Sport and Serres

Stefan at Traditio has posted a great article that connects football and Serres. The motion of the ball, the movement of individual players, and a great video segment of Zidane all make this worth reading and viewing.

Serres appears to be a very keen sporting enthusiast and this make an intriguing connection between complexity, synthesis, messengers and the ideas he has so richly developed around those themes over the years.

Crossroads and Narrative in Serres

It may be very important for us culturally to understand what crossroads are all about. Are they places where lines cross? Roads join? Or where narrative powers are at work bringing many things together while leaving just as many possibilities still open?

Julie Heyward of the blog Unreal Nature has curated a post that is a valuable reflection on these ideas. She explains how Serres envisions crossroads much differently than people who are committed to more linear views of the world. Here's a sample:

Serres substitutes the thought of the juncture as abundance or complexification. Equally, if, self-evidently, the crossroads is not a figure establishing or confirming an identity. Nor is it one that signals the dissolution of identity or death of the subject. Identity is rather projected as a point of intersection between multiple networks.

… Literature, says Serres, in Zola, occupies language more largely than any of the logics.(This is not a value judgment, but simply the case.) For the same reason, literature is a “system of simulation” that is relatively faithful in what is at stake in the game for any of the knowledges — any of the découpages — at a particular point in space-time. Narrative will therefore stand relative to any given knowledge as a simulation of Bachelard’s ”complexité essentialle.” As such, it resists entêtement, obstinacy, stubborn persistence, the fixed idea lodged in the head, the singular, homogeneous space of the dogmatist.

Narrative is like a force that doesn't increases space as it grows, rather like a river running underground carving out caverns and passageways that in turn have all kinds of potential for animals, people and other things to move through it - possibilities are more characteristic than reductions.

Some Posts on Serres in French

For those of you who are interested in reading some posts about Serres in French, you can find some here. If you are less proficient in French, Google can facilitate your cheating (I'm sure some of you are cringing) and give you at least some sense of what is there. 


I keep working on my French (my youngest two are happily in immersion) and constantly envy those who can move with angelic grace between French and English. My lot is to be regularly humbled by my children.


And his new book Biogee as well is here.


Thanks to Stephanie Posthumous for pointing these out.

Variations on the Body (translated by Randolph Burks)

Open publication - Free publishing - More variations

Serres and Software Company - Trivium

Did anyone else know this? I sure didn't. The connections between Stanford and software development are strong in many of the disciplines but this is a pleasant surprise. According to the company website, Serres is a co-founder of Trivium - you can learn more here.


Has anyone used any of the Trivium tools or approaches? Is Serres involved in any of the functions of the company? It's an intriguing edge.

Serres Influence at Stanford

This interview with a Stanford faculty member who was influenced by Serres is worth reading. Showly Lang talks with Dan Edelstein about who influenced him the most in his studies and work and he picks Serres as an important part of his academic growth and inspiration.

Serres Noted in French Academic Landscape

Mention here in CampusFrench of the contribution of scholars like Serres who have run across, through, among, and within a wide variety of disciplines.