Reading :: The Wolf and the Prince

The Prince and the Wolf: Latour and Harman at the LSE [Kindle Edition]
By Bruno Latour, Graham Harman, and Peter Erdelyi

A while back, I reviewed Graham Harman's The Prince of Networks, in which Harman, a philosopher, examined Latour's work in terms of metaphysics. Although I have a hard time staying engaged with philosophy, the book was still interesting to me.

Think of The Prince and the Wolf as the "behind the scenes" companion to The Prince of Networks. It's the transcript of a symposium involving Latour and Harman at the London School of Economics, February 5, 2008, when Harman's book was in draft form. Harman had not yet finished the final chapter, but the bulk of the book was complete enough for Latour and the relatively small audience to read in advance of the dialogue.

Latour and Harman are both witty speakers and they both field solid questions from each other and the audience. Unfortunately, the dialogue did not manage to engage me in the way that The Prince of Networks did: it's heavy on philosophy, and I bore easily. But if philosophy pulls you in the way that (say) methodology pulls me in, or if you want to gain a deeper understanding of how The Prince of Networks developed, definitely pick up this book.