Manuel Delanda returned to Rice this week - hustling his all-encompassing and all-related and all-divergent version of social science, critical theory, history, economics, city building and computer hackery - after last year's sold-out performance (not really) at the Kennon Symposium. He's referring to it as a crash-course seminar (entitled, The Role of Cities in Social Science, originally a course at Columbia) and he came complete with a plexiglass backdrop, for him to scribble verses and diagrams a la Bill Cosby in the Electric Company.

Here's the rundown:

Monday October 17th:
Beyond Micro and Macro: The Place of Cities in a Materialist Philosophy

Tuesday October 18th
The Economic Aspects of Cities

Wednesday October 19th
The Biological Aspects of Cities

Thursday October 20th
The Linguistic Aspects of Cities

Monday October 21th
The Military Aspects of Cities


Some folks are repelled by the guy, saying he leaves out huge chunks of theoretical substance in his arguments, others have signed up for "The Man" Delanda fan club, and still others are amazed at his showmanship (hooking you in, feeding you a line, convincing you he's right). It's a reworking of that long-gone kind of speaking (really laying it all out and wrapping things up at the end all nice and neat), on the other hand, it's like an old timey medicine show too. Sure it sounds goofy, but "Street Philosopher" is a pretty good title for him, he is essentially a pusher in this regard. Any way you cut it, Delanda puts on a good show.

We were happy to have you here Manuel, y'all stop by and see us again sometime real soon.