Preface: The Question of Supplementarity - A Quantum Problematic  vii

Acknowledgments   xiii

1. Anthropology Diffracted: Originary Humanicity  1

2. Just Figures?: Forensic Clairvoyance, Mathematics, and the Language Question  22

3. Enumerating Language: "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics"  49

4. Natural Convers(at)ions: Or, What if Culture Was Really Nature All Along?  68

5. (Con)founding "the Human": Rethinking the Incest taboo  89

6. Culpability and the Double-Cross: Irigaray with Merleau-Ponty  111

Notes  137

Works Cited  155

Index  163

“Vicki Kirby’s Quantum Anthropologies: Life at Large has the capacity to influence a wide range of contemporary scholars ranging from the humanities to the natural sciences and back again. Its elegant yet complex title reveals a lot of what the book has to say.”—Iris van der Tuin, Somatechnics

“[A] densely packed, highly detailed, and sophisticated treatment of foundational questions concerning origins and causes…. In sum, Quantum Anthropologies is a tour de force, and a must-read for anyone serious about gender theory, materialism, poststructuralism and/or cultural theory as well as emerging re-considerations of feminist standpoint theory, sexual difference theory and feminist theories of the inhuman. Kirby demonstrates a breadth of knowledge that does not in the least compromise her thorough textual engagement.”—Myra Hird, Feminist Theory

“Vicki Kirby’s Quantum Anthropologies: Life at Large has the capacity to influence a wide range of contemporary scholars ranging from the humanities to the natural sciences and back again. Its elegant yet complex title reveals a lot of what the book has to say.”—Iris van der Tuin, Somatechnics

“[A] densely packed, highly detailed, and sophisticated treatment of foundational questions concerning origins and causes…. In sum, Quantum Anthropologies is a tour de force, and a must-read for anyone serious about gender theory, materialism, poststructuralism and/or cultural theory as well as emerging re-considerations of feminist standpoint theory, sexual difference theory and feminist theories of the inhuman. Kirby demonstrates a breadth of knowledge that does not in the least compromise her thorough textual engagement.”—Myra Hird, Feminist Theory

“Vicki Kirby is a leading theorist of new materialist approaches to feminism, and Quantum Anthropologies is a work of great significance. It is a theoretically sound and robust challenge to our most deeply held ideas about nature versus culture. Provocative, smart, and invigorating, it is a book to think with, one with far-reaching implications for science studies, cultural studies, and poststructuralist, feminist, queer, political, and social theory.”—Karen Barad, author of Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning

“To read Vicki Kirby’s work is to encounter feminist theory as if for the first time—the urgency, impact, and sheer pleasure of feminist politics are being written anew. Quantum Anthropologies deliberates on our most elemental questions (What is the body? What is nature?) and argues brilliantly for ontologies that are systemic patternments of textuality and humanicity. This is a fearless book that will deepen and intensify the kinds of feminist questions that can be asked in the generation ahead.”—Elizabeth A. Wilson, author of Psychosomatic: Feminism and the Neurological Body

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