Critical Theory and New Materialisms

Critical Theory and New Materialisms

Author: Hartmut Rosa

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-06-14

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 1000400131

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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.


Book Synopsis Critical Theory and New Materialisms by : Hartmut Rosa

Download or read book Critical Theory and New Materialisms written by Hartmut Rosa and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-06-14 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.


New Materialisms

New Materialisms

Author: Diana Coole

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2010-09-09

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 0822392992

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New Materialisms brings into focus and explains the significance of the innovative materialist critiques that are emerging across the social sciences and humanities. By gathering essays that exemplify the new thinking about matter and processes of materialization, this important collection shows how scholars are reworking older materialist traditions, contemporary theoretical debates, and advances in scientific knowledge to address pressing ethical and political challenges. In the introduction, Diana Coole and Samantha Frost highlight common themes among the distinctive critical projects that comprise the new materialisms. The continuities they discern include a posthumanist conception of matter as lively or exhibiting agency, and a reengagement with both the material realities of everyday life and broader geopolitical and socioeconomic structures. Coole and Frost argue that contemporary economic, environmental, geopolitical, and technological developments demand new accounts of nature, agency, and social and political relationships; modes of inquiry that privilege consciousness and subjectivity are not adequate to the task. New materialist philosophies are needed to do justice to the complexities of twenty-first-century biopolitics and political economy, because they raise fundamental questions about the place of embodied humans in a material world and the ways that we produce, reproduce, and consume our material environment. Contributors Sara Ahmed Jane Bennett Rosi Braidotti Pheng Cheah Rey Chow William E. Connolly Diana Coole Jason Edwards Samantha Frost Elizabeth Grosz Sonia Kruks Melissa A. Orlie


Book Synopsis New Materialisms by : Diana Coole

Download or read book New Materialisms written by Diana Coole and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-09 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New Materialisms brings into focus and explains the significance of the innovative materialist critiques that are emerging across the social sciences and humanities. By gathering essays that exemplify the new thinking about matter and processes of materialization, this important collection shows how scholars are reworking older materialist traditions, contemporary theoretical debates, and advances in scientific knowledge to address pressing ethical and political challenges. In the introduction, Diana Coole and Samantha Frost highlight common themes among the distinctive critical projects that comprise the new materialisms. The continuities they discern include a posthumanist conception of matter as lively or exhibiting agency, and a reengagement with both the material realities of everyday life and broader geopolitical and socioeconomic structures. Coole and Frost argue that contemporary economic, environmental, geopolitical, and technological developments demand new accounts of nature, agency, and social and political relationships; modes of inquiry that privilege consciousness and subjectivity are not adequate to the task. New materialist philosophies are needed to do justice to the complexities of twenty-first-century biopolitics and political economy, because they raise fundamental questions about the place of embodied humans in a material world and the ways that we produce, reproduce, and consume our material environment. Contributors Sara Ahmed Jane Bennett Rosi Braidotti Pheng Cheah Rey Chow William E. Connolly Diana Coole Jason Edwards Samantha Frost Elizabeth Grosz Sonia Kruks Melissa A. Orlie


Sociology and the New Materialism

Sociology and the New Materialism

Author: Nick J. Fox

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2016-10-04

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1473987385

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Guiding the reader through both theory and application, Fox and Alldred explore the varied uses of "new materialism", a key emerging trend in 21st century thought, in the practice of doing sociology today.


Book Synopsis Sociology and the New Materialism by : Nick J. Fox

Download or read book Sociology and the New Materialism written by Nick J. Fox and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Guiding the reader through both theory and application, Fox and Alldred explore the varied uses of "new materialism", a key emerging trend in 21st century thought, in the practice of doing sociology today.


The Nature of Masculinity

The Nature of Masculinity

Author: Steve Garlick

Publisher: UBC Press

Published: 2017-04-26

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 0774833327

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This analysis of the relationship between gender and nature proposes that masculinity is a technology that shapes both our engagement with the natural world and how we define freedom. As the complexity of our ecosystems becomes more apparent, the line between nature and culture, human and nonhuman, and technology and bodies becomes less distinct. Yet contemporary masculinity studies has generally failed to incorporate this new way of thinking. Drawing on the work of the Frankfurt School, Heidegger, and new materialist theories, Steve Garlick reassesses the relationship between masculinity, nature, and embodiment to advance a new critical theory of masculinity.


Book Synopsis The Nature of Masculinity by : Steve Garlick

Download or read book The Nature of Masculinity written by Steve Garlick and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2017-04-26 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This analysis of the relationship between gender and nature proposes that masculinity is a technology that shapes both our engagement with the natural world and how we define freedom. As the complexity of our ecosystems becomes more apparent, the line between nature and culture, human and nonhuman, and technology and bodies becomes less distinct. Yet contemporary masculinity studies has generally failed to incorporate this new way of thinking. Drawing on the work of the Frankfurt School, Heidegger, and new materialist theories, Steve Garlick reassesses the relationship between masculinity, nature, and embodiment to advance a new critical theory of masculinity.


