Bruno Latour in Pieces ― An Intellectual Biography

Bruno Latour stirs things up. Latour began as a "lover" of science and technology, as co-founder of Actor-Network theory (ANT), and as philosopher of a Modernity that had "never been modern". In the meantime he is regarded not just as one of the most intelligent and also popular exponents of science studies, but also as a major innovator of the social sciences, as an exemplary wanderer who walks the line between the sciences and the humanities.

This book provides the first comprehensive overview of the Latourian oeuvre, from his early anthropological studies in Abidjan (Ivory Coast) to his influential books like Laboratory Life and Science in Action and his most recent reflections on an empirical metaphysics of "modes of existence". In the course of this enquiry it becomes clear that the basic problem to which Latour's work responds is that of social tradition, the transmission of experience and knowledge. What this empirical philosopher is constantly grappling with is the complex relationship of knowledge, time, and culture.

Henning Schmidgen is Professor of Media Studies at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany. From 1997 to 2011 he was a Senior Research Scholar at the Max Planck-Institute for the History of Science in Berlin (Dept. III, Hans-Joerg Rheinberger). In 2005/06, he was Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of History of Science at Harvard University. Schmidgen has worked extensively on Deleuze's machines, Canguilhem's concepts and the problem of living time in 19th-century physiology and psychology.His research is published by journals such as "Isis", "Journal of the History of Biology", "Configurations", and "Grey Room." In addition, Schmidgen is a co-founder of the "Virtual Laboratory" (http://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de), a widely used digital library and publication platform focusing on the history of the experimental life sciences. His book publications include Das Unbewusste der Maschinen (1997), Lebendige Zeit (ed., 2005) and Hirn und Zeit. Die Geschichte eines Experiments, 1800-1950 (2014).

Gloria Custance was born in London, studied German at the University of Warwick, U.K., and now lives and works as a translator in Berlin, Germany.