Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning

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Haynes, J., & Murris, K. (2019). Taking age out of play: Children’s animistic philosophising through a picturebook. The Oxford Literary Review, 41(2), 290–309. https://doi.org/10.3366/olr.2019.0284 Murris, K. (2021a). Making kin: Postqualitative, new materialist and critical posthumanist research. In K. Murris (Ed.), Navigating the postqualitative, new materialist and critical posthumanist terrain across disciplines: An introductory guide (pp. 1–22). Routledge.

Bohr, Niels: 1949, ‘Discussion with Einstein on Epistemological Problems in Atomic Physics’, in Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, ed. P. A. Schilpp. Evanston: Northwestern U. Press. Barad, K. (2012a). Nature’s queer performativity (the authorized version). Kvinder, Køn & Forskning/women, Gender and Research, 1–2, 25–53. Full Book Name: Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning k, the theorizing also happens in-phenomenon, and hence detailed descriptions and framing become a part of theory building. Harding, Sandra: 1990, ‘Feminism, Science, and the Anti-Enlightenment Critiques’, in Feminism/Postmodernism, ed. Linda J. Nicholson. NY: Routledge.Bohr, Niels: 1963b ,The Philosophical Writings Of Niels Bohr, Vol. II: Essays 1933–1957 on Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge. Woodbridge, Conn: Ox Bow Press. Fine, Arthur: 1984, ‘The Natural Ontological Attitude’, in Scientific Realism, ed. by J. Leplin. Berkeley: University of California Press. This is one of the greatest philosophical books I have ever read. Karen Barad draws on figures such as Judith Bulter, Donna Haraway, and Michel Foucault to investigate the ontological implications of the insights in quantum physics of Niels Bohr. She argues for a completely new way of looking at the world, which she calls "agential realism," where the relationship preexists and constitutes the relata. Subject and object (or rather, the "agencies of observation" and the "object of observation") are not independently existing individuals, but exists on in their "intra-action." Barad criticizes the metaphysics of individualism, which is responsible for problematic representationalist and humanist presuppositions, while reconceptualizing notions such as causality, agency, objectivity, and responsibility. Barad, K. (2017b). What flashes up: Theological-political-scientific fragments. In C. Keller & M.-J. Rubenstein (Eds.), Entangled worlds: Religion, science, and new materialisms (pp. 21–88). Fordham University Press.

Honner, John: 1987 ,The Description of Nature: Niels Bohr and the Philosophy of Quantum Physics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. It's hard to overestimate the tremble of excitement that attended the publication of Karen Barad's Meeting The Universe Halfway when it first came out nearly ten years ago. Here was the work of a physicist-cum-philosopher conversant in the 'high-theory' of post-structuralism no less than the intricacies of quantum theory, a writer of exceptional clarity at home in the fields of feminist theory no less than the philosophy and practice of science. A work, moreover, that promised to rethink and reconceptualize our ideas of "space, time, matter, dynamics, agency, structure, subjectivity, objectivity, knowing, intentionality, discursivity, performativity, entanglement and ethical engagement." Barad, K. (2019). After the end of the world: Entangled nuclear colonialisms, matters of force, and the material force of justice. Theory & Event, 22(3), 524–550.Murris, K. (2020). Posthuman de/colonising teacher education in South Africa: Animals, anthropomorphism and picturebook art. In P. Burnard & L. Colucci-Gray (Eds.), Why science and art creativities matter: STEAM (re-)configurings for future-making education (pp. 52–78). Brill Publishers. https://brill.com/view/title/54614 Nelson, L. H., & Nelson, J. (Eds.). (1997). Feminism, science and the philosophy of science. Kluwer. And the book succeeds! The philosophy of agential realism is really interesting and offers us much to think about in an age where humans affect the world almost as much as the word does itself. (Even though we are a part of the world, which is a part of the philosophy) Bohr, Niels: 1963a ,The Philosophical Writings of Niels Bohr, Vol. I: Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature. Woodbridge, Conn: Ox Bow Press.