Hermes is one of Michel Serres' most important conceptual personae. The where-, and walkabouts of this hellenic trickster perfectly cohere with Serres' own eclectic meanderings. This quadruply winged god is according to Serres the model we must apply for understanding how the world is constituted. This could crudely be comprehended as some sort of sustainable development for the social sciences. We must thread lightly, as well as swiftly, to manage to follow our fickle guide-deity.
"We have to imagine a foundation with wings on his feet", says Serres to Latour, and as a physical cultural scholar I cannot but associate to the practitioners of Parkour, the traceurs. My way to explore the ways of Hermes will be to construct a conceptual vessel capable of keeping track of his speedy mediations (speediations?). This vessel, or stance, will be traced out between continental philosophy and the physical culture of Parkour.
The stance will be referred to as the philosopher-traceur. In a series of posts here on sportminor, I will develop this concept along with what I will call "the art of tracing".
The Philosopher-Traceur is something that is very appealing indeed and I will watch with interest as you develop this idea. I myself have looked to engage with parkour, albeit using Deluezian and Badiouian philosophies ( http://goo.gl/qauz ), but welcome any Latourian / ANT complementarity, particularly from an urban stance as I believe parkour can say so much more about the city than any cultural/capitalist hegemony can hope to do. Keep up the good blogging!
ReplyDeleteLike I said before, I like your paper on PK just because it stresses movement, and subversion through embracing. Although it's always appealing to be among the first to explore this or that spectacular subculture, I wouldn't delve so deep in this matter if it wasn't for the fact that I have faith in tracing, and not only as a city vitalizer/in-former, but as a general stance towards (or rather with) everything.
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