Suzanne Bost
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042799
- eISBN:
- 9780252051654
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042799.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
Writing about marginalized lives has the power to shift norms. In telling their own stories, John Rechy, Aurora Levins Morales, Gloria Anzaldúa, and other Latinx writers make visible experiences and ...
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Writing about marginalized lives has the power to shift norms. In telling their own stories, John Rechy, Aurora Levins Morales, Gloria Anzaldúa, and other Latinx writers make visible experiences and bodies that are rarely at the center of the stories we read, and they dramatize the complexity of human agencies and responsibilities. Yet the memoirs this book analyzes move beyond focus on the human as their subjects’ personal histories intertwine with communities, animals, spirits, and the surrounding environment. This interconnectedness resonates with critical developments in posthumanist theory as well as recalling indigenous worldviews that are “other-than-Humanist,” outside of Western intellectual genealogies. Bringing these two frameworks into dialogue with feminist theory, queer theory, disability studies, and ecocriticism enables an expansive way of viewing life itself. Rejecting the structures of Humanism, Shared Selves decenters the individualism of memoir and highlights the webs of relation that mediate experience, agency, and identity.Less
Writing about marginalized lives has the power to shift norms. In telling their own stories, John Rechy, Aurora Levins Morales, Gloria Anzaldúa, and other Latinx writers make visible experiences and bodies that are rarely at the center of the stories we read, and they dramatize the complexity of human agencies and responsibilities. Yet the memoirs this book analyzes move beyond focus on the human as their subjects’ personal histories intertwine with communities, animals, spirits, and the surrounding environment. This interconnectedness resonates with critical developments in posthumanist theory as well as recalling indigenous worldviews that are “other-than-Humanist,” outside of Western intellectual genealogies. Bringing these two frameworks into dialogue with feminist theory, queer theory, disability studies, and ecocriticism enables an expansive way of viewing life itself. Rejecting the structures of Humanism, Shared Selves decenters the individualism of memoir and highlights the webs of relation that mediate experience, agency, and identity.
Gary Hall
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780262034401
- eISBN:
- 9780262332217
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262034401.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
What forms might critical theory take when the focus is not only on what a theorist writes, but also on the theory he or she acts out and performs? Chapter 4 addresses this question by means of a ...
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What forms might critical theory take when the focus is not only on what a theorist writes, but also on the theory he or she acts out and performs? Chapter 4 addresses this question by means of a rigorous “piratical” reading of RosiBraidotti’s The Posthuman. Since the focus of this chapter is on how theorists act, it also explains the philosophy Hall is endeavoring to perform in some of the projects and actions he is involved with. Chapter 4 looks at two such projects in particular. The first is Open Humanities Press (OHP), a non-profit open access publisher Hall co-founded in 2006. The project covered in most detail however is a series of books Hall co-edits as part of OHP called Living Books About Life.Less
What forms might critical theory take when the focus is not only on what a theorist writes, but also on the theory he or she acts out and performs? Chapter 4 addresses this question by means of a rigorous “piratical” reading of RosiBraidotti’s The Posthuman. Since the focus of this chapter is on how theorists act, it also explains the philosophy Hall is endeavoring to perform in some of the projects and actions he is involved with. Chapter 4 looks at two such projects in particular. The first is Open Humanities Press (OHP), a non-profit open access publisher Hall co-founded in 2006. The project covered in most detail however is a series of books Hall co-edits as part of OHP called Living Books About Life.
Danielle Sands
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474439039
- eISBN:
- 9781474476881
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474439039.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter puts the novels of Jim Crace in conversation with Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Philosophy. Beginning with a discussion of the development of OOP in contradistinction to Bruno Latour’s ...
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This chapter puts the novels of Jim Crace in conversation with Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Philosophy. Beginning with a discussion of the development of OOP in contradistinction to Bruno Latour’s Actor Network Theory, it assesses the claims made by Harman for the superiority of OOP over contemporary relational ontologies such as that espoused by Jane Bennett. Turning to Crace, the chapter argues that his fiction enacts a sustained movement away from anthropocentrism, demonstrating the collaborative nature of storytelling and absenting the human from a variety of different landscapes. It argues that, in their examination of the ‘allure’ of objects, these novels espouse a position closer to Harman than Bennett. Finally, the chapter interrogates Harman’s presentation of aesthetics as first philosophy, arguing that the clear alignment between Crace’s fiction and Harman’s work reinforces the claim that aesthetics gives access to the ontological, and demands a reconsideration of agency.Less
This chapter puts the novels of Jim Crace in conversation with Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Philosophy. Beginning with a discussion of the development of OOP in contradistinction to Bruno Latour’s Actor Network Theory, it assesses the claims made by Harman for the superiority of OOP over contemporary relational ontologies such as that espoused by Jane Bennett. Turning to Crace, the chapter argues that his fiction enacts a sustained movement away from anthropocentrism, demonstrating the collaborative nature of storytelling and absenting the human from a variety of different landscapes. It argues that, in their examination of the ‘allure’ of objects, these novels espouse a position closer to Harman than Bennett. Finally, the chapter interrogates Harman’s presentation of aesthetics as first philosophy, arguing that the clear alignment between Crace’s fiction and Harman’s work reinforces the claim that aesthetics gives access to the ontological, and demands a reconsideration of agency.
Lilah Grace Canevaro
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- October 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198826309
- eISBN:
- 9780191865268
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198826309.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Chapter 1 places this book against a backdrop of New Materialisms, using the framework of Thing Theory in its various manifestations to unpack seemingly innocuous but in reality surprisingly loaded ...
