Critical Theory and New Materialisms

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. Cover Half Title Series Title Copyright Contents Notes on contributors 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 versus critical theory on the momentum of modernity Index