Nothing human makes it out of the near-

future.
Ð Nick Land
If, at its most radical, accelerationism
claims, in CamatteÕs words, that Òthere can

01/08
be a revolution that is not for the humanÓ
and draws the consequences of this, then
one can either take the side of an inherited
image of the human against the universal
history of capital and dream of Òleaving this
world,Ó or one can accept that Òthe means
of production are going for a revolution on
their own.Ó
Ð Robin Mackay and Armen Avanessian
Aria Dean You get this sense that most African-
Americans owe nothing to the status of the
Notes on human.
Ð Kodwo Eshun
Blacceleration Let it be said that this is not a unified theory of
blaccelerationism. It is not a black
accelerationism Ð that is, a Òblack perspective
on accelerationismÓ Ð nor is it an accelerationist
theory of blackness. It is not a critique of
accelerationism from the position of blackness
or black studies. These are notes on
blaccelerationism. This portmanteau Ð binding
blackness and accelerationism to one another Ð
proposes that accelerationism always already
exists in the territory of blackness, whether it
knows it or not Ð and, conversely, that blackness
is always already accelerationist. It is my modest
proposition that activating this
blaccelerationism serves to articulate a
necessary alternative to right and left
accelerationism.
e-flux journal #87 Ñ december 2017 Ê Aria Dean

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAt large, accelerationism and black radical

thought Ð especially as delivered in afrofuturism
and afropessimism Ð share a number of
concerns. Both are occupied with Òthe futureÓ or
a lack thereof, with the end of the world, with the
logic and tendencies of capital, and both are
locked in a struggle with humanism. However,
Notes on Blacceleration

accelerationismÕs articulation is rife with

absences. In particular, accelerationist thinkers
absent their own relationship to black radical
thought, feeling their way for answers in the
dark. Most crucially and consistently, the
accelerationist account passes over slaveryÕs
foundational role in of capital accumulation. The
only accelerationist theory and politics that can
contend with right accelerationism is one
grounded in an understanding that Òcapital was
kick-started by the rape of the African
continent.Ó1
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAccelerationism is known to claim that the
only way out of capitalism is through it. Capital is
too quick for us. Mutating continually, it is
capable of recuperating and manipulating all

12.17.17 / 13:22:58 EST

attempts to thwart it, restrict it, or slow it down. universal space of possibility.Ó4 If technology can
As a result, the only strategy for ending global just be accelerated, Srnicek and Williams argue,
capitalism is to burrow in further, Òto accelerate then a postcapitalist future should be possible
its uprooting, alienating, decoding, abstractive through the appropriation of capitalist modes
tendencies.Ó2 and structures toward another, better end. Their
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊContemporary accelerationists trace their book Inventing the Future anticipates in

02/08
lineage to a loose constellation of nineteenth- particular the acceleration of automation
and twentieth-century thinkers, beginning with towards a post-work society and a newly
Marx himself. Eventually, this genealogy cleaves transcendent post-identitarian, anti-folk-
into right and left accelerationist camps. The political class consciousness.
right is represented by British philosopher Nick ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊLeft accelerationism is waterlogged by a
Land, formerly at the center Ð alongside Sadie duty to grapple with identity politics, labor, and
Plant Ð of a cult of personality called CCRU practicality. Well-meaning Srnicek and Williams
(Cybernetic Culture Research Unit) at Warwick are consumed with searching for a subject who
University, and now known to a wider audience can contend with the immeasurably vast and
as a leading neoreactionary thinker alongside powerful forces of capital. This seems to be a
Mencius Moldbug. LandÕs right accelerationism knee-jerk, obligatory reaction against LandÕs
advocates that capitalism be encouraged to run callous and aggressive inhumanism. They are
wild, and intensify itself toward its own troubled by the fact that LandÕs account of
destruction.3 capitalÕs acceleration is also an account of
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊLeft accelerationism restages tragic inevitable human obsolescence. What good is a
Landian nihilism as a comedic urban romance revolution if weÕre counted among its casualties?
with technology. In their 2013 ÒManifesto for an ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIf LandÕs accelerationism proposes a
Accelerationist Politics,Ó Nick Srnicek and Alex schematic without a subject at its center,
Williams argue that Land confuses Òspeed with Srnicek and WilliamsÕs attempt to reinsert or
acceleration,Ó missing an understanding of Òan relocate the subject sheds much of what makes
acceleration which is also navigational, an them accelerationist in the first place. Their
experimental process of discovery within a commitment to retaining a properly human Ð and

