Jonathan Basile
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jonothingeb.bsky.social
Jonathan Basile
@jonothingeb.bsky.social
Postdoc at UofT, Institute for Hist & Phil of Sci & Tech, 20th C literature and science, viruses, evolutionary theory, deconstruction, libraryofbabel.info. Author: Virality Vitality (https://sunypress.edu/Books/V/Virality-Vitality)
October 27, 2025 at 8:56 PM
Our conference on Dialectical Biology, the Marxist tradition represented by the work of Richard Lewontin, is this weekend! Join us Friday to Sunday, online or in Toronto, register here: ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/diale...

Help spread the word if you can!
October 7, 2025 at 6:27 PM
I’m enormously grateful to Ian James, who has written the first review of my book, Virality Vitality. It’s an honor to be read so carefully and generously:

olrsupplement.com/2025/10/06/v...
October 6, 2025 at 12:54 PM
"Despite the university requiring students to undergo the training, the Trump administration still cut $790m in research funding."
September 30, 2025 at 4:05 AM
We now have this nifty flier for our upcoming conference on Marxist biology - please help spread the word!

(registration including for zoom link here: ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/diale...)
September 23, 2025 at 5:23 PM
Here's the schedule!
Keynote: Elliott Sober
Presenters: Sonia Sultan, Ana M. Soto & Carlos Sonnenschein, Denis Walsh, Christopher Shambaugh, Rasmus Winther, Jonathan Basile, Stuart Newman, Alejandro Fabrègas Tejeda, Andrea Gambarotto & Rebecca Riccardo Cuciniello, Fermín Fulda
September 15, 2025 at 5:40 PM
I'm excited to share with you all a conference I'm planning Oct. 10-12: Dialectical Biology Today: Legacies of Richard Lewontin.

It will be hybrid in Toronto and on zoom, so please join us however you can! Register for zoom link here: ihpst.utoronto.ca/events/diale...
September 15, 2025 at 5:35 PM
This comes to a head in a scene that both Derrida and D&G read - for D&G, because no representative of the law is ultimate, they open the line of flight K. follows, but Derrida recognizes that this safe passage is precisely the impasse for Kafka...
September 9, 2025 at 5:20 PM
D&G also oppose representational readings of Kafka - his writing does not provide metaphors for the law, but is itself the process by which he creates lines of flight or becomings-animal to escape oppressive structures
September 9, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Benjamin argues, against the psychoanalytic and theological interpretations of Kafka (law=father or law=god) that Kafka should be read without allegorical referent - he evokes another world without providing it, creating parables without an allegorized doctrine
September 9, 2025 at 5:20 PM
I have a new article out on Kafka! Basically, I argue that Derrida's reading of Before the Law/The Trial recognizes an undecidability that inhabits Benjamin's and Deleuze and Guattari's readings. Let me know if you'd like a copy!
doi.org/10.3366/olr....
September 9, 2025 at 5:20 PM
I take it as an instance of deconstruction in and as the life sciences -- to many onlookers, this synthetic poliovirus appeared to demonstrate something already known and always true, yet, it shifted the ground under the feet of decisionmakers in numerous fields
July 16, 2025 at 4:55 PM
In 2002, a small group of virologists and biochemists synthesized infectious poliovirus from mail-order DNA fragments. I consider the implications of this experiment in the introduction of my book, Virality Vitality /THREAD
July 16, 2025 at 4:53 PM
One such biologist, Steven Rose, wrote the following, accusing his contemporaries of having incorporated the ideology that led to Reagan and Thatcher into their evolutionary biology:
May 30, 2025 at 2:16 PM
I wrote this essay to show that the types of biological racism and neoliberal apologia that Slobodian finds among explicit advocates for neoliberalism are prevalent among evolutionary biologists: olrsupplement.com/2025/05/19/g... (Thread)
May 30, 2025 at 2:14 PM
There's a discount code for my book, Virality Vitality - SNWS25 (for the hardcover, which even with the discount is still quite pricey - a more affordable paperback will be published in October, and there is an ebook too) sunypress.edu/Books/V/Vira...
May 26, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Come join this conversation about my new book tomorrow on zoom! Register here: utoronto.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
May 12, 2025 at 2:46 PM
An article I wrote on the similarities between the 'Tree of Life' in biological discourse and the Book of Genesis has been published -- let me know if you'd like a PDF (10.1353/sub.2025.a959048) (special thanks to @lint_ax for his research advice!)
May 9, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Dear friends! I hope you'll join us for this virtual Virality Vitality Book Launch Event, May 13th at 2 PM ET, with Richard Doyle, Adam Rosenthal, and Naomi Waltham-Smith. Register Here: utoronto.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
April 29, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Rutting on Rhum
April 23, 2025 at 1:23 AM
Stationary company owned by Emily Paper
April 12, 2025 at 2:50 PM
This little pathogen I’ve created now has a life of its own. Virality Vitality, on the subterfuges of reproduction and contagion, has just been published!

Unfortunately, only in hardcover for the time being (sunypress.edu/Books/V/Vira...); if you’d like to read it just get in touch!
April 8, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Brendan Moore's psychoanalytic and deconstructive reading of the fears of social media among parents and doctors is an example of the kind of theoretically informed writing about contemporary culture and politics that The OLR Supplement aims to feature.

olrsupplement.com/2025/01/16/t...
February 3, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Indeed! (I came across it in The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy)
January 30, 2025 at 2:03 AM
For he (Empedocles) wore bronze shoes
January 30, 2025 at 1:57 AM