Full Description
Bringing together authors from two intellectual traditions that have, so far, generally developed independently of one another - critical theory and new materialism - this book addresses the fundamental differences and potential connections that exist between these two schools of thought. With a focus on some of the most pressing questions of contemporary philosophy and social theory - in particular, those concerning the status of long-standing and contested separations between matter and life, the biological and the symbolic, passivity and agency, affectivity and rationality - it shows that recent developments in both traditions point to important convergences between them and thus prepare the ground for a more direct confrontation and cross-fertilization. The first volume to promote a dialogue between critical theory and new materialism, this collection explores the implications for contemporary debates on ecology, gender, biopolitics, post-humanism, economics and aesthetics. As such, it will appeal to philosophers, social and political theorists, and sociologists with interests in contemporary critical theory and materialism.
Contents
1. Introduction: Critical Theory and New Materialisms: Fit, Strain, or Contradiction? Part 1: Nature in/of Critical Theory 2. Comprehending Society's "Other": Nature in Critical Theory 3. Sovereign Territory and the Domination over Nature 4. Resonance and Critical Theory 5. Responsive Encounters: Latour's Modes of Being and the Sociology of World-Relations Part 2: The Powers of Matter, Life, and Affect 6. Power, Affect, Society: Critical Theory and the Challenges of (Neo-)Spinozism 7. Transindividuality: The Affective Continuity of the Social in Spinoza 8. The Paradox of Capacity and the Power of Beauty 9. Life as the Subject of Society: Critical Vitalism as Critical Social Theory 10. Pathology and Vitality: On the Crisis of Modern Life-Forms Part 3: Critique in/of New Materialism 11. Doing Justice to That Which Matters: Subjectivity and the Politics of New Materialism 12. Reading after Barad (and Blumenberg): Diffraction and Human Agency 13. Adventures in Anti-Fascist Aesthetics 14. Visiting Artists with Latour: The Materiality of Artistic Practices and the Claims of Critical Theory 15. Materialism, Energy and Acceleration: New Materialism vs. Critical Theory on the Momentum of Modernity