Enslaved people are depicted

being thrown overboard during
theÊZongÊmassacre Ð the mass
killing of 133ÊAfrican peopleÊby
the crew of the British slave
shipÊin November 1781.

12.17.17 / 13:22:58 EST

in this case recognizably proletarian Ð subject at order that the potential this event offers to
the center of their politics, instead of centering be fully exploited, we need a politics
capital itself makes a vintage mistake. Rather capable of fully evading even the kind of
than ask how capital secretes the idea of the generic humanism BadiouÕs politics (for
human as a way of covering its tracks, theyÕve example) proffers. For the impasse of the
put the mask back on the villain and crossed end of history can only be properly

03/08
their fingers. Now accelerationism confronts an surmounted by a final nihilistic overcoming
apparently unresolvable conceptual fissure. On of humanism Ð in a sense even Badiou fails
the right, Nick Land continues to loom large, this test, his minimal-communist
racing gleefully toward destruction, waving an humanism not going far enough. What
anti-humanist flag and tweeting endlessly. The perhaps this might entail is a rethinking of
left trudges slowly behind clutching an a revolutionary position, built on the basis
admirable politic, but one with a tenuous of a rethinking of the very notion of value
relationship to accelerationism. At the bottom of itself.6
this gulf lies the question of the human.
Drawing on Land as well as on Ray BrassierÕs
speculative realism, Williams embraces their
theories of capitalism as a machinic force with
little to no concern for humanity, discussing the
necessity for a new conception of capital as a
Òvast inhuman form.Ó He writes, Ò[Capital]
intersects with us, it has us as moving parts, but
it ultimately is not of or for-us.Ó It is an Òalien
life-form.Ó Williams then calls for a
Xenoeconomics, which would take all of this into
account in formulating a totally new theory of
value that Ò[thinks] of capitalism outside of
alienation.Ó It will be Òa theory of value [that is
not] predicated upon this original suffering, the
voodoo process of soul-theft at the core of the
alienation of labour in the commodity form.Ó
On January 14, 2017, Simon Reynolds posted this photograph on his
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊMore interesting is what follows, when
blog,ÊinÊa post titled ÒRIP Mark Fisher.Ò Reynolds' caption: ÒBelow is a Williams turns directly to the question of the
photo from a party Joy and I (and Kieran) held during the summer of
2002, which was the last period we lived in England for any length of
human as the grounds upon which this
time. ThereÕs Mark, and Kodwo Eshun, and Anjalika Sagar, and Steve Xenoeconomics will be forged:
Goodman aka Kode 9. A clusterfuck of genius!Ò

As the way out of the binaries of a leftism

e-flux journal #87 Ñ december 2017 Ê Aria Dean

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ*** which is utterly and irretrievably moribund,

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIt is worthwhile to retrace this search for an and a neo-liberal economics which is
accelerationist subject. It is difficult to do, as the ideologically bankrupt, we must bend both
chapters of this history are scattered across together in the face of an inhuman and
blogs and comment sections, some of which no indefatigable capitalism, to think how we
longer exist. This contingent, hypertextual form might inculcate a new form of radically
is not a bug of accelerationism, but a feature. inhuman subjectivation. This entails the
Notes on Blacceleration

