Title: The Mouth That Eats Itself: Geography & the Problem of Space (2026)
Author: Carl Olsson

Editor: Becoming Press (0nty, Claire)
Layout & Design: Becoming

Published by Becoming Press

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“For all who fight to find a place.”

The fate of our freedom is among the most important topics for philosophy. All animals have to set themselves apart from their surroundings. Whenever they fail to break free from space, they are not only unfree but effectively become nothing. In our case, we emancipate ourselves with our hands and feet and membranes; but uniquely also through our representations of ourselves in the world, which is to say, through geography.

The Mouth That Eats Itself (2026) follows geographical thought from its inception to its descent into fang-toothed self-contradiction. In the course of identifying how and when geography makes us free, a terrible trap is set: a portrait that devours its unwary creator by raising the well-worn conflict between freedom and necessity to a transcendental level. The katabasis of geography’s logic is not a matter of idle inconsistency but an information hazard directly related to the fate of animals that lose their contours and disappear. 

To reach this conclusion, Carl Olsson draws a diagonal line between ideas and images, from careful exegesis of Kant’s first Critique to countless vivid examples involving praying mantises, chameleons, geometry and owl-eyed butterflies. The ambient payoff is undeniable: you learn as much about the world as you do about yourself, and Olsson’s stunning vocabulary and precise choice of words never ceases to entertain.


“A much-needed return to Kant epistemically positioned beyond the “speculative realist” dismissal of so-called post-Kantianism. While Olsson stands on the shoulders of the “speculative turn,” and moves away from the poststructuralist consensus, his revisiting of Kant is a refreshing illumination of the fact that we still live and think in the era of modernism. This fact is structurally baked into our existence, on a global scale, regardless of the post-modernist or the speculative/realist/new materialist turns.“
 

— Katarina Kolozova

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Published by Becoming Press.

Paperback

Edition: 1st
Publication Date: October 2026
ISBN Print: 978-9925-647-26-2
ISBN eBook: 978-9925-647-27-9
Language: English
Format: Softcover
Binding: Sewn Binding
Dimensions: 12cm x 19cm
Pages: 195
 

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