The New Materialism

The New Materialism

Author: Geoff Pfeifer

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-02-11

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 131760587X

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Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek have become two of the dominant voices in contemporary philosophy and critical theory. In this book, Geoff Pfeifer offers an in-depth look at their respective views. Using Louis Althusser’s materialism as a starting point—which, as Pfeifer shows, was built partially as a response to the Marxism of the Parti Communiste Français and partially in dialogue with other philosophical movements and intellectual currents of its times—the book looks at the differing ways in which both Badiou’s and Žižek’s work attempt to respond to issues that arise within the Althusserian edifice. Pfeifer argues here that, ultimately, Žižek’s materialism succeeds in responding to these issues in ways that Badiou’s does not. In building this argument, Pfeifer engages not only with the work of Althusser, Badiou, and Žižek and their intellectual backgrounds, but also with much of the contemporary scholarship surrounding these thinkers. As such, Pfeifer’s book is an important addition to the ongoing debates within contemporary critical theory.


Book Synopsis The New Materialism by : Geoff Pfeifer

Download or read book The New Materialism written by Geoff Pfeifer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-11 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek have become two of the dominant voices in contemporary philosophy and critical theory. In this book, Geoff Pfeifer offers an in-depth look at their respective views. Using Louis Althusser’s materialism as a starting point—which, as Pfeifer shows, was built partially as a response to the Marxism of the Parti Communiste Français and partially in dialogue with other philosophical movements and intellectual currents of its times—the book looks at the differing ways in which both Badiou’s and Žižek’s work attempt to respond to issues that arise within the Althusserian edifice. Pfeifer argues here that, ultimately, Žižek’s materialism succeeds in responding to these issues in ways that Badiou’s does not. In building this argument, Pfeifer engages not only with the work of Althusser, Badiou, and Žižek and their intellectual backgrounds, but also with much of the contemporary scholarship surrounding these thinkers. As such, Pfeifer’s book is an important addition to the ongoing debates within contemporary critical theory.


Diffractive Reading

Diffractive Reading

Author: Kai Merten

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2021-05-27

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1786613972

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Putting the New Materialist figure of diffraction to use in a set of readings – in which cultural texts are materially read against their contents and their themes, against their readers or against other texts – this volume proposes a criticalintervention into the practice of reading itself. In this book, reading and reading methodology are probed for their materiality and re-considered as being inevitably suspended between, or diffracted with, both matter and discourse. The history of literary and cultural reading, including poststructuralism and critical theory, is revisited in a new light and opened-up for a future in which the world and reading are no longer regarded as conveniently separate spheres, but recognized as deeply entangled and intertwined. Diffractive Reading ultimately represents a new reading of reading itself: firstly by critiquing the distanced perspective of critical paradigms such as translation and intertextuality, in which texts encountered, processed or otherwise subdued; secondly, showing how all literary and cultural readings represent different ‘agential cuts’ in the world-text-reader constellation, which is always both discursive and material; and thirdly, the volume materializes, dynamizes and politicizes the activity of reading by drawing attention to reading’s intervention in, and (co)creation of, the world in which we live.


Book Synopsis Diffractive Reading by : Kai Merten

Download or read book Diffractive Reading written by Kai Merten and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-05-27 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Putting the New Materialist figure of diffraction to use in a set of readings – in which cultural texts are materially read against their contents and their themes, against their readers or against other texts – this volume proposes a criticalintervention into the practice of reading itself. In this book, reading and reading methodology are probed for their materiality and re-considered as being inevitably suspended between, or diffracted with, both matter and discourse. The history of literary and cultural reading, including poststructuralism and critical theory, is revisited in a new light and opened-up for a future in which the world and reading are no longer regarded as conveniently separate spheres, but recognized as deeply entangled and intertwined. Diffractive Reading ultimately represents a new reading of reading itself: firstly by critiquing the distanced perspective of critical paradigms such as translation and intertextuality, in which texts encountered, processed or otherwise subdued; secondly, showing how all literary and cultural readings represent different ‘agential cuts’ in the world-text-reader constellation, which is always both discursive and material; and thirdly, the volume materializes, dynamizes and politicizes the activity of reading by drawing attention to reading’s intervention in, and (co)creation of, the world in which we live.


New Materialism

New Materialism

Author: Rick Dolphijn

Publisher: Open Humanitites Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 9781607852810

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Book Synopsis New Materialism by : Rick Dolphijn

Download or read book New Materialism written by Rick Dolphijn and published by Open Humanitites Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:


The Art of the Real

The Art of the Real

Author: Roger Rothman

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2015-09-18

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 144388328X

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Art of the Real is devoted to registering the materialist turn of contemporary theory in visual studies. For many years, visual studies was dominated by post-structuralist theory and its attendant nominalism. More recently, however, the materialism of Slavoj Žižek, the realism of Gilles Deleuze, especially as imputed by Manuel de Landa, and Alain Badiou has disrupted this status quo. Today, we are more likely to take for granted the relevance of biology and the natural sciences, while the return of Marx has been more serious than countenanced by Derrida or Foucault. This book considers visual studies and the questions that have led to the new materialism, its ontology and its relation to contemporary politics. While a good deal of work has promoted a materialist agenda at the same time that scholars in art history and visual studies have felt liberated by the call to attend to objects, materials and “materiality,” no publication has yet treated this move for its meta-theoretical commitments. This volume does this by addressing the conditions that have brought about the turn to materiality, the ontological commitments that follow on from new materialist metaphysics, and the political implications wrought by these commitments.