The best I can do here is map an impression of a retrieval of the communist project for a new
nearly decade-old conversation, cobbled man, AND the liberation of the neo-liberal
together from a mixture of block quotes, still- quest for a capitalism unbound, from both
existing posts, and trips back in time through the its subterranean dependence upon the
Wayback Machine.5 state and the skeletal humanist discursive
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn October of 2008, Alex Williams published a priori which animates its ideological
ÒXenoeconomics and Capital UnboundÓ on his forms.7
blog Splintering Bone Ashes. Written during the
peak of the financial crisis, the post finds Williams already edges up on the question that
Williams asking how the crisis might be a hidden he and Srnicek would later try to answer eight
opportunity. He writes: years later: What kind of subject can possibly
participate in the demise of this alien-machine
Perhaps what this crash offers however is a we call capitalism? He recognizes that staid
chink in the armour of late capital, a humanism wonÕt do it, and that Òthe impasse of
Badiouian event, evading the usual in- the end of history can only be properly
situational structural determinations É In surmounted by a final nihilistic overcoming of

12.17.17 / 13:22:58 EST

humanism.Ó But the question remains for him, and able to offer it? In the lack of a
and for the reader: How do we get from point A to collective agent, wouldnÕt we be back to a
point B? And without following Nick Land down kind of theoretical parlour game that has
his amphetamine-lined rabbit hole? no consequences?8
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe next day, the late British theorist Mark
Fisher published a response to WilliamsÕs Williams responds to Fisher a few days later with

04/08
ÒXenoeconomics and Capital UnboundÓ on his a long post that says less about how Williams
own blog, k-punk. In a post titled ÒNihilism conceives this potential agent than it does about
without Negativity,Ó Fisher poses what he calls the contours of the political hole that said agent
Òthe problem of agency.Ó It is here Ð in the matter will someday need to fill. In order to approach
of what or who can be said to be doing what or the question of agency, we are told, we first must
who to who or what Ð that WilliamsÕs nascent approach the question of intent. Williams
Òleftist-spin on accelerationismÓ differs from distinguishes two forms of accelerationism by
LandÕs neoreactive account most glaringly. Fisher their ends. First, there is a weak accelerationism,
writes: which merely argues that by Òdriving capitalism
towards an accelerated position, the conditions
LetÕs suppose that such a Thing could for something resembling a communist
emerge from the husk of late capitalism. revolution might be engendered.Ó9 Weak
One major difference between SBAÕs accelerationism chiefly seeks to invigorate an
accelerationism and Landianism is over the anti-ameliorative left politic. On the other hand,
question of agency: for Landianism, Capital strong accelerationism maintains that
is the only agent of note, whereas for SBA, acceleration doesnÕt just open PandoraÕs box,
Capital must be assisted to become creating the conditions for revolution in a
something else. But what form would this familiar form. Instead, strong accelerationism
assistance take? As per TrontiÕs question might be Òthe process necessary to erase the
about the left after the demise of the human altogether (as a form of subjectivation), to
workersÕ movements, what group subject actualise something close to the dissolution of
could emerge which would be both willing subjectivity.Ó

Parker Bright and othersÊprotestÊthe inclusion and display of Dana SchutzÕs paitningÊOpen CasketÊin the Whitney Biennial, 2017. TheÊphotograph was first
publishedÊon Twitter on March 17Êwith the caption: ÓAt the Whitney, a protest against Dana Schutz' painting of Emmett Till:ÊÔShe has nothing to say to the
Black community about Black trauma.Õ Ð Scott Y. @hei_scottÓ

12.17.17 / 13:22:58 EST

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊSo, prior to articulating what sort of Ògroup are the members of the Òparty of inhuman
subject,Ó Òagent,Ó or ÒthingÓ can assist capital negativityÓ?
toward utter self-destruction, we have to answer ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWilliams was looking for two things in his
a question for ourselves: How far are we willing original sketch of a left accelerationist position.
to go? As a commenter on his original post One was a way of approaching capitalism that is
pointed out when they pondered ÒTo what end rooted outside of alienation as its primary

