The new politics of materialism : history, philosophy, science
Sarah Ellenzweig (Editor), John H. Zammito (Editor)
New materialism challenges conventional theories of understanding human being and subjectivity, which it regards as shaped by mechanistic models characteristic of early modern philosophy that regarded matter as largely passive. Instead it gives weight to topics often overlooked in such accounts: the body, the role of affect and the emotions, gender, temporality, agency and vitalism. This collection, which includes an international roster of contributors from philosophy, history, literature and science, is the first to ask what is 'new' about the new materialism and place it in interdisciplinary perspective. Against current theories of new materialism it argues for a deeper engagement with materialism's history; questions whether matter can be 'lively'; and asks whether new materialism's wish to revitalize of politics and the political lives up to its promise
Print Book, English, 2017
Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, London, 2017
x, 328 pages ; 25 cm
9781138240742, 1138240745
974794520
ebook version :
Notes on contributors
Acknowledgements. Introduction : New materialism: looking forward, looking back / Sarah Ellenzweig and John H. Zammito. Part 1 Materialist prehistories : Who's afraid of inertia? The Cartesian-Newtonian legacy reconsidered / Sarah Ellenzweig
Varieties of vital materialism / Charles T. Wolfe
Plastic matters / Jess Keiser
Deleuze and new materialism: naturalism, norms, and ethics / Keith Ansell-Pearson. Part 2 Humanities and the sciences of matter : Materialism, old and new, and the party of humanity / Catherine Wilson
Engendering new materializations: feminism, nature, and the challenge to disciplinary proper objects / Angela Willey
What sort of thing is the social? Or, Durkheim and Deleuze on organization and infrastructure / Ian Lowrie. Part 3 Monism, liveliness, and the problem of scale : The cognitive nonconscious and the new materialism / N. Katherine Hayles
Scale variance and the concept of matter / Derek Woods. Part 4 The politics of ontology : Detachment theory: agency, nature, and the normative nihilism of new materialism / Lenny Moss
Materialism, constructivism, and political skepticism: Leibniz, Hobbes, and the erudite libertines / Mogens Lærke
Normativity matters: philosophical naturalism and political theory / Christian J. Emden. Concluding (Irenic) postscript: naturalism as a response to the new materialism / John H. Zammito. Index