQAI
Columbia
