Alex Levant

$7,775 CAS Research Support Grant, Wilfrid Laurier University, 2017

$74,620 SSHRC Insight Development Grant (IDG), Government of Canada, 2013-2015      

$48,138 Research Leave Award, York University, 2014-2015

$42,000 SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship, Government of Canada, 2011

• 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.
• Levant, Alex (2014) and Vesa Oittinen, eds. Dialectics of the Ideal: Evald Ilyenkov and Creative Soviet Marxism. Leiden: Bril.
• Levant, Alex (2012). "Rethinking Spontaneity Beyond Classical Marxism: Re-reading Luxemburg through Benjamin, Gramsci, and Thompson," in Critique, Vol. 40 (No. 3), pp. 341-361.
• Levant, Alex (2012). "E.V. Ilyenkov and Creative Soviet Theory: An Introduction to Dialectics of the Ideal," in Historical Materialism, Vol. 20 (No. 2), pp. 125-148.
• Levant, Alex (2012). "E.V. Ilyenkov, Dialektika Ideal'nogo [Dialectics of the Ideal]," Historical Materialism, Vol. 20 (No. 2), pp. 149-193.
• Levant, Alex (2011) "Soviet Pins: Souvenirs as Spoils in the Triumphal Procession," Studia Sociologia, thematic issue: Politics of memory, memory of politics. Communism outside the "anti-communist industry". Vol. 56, Issue 2, pp. 59-74.
• Levant, Alex (2011). "E.V. Ilyenkov, The Ideal in Human Activity (2009)," Marx and Philosophy Review of Books.
• Levant, Alex (2011) “From the History of Soviet Philosophy: Lukacs – Vygotsky – Ilyenkov (2008) by Sergey Mareev,” Historical Materialism, Vol. 19 (No. 3), pp. 176-189.

For a larger list of publications, please visit: https://wlu-ca.academia.edu/AlexLevant

2018/19:

• CS310 – Globalization & Communication (F)
• CS413 – Posthuman Subjectivities (F)
• CS101 – Canadian Communication in Context (W)
• CS416 – Smartphones and Us (W)

• Mind, Culture, and Activity: An International Journal
• The Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition at UC San Diego
• Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research
• Oxford Centre for Sociocultural and Activity Theory Research
• The Center for Human Activity Theory (CHAT)
• The International Society of Cultural-historical Activity Research (ISCAR)
• Evald Ilyenkov Archive
• Reading Ilyenkov
• Lev Vygotsky Archive
• A.N. Leont'ev Archive
• Classics in Activity Theory

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.