Eugene Thacker

Eugene Thacker is an American author and a professor of media studies at Parsons School of Design in New York City. His writing is associated with the philosophies of nihilism and pessimism. He is known for his books *In the Dust of This Planet* and *Infinite Resignation*. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from University of Washington, and a Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy in comparative literature from Rutgers University. Prior to teaching at The New School, he was a professor at Georgia Institute of Technology. Thacker's work has been associated with philosophical nihilism, pessimism, and contemporary philosophies of speculative realism and collapsology. His short book *Cosmic Pessimism* defines pessimism as "the philosophical form of disenchantment". His book *Infinite Resignation* engages with writers like Thomas Bernhard, E.M. Cioran, Osamu Dazai, Søren Kierkegaard, Clarice Lispector, Giacomo Leopardi, Fernando Pessoa, and Schopenhauer. His book *After Life* argues that philosophies of life operates by way of a split between "Life" and "the living," resulting in a "metaphysical displacement" in which life is thought via another metaphysical term, such as time, form, or spirit. His most widely read book is *In the Dust of This Planet*, part of the *Horror of Philosophy* trilogy. In it, Thacker explores the idea of the "unthinkable world" as represented in the horror genre, in philosophies of pessimism and nihilism, and in "darkness" mysticism. His earlier works adopt approaches from the philosophies of science, technology, and the study of the relation between science and science fiction. Examples are his book *Biomedia*, and his writings on bioinformatics, nanotechnology, biocomputing, complex adaptive systems, swarm intelligence, and network theory. Thacker, along with Alexander Galloway and McKenzie Wark, published the co-authored book *Excommunication: Three Inquiries in Media and Mediation*. Thacker has written an anti-novel titled *An Ideal for Living*. He has written a column for London-based *Mute* called "Occultural Studies." He has written Forewords to the English editions of the works of E. M. Cioran. Thacker also collaborated with artists and musicians, including the art collective Fakeshop and Japanese noise musician Merzbow.