Photo by Peter Robbins, Unsplash.
Join us on March 5, 2026, at 12:30 pm PT for an online Ziegler lecture. Focusing on the theme of ‘networks’, CENES welcomes Dr. Jake Fraser from Reed College.
Title: “Remembering Media: Time, Memory, and Media from Kittler’s Discourse Networks to Latour’s Actor-Network-Theory”
Abstract: As Friedrich Kittler once observed, philosophers tend to forget the very media that make their practice possible in the first place. This talk takes up the entanglements of time, memory, and media technologies under the heading of “remembering media,” a formulation which is meant to direct attention toward those mundane, oft-forgotten media that were invented to counteract forgetting. Why must we rely on media to remember? Why are we so prone to forget them, and how do we bring them back into view? How do different forms of memory media shape how we think about our own past, and those of others? The talk addresses these questions through the lens of recent developments in German Media Theory, charting a trajectory leading from Heidegger through Kittler to recent appropriations of Bruno Latour’s work on spatio-temporal relays, with a focus on the shifting status of networks within this development.
Biography: Jake Fraser specializes in late 18th- and early 20th-century German literature and philosophy, with emphases in philosophies of time and history and histories of science and technology. At Reed College, he teaches courses on20th-century German thought and literature, psychoanalysis, and media studies. He has published on figures and topics ranging from Heinrich von Kleist and early modern print media to Franz Kafka and technologies of bureaucracy .He is currently completing a book-length study of theories and technologies of “retroactivity” [Ger: Nachträglichkeit] from the 18th to 20th centuries. Future projects include a study of the metaphorics of the Book of Nature in the late 18th century and a media history of latency and delay.
How to attend:
This lecture is an online event, and takes place on March 5, 2026, at 12:30pm PT. Attendees must register here for the Zoom Webinar ahead of time. Please note that this is a recorded event.
Questions? Please email cenes.undergrad@ubc.ca