05/08
accelerationism? In order to provoke a crisis, as structuring relation. The other is a new inhuman
you say, in the system, but for what?Ó Williams subject. In fact, it is the ostensible newness
doesnÕt fully answer who he aligns himself with Ð attributed to this subject that has impeded the
the strong or the weak Ð but it appears that he left accelerationist project. The model for this
identifies with the ÒstrongÓ strain, judging by his Òradically inhuman subjectivationÓ Ð and with it a
terminologyÕs front-loaded value application, and corresponding understanding of capital outside
the fact that his discussion of the inhuman of alienation Ð already exists and has for some
continues, which a weak accelerationist position time. It is found in the black (non)subject, as it
appears to reject. He leaves his readers with emerges in the history of capitalism that is
questions again: ÒHow might one ground a nothing other than racial capitalism.
politics which aims towards an inhuman ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊRacial capitalism, a concept introduced by
becoming (or perhaps we ought to say de- Cedric Robinson, names a historical-theoretical
subjectivation) É How might we be able to position that does not consider the development
ground the very need for an inhumanising of capitalism and capital separately from
desubjectivation at all?Ó questions of race. Racial capitalism instead
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊFisher writes back promptly, gently reads Atlantic capitalism as fundamentally
reiterating his concerns about jettisoning the undergirded specifically by black slave labor.
necessarily totalizing inhumanness at the center Having been Ð as theorist Frank Wilderson writes
of Land, asking, ÒBut what would it mean to Ð Òkick-started by the rape of the African
reconfigure this picture so that human agency continent,Ó capitalÕs origins are rooted in
played a role? Would this make any sense at Òapproaching a particular body (a black body)
all?Ó10 Who, if anyone, is in the driverÕs seat? Who with direct relations of force, not by approaching

E.L.E. (Extinction Level Event):

The Final World FrontÊ(1998)Êwas
the third studio album released
by American rapper Busta
Rhymes.

12.17.17 / 13:22:58 EST

a white body with variable capital.Ó11 Iyko Day: on the non-allegorical existence of an inhuman
subject: Òthe black.Ó
In order to recuperate the frame of political ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThinking racial capitalism provides a view of
economy, a focus on the dialectic of racial capitalism whose structuring antagonism is
slavery and settler colonialism leads to necessarily beyond alienation, laying the
important revisions of Karl MarxÕs theory of groundwork for a theory of value that performs

06/08
primitive accumulation. In particular, Marx as Williams hoped, avoiding Ò a [predication]
designates the transition from feudal to upon this original suffering [of alienation], the
capitalist social relations as a violent voodoo process of soul-theft at the core of the
process of primitive accumulation whereby alienation of labour in the commodity form.Ó14 In
Òconquest, enslavement, robbery, murder, ÒGramsciÕs Black Marx,Ó Wilderson describes the
in short, force, play the greatest part.Ó For exclusion of the slave from any transaction of
Marx, this results in the expropriation of value, having no Òsymbolic currency or material
the worker, the proletariat, who becomes labor power to exchange.Ó15
the privileged subject of capitalist ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe importance of thinking slavery and
revolution. If we consider primitive capital together goes beyond understanding
accumulation as a persistent structure their co-implication in modernity, or their
rather than event, both Afro-pessimism influence on how black individuals engage with
and settler colonial studies destabilize capitalist structures like labor and consumer
normative conceptions of capitalism markets. Rather, slavery and capitalÕs
through the conceptual displacements of entanglement is also about the subjectivation of
the proletariat É If we extend the frame of the slave, the black nonsubject that it
primitive accumulation to the question of engenders. Under racial capitalism, from the
slavery, it is the dispossession of the slaveÕs Middle Passage onward, the was-African-made-
body rather than the proletarianization of black is a miraculous paradox, human-but-not.
labor that both precedes and exceeds the She is an object-subject. As Ronald Judy writes:
frame of settler colonial and global
modernity.12 Niggers, by definition, are labor
commodities É A nigger is both productive
Racial capitalism revises the received Marxist labor and value, a quantitative abstraction
history of capital, which Òassumes a subaltern of exchange: the equivalent of three-fifths
structured by capital, not by white supremacy.Ó13 of a single unit of representational value.
Any history of capital that reduces its structuring The value of the nigger is not in the physical
relations to exploitation, alienation, and wage body itself but in the energy, the potential
labor cannot account for the position of the slave force, that the body contains.16
in class struggle. As elaborated by Wilderson,
Spillers, Hartman, and others, racial capitalism What are we to make of a person who is a
e-flux journal #87 Ñ december 2017 Ê Aria Dean