Book Synopsis The Art of the Real by : Roger Rothman

Download or read book The Art of the Real written by Roger Rothman and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2015-09-18 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Art of the Real is devoted to registering the materialist turn of contemporary theory in visual studies. For many years, visual studies was dominated by post-structuralist theory and its attendant nominalism. More recently, however, the materialism of Slavoj Žižek, the realism of Gilles Deleuze, especially as imputed by Manuel de Landa, and Alain Badiou has disrupted this status quo. Today, we are more likely to take for granted the relevance of biology and the natural sciences, while the return of Marx has been more serious than countenanced by Derrida or Foucault. This book considers visual studies and the questions that have led to the new materialism, its ontology and its relation to contemporary politics. While a good deal of work has promoted a materialist agenda at the same time that scholars in art history and visual studies have felt liberated by the call to attend to objects, materials and “materiality,” no publication has yet treated this move for its meta-theoretical commitments. This volume does this by addressing the conditions that have brought about the turn to materiality, the ontological commitments that follow on from new materialist metaphysics, and the political implications wrought by these commitments.


Mattering

Mattering

Author: Victoria Pitts-Taylor

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2016-08-30

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1479878847

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Feminists today are re-imagining nature, biology, and matter in feminist thought and critically addressing new developments in biology, physics, neuroscience, epigenetics and other scientific disciplines. Mattering, edited by noted feminist scholar Victoria Pitts-Taylor, presents contemporary feminist perspectives on the materialist or ‘naturalizing’ turn in feminist theory, and also represents the newest wave of feminist engagement with science. The volume addresses the relationship between human corporeality and subjectivity, questions and redefines the boundaries of human/non-human and nature/culture, elaborates on the entanglements of matter, knowledge, and practice, and addresses biological materialization as a complex and open process. This volume insists that feminist theory can take matter and biology seriously while also accounting for power, taking materialism as a point of departure to rethink key feminist issues. The contributors, an international group of feminist theorists, scientists and scholars, apply concepts in contemporary materialist feminism to examine an array of topics in science, biotechnology, biopolitics, and bioethics. These include neuralplasticity and the brain-machine interface; the use of biometrical identification technologies for transnational border control; epigenetics and the intergenerational transmission of the health effects of social stigma; ADHD and neuropharmacology; and randomized controlled trials of HIV drugs.A unique and interdisciplinary collection, Mattering presents in grounded, concrete terms the need for rethinking disciplinary boundaries and research methodologies in light of the shifts in feminist theorizing and transformations in the sciences.


Book Synopsis Mattering by : Victoria Pitts-Taylor

Download or read book Mattering written by Victoria Pitts-Taylor and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2016-08-30 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Feminists today are re-imagining nature, biology, and matter in feminist thought and critically addressing new developments in biology, physics, neuroscience, epigenetics and other scientific disciplines. Mattering, edited by noted feminist scholar Victoria Pitts-Taylor, presents contemporary feminist perspectives on the materialist or ‘naturalizing’ turn in feminist theory, and also represents the newest wave of feminist engagement with science. The volume addresses the relationship between human corporeality and subjectivity, questions and redefines the boundaries of human/non-human and nature/culture, elaborates on the entanglements of matter, knowledge, and practice, and addresses biological materialization as a complex and open process. This volume insists that feminist theory can take matter and biology seriously while also accounting for power, taking materialism as a point of departure to rethink key feminist issues. The contributors, an international group of feminist theorists, scientists and scholars, apply concepts in contemporary materialist feminism to examine an array of topics in science, biotechnology, biopolitics, and bioethics. These include neuralplasticity and the brain-machine interface; the use of biometrical identification technologies for transnational border control; epigenetics and the intergenerational transmission of the health effects of social stigma; ADHD and neuropharmacology; and randomized controlled trials of HIV drugs.A unique and interdisciplinary collection, Mattering presents in grounded, concrete terms the need for rethinking disciplinary boundaries and research methodologies in light of the shifts in feminist theorizing and transformations in the sciences.


The Government of Things

The Government of Things

Author: Thomas Lemke

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2021-09-28

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 1479829935

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"Critically engaging with some limitations of new materialist scholarship, Lemke draws on Foucault's concept of a "government of things" to propose a relational understanding of political ontologies"--


Book Synopsis The Government of Things by : Thomas Lemke

Download or read book The Government of Things written by Thomas Lemke and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Critically engaging with some limitations of new materialist scholarship, Lemke draws on Foucault's concept of a "government of things" to propose a relational understanding of political ontologies"--