Karen Barad

Anthropology American 1956 100 quotes

A theoretical physicist and feminist theorist known for developing the concept of 'agential realism' and her work on quantum physics and ethics.

Quotes by Karen Barad

The world is not a blank slate upon which we write our meanings, but an active participant in the production of meaning.

Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning 2007

There is no absolute separation between observer and observed.

Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning 2007

The world is not just a collection of individual entities, but a dynamic, intra-active whole.

Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning 2007

We are always already in the middle of things.

Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning 2007

The very notion of 'individual' is a product of specific intra-actions.

Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning 2007

Ethics is about how we respond to the world, not just to other humans.

Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning 2007

The world is an ongoing, open-ended process of materialization.

Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning 2007

We need to embrace the radical contingency of the world.

Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning 2007

The world is not a given, but a doing.

Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning 2007

Our responsibility is to the ongoing becoming of the world.

Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning 2007

Matter is not a thing but a doing, a congealing of agency.

Meeting the Universe Halfway 2007

We don't obtain knowledge by standing outside the world; we know because 'we' are of the world.

Meeting the Universe Halfway 2007

Intra-actions cut together/apart in figuring the world.

Meeting the Universe Halfway 2007

Ethics is not an add-on to physics, but part of its very fabric.

Meeting the Universe Halfway 2007

The universe is not made of independent objects, but of entangled phenomena.

Meeting the Universe Halfway 2007

Agency is not something possessed by humans; it is an enactment distributed across the world.

Meeting the Universe Halfway 2007

Diffraction is not just a tool for analysis, but a way of understanding difference.

Meeting the Universe Halfway 2007

Meaning is not inherent in the world but emerges through material engagements.

Meeting the Universe Halfway 2007

The void is full of mattering; absence is productive.

Interview with Karen Barad 2012

Quantum physics teaches us that reality is not fixed but performative.

Meeting the Universe Halfway 2007