proposes that there is an unthought position commodity-thing? Of subjects who are not
beyond the worker Ð that of the slave Ð that is workers whose labor is exploited and converted
crucial to the construction of civil society, and to into capital, but who are capital themselves,
Òthe drama of value,Ó in the first place. Any bought and sold on a speculative market?17 In
analysis of capital that does not begin here the Òafter-life of slavery,Ó as Christina Sharpe
makes a fatal mistake. calls it, black people may not literally be bought
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊHowever quickly capital might be moving and sold, but the logic of racial capitalism
Notes on Blacceleration

now, accelerationism is always already out of gas persists through embedded white supremacist
to the extent that it fails to recognize what ideologies.18 ItÕs Hartman-esque ready-for-the-
started it rolling in the first place. While the taking, where black people still cannot lay
American instantiation of racial capitalism has a serious claim to our selves or our own images Ð
particular intimacy with chattel slavery, the crystallized, for example, in this summerÕs
concepts this history has generated Ð like the prolonged scuffle over white American painter
concept of the human Ð posture as universal, Dana SchutzÕs representation of the famous
and it is precisely these concepts which begin to image of Emmett TillÕs mutilated body in the
disintegrate as they approach the black. Whitney Biennial. As Jared Sexton reflected,
Nevertheless, tracing the inextricable ÒWhat is taken to be black is taken for granted,
relationship between slavery and capital opens openly available to all.Ó19 Perhaps not always
new territories for accelerationist thinking. First, immediately available as raw, manual labor,
beginning to think racial capitalism alongside black people and blackness continue to embody
accelerationism provides an account of a speculative and semiotic value thirsted after by
capitalism and value that is Òoutside of a white marketplace.
alienation,Ó as Williams calls it. Second, it insists ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊMeaning what for accelerationism? Most

12.17.17 / 13:22:58 EST

directly, the black interrupts and prevents the Coming, When Disaster Strikes, E.L.E (Extinction
establishment of a human/capital binary on Level Event): The Final World Front, and Anarchy)
which left and right might takes sides. The black are often called afrofuturist for their exploration
is always already mutually co-constituting of a near-future techno-apocalypse and their
capital and subjecthood simultaneously. The warped, cyborgian accompanying visuals.
trajectory followed by black people in the New However, by putting the black man at the center

