‘Code’ by Bernard Geoghegan: A Roundtable

Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan

Code: From Information Theory to French Theory

Duke University Press, 2023

272 pages, 47 illustrations, notes, bibliography, index

Editors’ Introduction

HAR is pleased to present this roundtable review of Bernard Geoghegan’s recently published Code: From Information Theory to French Theory. This roundtable came about when multiple scholars expressed their interest in reviewing the book. We took the opportunity to craft three questions that we could pose to five scholars who offer different anthropological and historical perspectives. Below, we present this roundtable by question, by discussant, and with a response from the author. We are extremely grateful to all of our contributors for their commitment to this roundtable over many months and for sharing their thoughts with HAR readers.

Roundtable by Question

What new actors does Code bring into the history of the discipline that you study/practice? How does it change the way we think about the relationship between the human sciences and various forms of asymmetric international power in the 20th and 21st centuries?

Is there anything in the ambitious cybernetic vision/dream of the postwar order that is worth keeping—that helps your discipline of study/practice cope with large scale questions we face today?

What does the digital/AI future of your discipline look like, and how might the history told in Code help navigate that future?

Roundtable by Discussant

Ekaterina Babintseva, Department of History, Purdue University

Samuel Gerald Collins, Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Criminal Justice, Towson University

Martha Lampland, Department of Sociology, UC San Diego

Perig Pitrou, Maison Française d’Oxford and the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale

Amrina Rosyada, Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University

Roundtable Response by the Author

Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan, Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London