Description
Book SynopsisLeading cultural and political theorists argue that any account of experience, agency, and political action demands attention to the urgent issues of our own material existence and environment.
Trade Review“Overall, the volume makes a convincing case for the renewal of materialism, in terms of both its theoretical purchase and its radical political potential. It shows, in ways that are often exemplary, that there are rich, and sometimes surprising, resources in the philosophical tradition for renewing materialisms.” - Keith Ansell Pearson,
Radical Philosophy“New materialisms offer democratic theory an important opportunity to
regard its own parameters and function – what can be hoped for and why.
And Coole and Frost’s volume offers a new view of the human (and the
thing) that are well worth regarding. . . .” - Andrew Poe,
Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy“
New Materialisms is an extraordinary and in fact interdisciplinary collection in its own right. . . . [T]he work coming out of the material turn is mind-blowing work, both in scholarly and in artistic research, and in art”. - Iris van der Tuin,
Women’s Studies International Forum“The essays collected here—authored by leading political theorists and feminist and cultural critics—examine the ‘choreographies of becoming’ and move beyond constructivism and humanism to track processes of de- and re-materialization. The effect is to scramble habitual categories of thought—active versus passive, inert versus animate, political versus ontological, causality versus spontaneity—and force us to
think materiality. As the editors put it, ‘materiality is always something more than “mere” matter: an excess, force, vitality, relationality, or difference that renders matter active, self-creative, productive, unpredictable.’”—
Bonnie Honig, author of
Emergency Politics: Paradox, Law, Democracy“This is a strong and timely collection, one that could very well direct future discussions of the ‘new materialisms’ toward an experimental, process-oriented, and politically-engaged ‘new ontology.’”—
Ellen Rooney, Brown University
“
New Materialisms is an extraordinary and in fact interdisciplinary collection in its own right. . . . [T]he work coming out of the material turn is mind-blowing work, both in scholarly and in artistic research, and in art”. -- Iris van der Tuin * Women's Studies International Forum *
“New materialisms offer democratic theory an important opportunity to
regard its own parameters and function – what can be hoped for and why.
And Coole and Frost’s volume offers a new view of the human (and the
thing) that are well worth regarding. . . .” -- Andrew Poe * Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy *
“Overall, the volume makes a convincing case for the renewal of materialism, in terms of both its theoretical purchase and its radical political potential. It shows, in ways that are often exemplary, that there are rich, and sometimes surprising, resources in the philosophical tradition for renewing materialisms.” -- Keith Ansell Pearson * Radical Philosophy *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introducing the New Materialisms / Diana Coole and Samantha Frost 1
The Force of Materiality
A Vitalist Stopover on the Way to a New Materialism / Jane Bennett 47
Nondialectical Materialism / Pheng Cheah 70
The Inertia of Matter and the Generativity of Flesh / Diana Coole 92
Impersonal Matter / Melissa A. Orlie 116
Political Matters
Feminism, Materialism, and Freedom / Elizabeth Grosz 139
Fear and the Illusion of Autonomy / Samantha Frost 158
Materialities of Experience / William E. Connolly 178
The Politics of "Life Itself" and New Ways of Dying / Rosi Braidotti 201
Economies of Disruption
The Elusive Material: What the Dog Doesn't Understand / Rey Chow 221
Orientations Matter / Sara Ahmed 234
Simon de Beauvoir: Engaging Discrepant Materialisms / Sonia Kruks 258
The Materialism of Historical Materialism / Jason Edwards 281
Bibliography 299
Contributors 319
Index 323
