Alex Levant
Academic Background:
Ph.D. (Social and Political Thought – York University)
Research Awards:
$74,620 SSHRC Insight Development Grant (IDG), Government of Canada
$42,000 SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship, Government of Canada
Selected Publications:
Levant, Alex (2018) "Two, three, many strands of activity theory!" in Educational Review, Vol. 70 (No. 1), pp.100-108.
Levant, Alex (2017) "Smart Matter and the Thinking Body: Activity Theory and the Turn to Matter in Contemporary Philosophy," in Stasis, Vol. 5 (No. 2), pp. 248-264.
Levant, Alex (2016). “The Ideal and the Dream World - Evald Ilyenkov and Walter Benjamin on the Signifiance of Material Objects," Vesa Oittinen ed. The Activity Approach in Soviet Philosophy. Leiden: Brill.
Levant, Alex (2015). "Activity Theory Meets New Materialist Philosophy in Cathrine Hasse's An Anthropology of Learning," Mind, Culture and Activity.
Public Lectures:
Smart Matter and the Thinking Body: Concepts for the Anthropocene
Alex Levant
Public Lecture Video
Department of Communication Studies
Wilfrid Laurier University
Laurentian University Thought & Culture Seminars and the Interdisciplinary Humanities MA program's Speakers' Series
Location: Brenda Wallace Reading Room, J.N. Desmarais Library (map)
Abstract: Since the recent announcement of the Anthropocene by climatologists, there has been an increasing awareness that this new epoch, characterized by the ascendance of humans as the primary geological force affecting the planet, requires new theoretical concepts that are adequate to this new reality. Current trends in critical theory offer new ways to understand our situation. Examining the recent focus on matter and the material body, my aim is to add another ‘type’ of materialism to the conversation – one that grasps human activity itself as a material force, which may be a particularly fruitful approach for an epoch where the power of human activity has become so amplified.