Plastic Mimesis / Mimetic Plasticity: Catherine Malabou & Nidesh Lawtoo in Dialogue 

In this dialogue, Catherine Malabou and Nidesh Lawtoo explore the genealogical continuities between mimesis and plasticity to foster metamorphoses for the present and future. Taking Nietzsche’s “Three Metamorphoses of the Spirit” in Thus Spoke Zarathustra Malabou and Lawtoo discuss how both brain plasticity and imitation play a central role in the formation of the subject via education, memory, and habits (camel); inform agonistic confrontations with traditional (often patriarchal) models or idols that need to be overcome (the lion); lastly mimesis and plasticity turn out to be central to the final metamorphosis embodied in the hypermimetic and hyperplastic figure of the child. Thus reframed the Übermensch turns out to serve as a future-oriented “bridge” that helps account for the “Metamorphoses of Intelligence” triggered by AI simulations, and other plastic subjects that will continue to form and transform human and posthuman spirits and brains in the future as well.