My Upcoming Course on the Philosophy of Nick Land

Hello, Dangerous Maybe readers, it’s Michael Downs. Let me start by saying that I’m close to posting a very long piece I’ve been working on that centers around Lacan, Žižek, Marx, Deleuze & Guattari, etc. I know I haven’t posted anything new in a long time but the wait is almost over. With that being said, I want to tell you about something else I have in the works.

I want to officially announce that the next course I’m going to be teaching at Theory Underground will be an introduction to the work of Nick Land and the CCRU. It’ll be a four-week course starting Saturday, October 28. We think it’s perfect to start off a course on Land’s work right around Halloween. But who is Nick Land? A philosopher? A cult leader? A prophet? A charlatan? A magician? A speed-freak? A leftist? A rightist? A Twitter troll? A meme? A human being? A terminator? Let’s find out. I plan on discussing Land’s views on accelerationism, capitalism, artificial intelligence, cybernetics, hyperstition, death, Qabbala, the numogram, templexity, Shanghai, Dark Enlightenment, Bitcoin, and, of course, those time-traveling lemurs.

Land’s work has had a big influence on contemporary thought, for example, Sadie Plant, Mark Fisher, Reza Negarestani, Iain Hamilton Grant, Ray Brassier, Nick Srnicek, etc., are all intellectually indebted to Land in various ways. Also, we cannot talk about accelerationism without understanding how all versions of it can be traced back to Land. Land has influenced and continues to influence both leftist and neoreactionary thought, so understanding Land is essential to grasping our current political moment. You can sign up for the course at https://theory-underground.com/courses/land-intro or on the Theory Underground app. Join us on our journey into the heart of darkness where “nothing human makes it out of the near future”.