Today is offically Latour Day! At least for me it is. This morning I really struggled to start writing anything, despite getting up early, so I’ve designated today to be a Latour day. Think I’ll read through some articles I’ve never come across or indeed not read for a while. I’ll post some public links up throughout the day, starting with ‘From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik – An Introduction to Making Things Public’ which is available to download at Latour’s homepage. I’ll also post a ‘killer quote’ that encapsulates that article’s main argument, so here is that quote from Dingpolitik:

‘The point of reviving this old etymology [of thing or ‘ding’] is that we don’t assemble because we agree, look alike, feel good, are socially compatible or wish to fuse together but because we are brought by divisive matters of concern into some neutral, isolated place in order to come to some sort of provisional makeshift (dis)agreement’.

Latour (2005: 13).

There’s also another classic Latour passage but I’ll save that for myself.