07/08
World blurs the line set out by accelerationists of the apocalypse Ð as both the agent of the
between capital and its will and the human worldÕs demise and its inheritor Ð these works
agents who are caught in its midst. This is not to resonate more specifically with the child of these
say that the black subject fits neatly into the strange bedfellows, black radical thought and
escape pod Williams set out in his blog posts. On accelerationism, that I call blaccelerationism.
the contrary, it is to say that to speak of ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAccelerationist debates have left a number
transversing or travestying humanism in favor of of questions unanswered, and some think they
inhuman capital without recognizing the way in are better left alone. Read against the tradition
which the black is nothing other than the of black radical thought, however, the clarity of
historical inevitability of this transgression Ð and the symptoms plaguing accelerationist thinking
has been for some time Ð circularly reinforces makes diagnosis irresistible. As a result,
the white humanism these thinkers seeks to blaccelerationism neither Òtake[s] the side of an
disavow. inherited image of the human against the
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊKodwo Eshun once said that while listening universal history of capital and dream of Ôleaving
to black American music, Òyou get this sense this world,ÕÓ nor does it Òaccept that Ôthe means
that most African-Americans owe nothing to the of production are going for a revolution of their
status of the human.Ó20 He Ð as well as Mark own.ÕÓ Rather, it takes a long view of history
Fisher Ð caught onto the specific resonance wherein these positions merge in the form of the
between black American music and living capital, speculative value, and
accelerationism, even if primarily through the accumulated time stored in the bodies of black
aesthetics of afrofuturism and through technoÕs already-inhuman (non)subjects. If Camatte
cyborgian, postindustrial obsession. We could claims that Òthere can be a revolution that is not
say that, at large, they understood that black for the humanÓ Ð a statement that has been
culture in the twentieth century was drawn to the retroactively claimed by accelerationists Ð then
end of the world just as they and their then CCRU this revolution is for the black.
comrade Nick Land were. ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ×
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊMore recently, theorists interested in Thank you to manuel arturo abreu of Home School in Portland
and Reed College for inviting me to present an earlier version
accelerationism have begun to sniff out these of this text as a lecture by the same name.
connections. McKenzie Wark circles the question
most closely, working through EshunÕs writing on
black music in America and the UK as exemplary
e-flux journal #87 Ñ december 2017 Ê Aria Dean

of a ÒBlack AccelerationistÓ position Ð notably

distinct from afrofuturism.21 For Wark, black
accelerationism aims to recast the racist
conclusions drawn over the arc of history about
the inhumanity of the black-as-other as
something positive to be harnessed. In his
thinking, black accelerationism seems to be
Notes on Blacceleration

primarily an act of reclamation.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊBlaccelerationism alternatively posits that
there is no need for reclamation. A specific
tradition of black radical thought has long
claimed the inhumanity Ð or we could say anti-
humanism Ð of blackness as a fundamental and
decisive feature, and philosophically part of
blacknessÕ gift to the world.22 Blaccelerationism
also draws little distinction between a black
acceleration and an afrofuturism. Instead it sees
them as siblings and coconspirators.
Masterworks of black art and culture that have
been labeled examples of afrofuturism often
participate equally in a blacceleration toward the
end of the world. To give just one example: Busta
RhymesÕs suite of apocalyptic albums (The

12.17.17 / 13:22:58 EST

 Aria Dean (b. 1993)Êis an artist, writer, and curator ÊÊÊÊÊÊ1 cs.org/archives/010782.html.
based in Los Angeles. She is Assistant Curator of Net Frank Wilderson III, ÒGramsciÕs
Black Marx: Whither the Slave in ÊÊÊÊÊÊ11
Art andÊDigital Culture at Rhizome. Her writing has Civil Society?,Ó Social Identities Wilderson, ÒGramsciÕs Black
been featured in Artforum, Art in America, The New 9, no. 2 (2003), 229. Marx,Ó 229.
Inquiry, Real Life, Topical Cream Magazine, Mousse
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ2 ÊÊÊÊÊÊ12
Magazine, CURA Magazine, and X-TRA Contemporary Robin Mackay and Armen Iyko Day, ÒBeing or Nothingness:
Art Quarterly. She has exhibited at American Medium Avanessian, ÒIntroduction,Ó Indigeneity, Antiblackness, and

08/08
(NYC), Arcadia Missa (London), Chateau Shatto (LA), #Accelerate: The Accelerationist Settler Colonial Critique,Ó
The Sunroom (Richmond, VA), and Boatos Fine Art (S‹o Reader (Falmouth, UK: Critical Ethnic Studies 1, no. 2
Urbanomics, 2014), 4. (Fall 2015): 114.
Paulo), among other venues. Dean has spoken at the
New Museum, UCLA, Reed College, Oberlin College, ÊÊÊÊÊÊ3 ÊÊÊÊÊÊ13
The New School, and Machine Project (Los Angeles). In LandÕs own words: ÒThere is Wilderson, ÒGramsciÕs Black
no distinction to be made Marx,Ó 225.
She also codirects Los Angeles project space As It between the destruction of
Stands. capitalism and its ÊÊÊÊÊÊ14
intensification. The auto- Williams, ÒXenoeconomics and
destruction of capitalism is what Capital UnboundÓ
capitalism is. ÔCreative
destructionÕ is the whole of it, ÊÊÊÊÊÊ15
beside only its retardations, Wilderson, ÒGramsciÕs Black
partial compensations, or Marx,Ó 231.
inhibitions. Capital
revolutionizes itself more ÊÊÊÊÊÊ16
thoroughly than any extrinsic Ronald Judy, ÒOn the Question of
ÔrevolutionÕ possibly could. If Nigga Authenticity,Ó boundary 2
subsequent history has not 21, no. 3 (1994).
vindicated this point beyond all
question, it has at least ÊÊÊÊÊÊ17
simulated such a vindication, to Ian BaucomÕs Spectres of the
a maddening degree.Ó Nick Land, Atlantic (Durham: Duke
ÒPsycho Politics,Ó Jacobite, University Press, 2005) delves
August 11, 2017 into this historical relationship
https://jacobitemag.com/2017 between slavery and late-
/08/11/psycho-politics/. capitalist speculation, arguing
that the form of value that
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ4 characterizes our time was
Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams, workshopped through the
Ò#Accelerate Manifesto for an Atlantic slave trade. We are
Accelerationist Politics,Ó Critical Òflesh as value.Ó[footnote David
Legal Thinking, May 14, 2013 Marriott, ÒOn Decadence: Bling
http://criticallegalthinking Bling,Ó e-flux journal 79
.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-m (February 2017) http://www.e-
anifesto-for-an-acceleration ist- flux.com/journa l/79/94430/on-
politics/. decadence-blin g-bling/.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ5 ÊÊÊÊÊÊ18
I have archived a portion of Sharpe introduces this phrase in
these blog entries and sites on her book In the Wake: On
RhizomeÕs Webrecorder tool. Blackness and Being (Durham:
They can be viewed at Duke University Press, 2016).
https://webrecorder.io/ariad
ean/blaccelerationism. ÊÊÊÊÊÊ19
Jared Sexton, ÒThe Rage: Some
e-flux journal #87 Ñ december 2017 Ê Aria Dean

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ6 Closing Comments on ÔOpen

Alex Williams, ÒXenoeconomics Casket,ÕÓ Contemptorary
and Capital Unbound,Ó http://contemptorary.org/the -
Splintering Bone Ashes, October rage-sexton/.
19, 2008
https://web.archive.org/web/ ÊÊÊÊÊÊ20
20100805021724/http:/splinte Kodwo Eshun, More Brilliant
ringboneashes.blogspot.com/2 Than the Sun: Adventures in
008/10/xenoeconomics-and-cap Sonic Fiction (London: Quartet
ital-unbound.html. Books, 1998), 192Ð93.
Notes on Blacceleration

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ7 ÊÊÊÊÊÊ21
Ibid. Mackenzie Wark, ÒBlack
Accelerationism,Ó Public
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ8 Seminar, January 27, 2017
Mark Fisher, ÒNihilism without http://www.publicseminar.org
negativity,Ó k-punk, October 20, /2017/01/black-accelerationi
2008 http://e-flux.com/journal. sm/.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ9 ÊÊÊÊÊÊ22
Alex Williams, ÒPost-Land: the Jamaican philosopher Sylvia
paradoxes of a speculative Wynter theorizes this throughout
realist politics,Ó October 26, her work, arguing that the
2008, Splintering Bone Ashes category of human is a narrative
http://web.archive.org/web/2 constructed by European men
0100805024039/http:/splinter for European men. Wynter
ingboneashes.blogspot.com/20 develops a theory of
08/10/post-land-paradoxes-of - ÒcounterhumanismÓ in the face
speculative.html. of this.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ10
Mark Fisher, ÒSpectres of
Accelerationism,Ó k-punk,
October 28, 2008 http://k-
punk.abstractdynami

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