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Chapter 1 places this book against a backdrop of New Materialisms, using the framework of Thing Theory in its various manifestations to unpack seemingly innocuous but in reality surprisingly loaded terms like ‘object’ and ‘agent’, and raising the question of boundaries: to what extent does the Materialist slogan ‘Things are us!’ apply to Homer? It explores the issue of representation and the substantial difference it makes to the status of objects and the location of agency, and tackles the productive tension between this book’s core approaches: Gender Theory and New Materialism. The historical and social ramifications of the book are addressed, and some initial dichotomies and categories begin to be drawn out, with a particular focus on memory.Less
Chapter 1 places this book against a backdrop of New Materialisms, using the framework of Thing Theory in its various manifestations to unpack seemingly innocuous but in reality surprisingly loaded terms like ‘object’ and ‘agent’, and raising the question of boundaries: to what extent does the Materialist slogan ‘Things are us!’ apply to Homer? It explores the issue of representation and the substantial difference it makes to the status of objects and the location of agency, and tackles the productive tension between this book’s core approaches: Gender Theory and New Materialism. The historical and social ramifications of the book are addressed, and some initial dichotomies and categories begin to be drawn out, with a particular focus on memory.
Stacy Alaimo
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780816621958
- eISBN:
- 9781452955223
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816621958.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
Exposed argues for a material feminist posthumanism that departs from the predominant modes of humanist transcendence in theory, science, consumerism, and popular culture. Featuring three sections, ...
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Exposed argues for a material feminist posthumanism that departs from the predominant modes of humanist transcendence in theory, science, consumerism, and popular culture. Featuring three sections, the book calls for an environmental stance in which humanity thinks, feels, and acts as the very stuff of the world. As a work within the environmental humanities, it grapples with climate change, biodiversity, sustainability, ocean conservation, environmental activism, and the depiction of the anthropocene. And as a study in new materialism it focuses on how the materiality of human bodies provoke modes of posthumanist pleasure, environmental protest, and a sense of immersion within the strange agencies that constitute the world.Less
Exposed argues for a material feminist posthumanism that departs from the predominant modes of humanist transcendence in theory, science, consumerism, and popular culture. Featuring three sections, the book calls for an environmental stance in which humanity thinks, feels, and acts as the very stuff of the world. As a work within the environmental humanities, it grapples with climate change, biodiversity, sustainability, ocean conservation, environmental activism, and the depiction of the anthropocene. And as a study in new materialism it focuses on how the materiality of human bodies provoke modes of posthumanist pleasure, environmental protest, and a sense of immersion within the strange agencies that constitute the world.
Dolores Martín-Moruno and Beatriz Pichel (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042898
- eISBN:
- 9780252051753
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042898.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
Emotional Bodies provides a theoretical framework for studying the materiality of emotions. In line with recent research in the history of emotions, cultural studies, and new materialism, this volume ...
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Emotional Bodies provides a theoretical framework for studying the materiality of emotions. In line with recent research in the history of emotions, cultural studies, and new materialism, this volume focuses on what emotions do. Chapters interrogate how emotions do and undo us as both individual and collective bodies. With this aim, this book proposes “emotional bodies” as a tool to understand the performativity of emotional practices as the origin of particular configurations of bodies, such as patients, criminals, medieval religious communities, revolutionary crowds and contemporary humanitarian agencies. The multidisciplinary approach of this volume, which combines a diversity of sources as well as theoretical and historiographical approaches, challenges traditional notions of the body and the emotions, demonstrating the potential of “emotional bodies” to understand past and present societies.Less
Emotional Bodies provides a theoretical framework for studying the materiality of emotions. In line with recent research in the history of emotions, cultural studies, and new materialism, this volume focuses on what emotions do. Chapters interrogate how emotions do and undo us as both individual and collective bodies. With this aim, this book proposes “emotional bodies” as a tool to understand the performativity of emotional practices as the origin of particular configurations of bodies, such as patients, criminals, medieval religious communities, revolutionary crowds and contemporary humanitarian agencies. The multidisciplinary approach of this volume, which combines a diversity of sources as well as theoretical and historiographical approaches, challenges traditional notions of the body and the emotions, demonstrating the potential of “emotional bodies” to understand past and present societies.
Lilah Grace Canevaro
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- October 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198826309
- eISBN:
- 9780191865268
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198826309.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Women in Greek epic are treated as objects, as commodities to be exchanged in marriage or as the spoils of warfare. However, women also use objects to negotiate their own agency, subverting the male ...
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Women in Greek epic are treated as objects, as commodities to be exchanged in marriage or as the spoils of warfare. However, women also use objects to negotiate their own agency, subverting the male viewpoint by using the very form they themselves are thought by men to embody. Female objects in Homer can be symbolically significant and powerfully characterizing. They can be tools of recognition and identification. They can pause narrative and be used agonistically. They can send messages and be vessels for memory. This book brings together Gender Theory and the burgeoning field of New Materialisms, combining an approach predicated on the idea of the woman as object with one which questions the very distinction between subject and object. This productive tension leads us to decentre the male subject—and to put centre stage not only the woman as object but also the agency of women and objects. Homeric women are shown to be not only objectified but also well-versed users of objects. This is something that Homer portrays clearly, that Odysseus understands—but that has often escaped many other men, from Odysseus’ alter ego Aethon in Odyssey 19 to modern experts on Homeric epic.Less
Women in Greek epic are treated as objects, as commodities to be exchanged in marriage or as the spoils of warfare. However, women also use objects to negotiate their own agency, subverting the male viewpoint by using the very form they themselves are thought by men to embody. Female objects in Homer can be symbolically significant and powerfully characterizing. They can be tools of recognition and identification. They can pause narrative and be used agonistically. They can send messages and be vessels for memory. This book brings together Gender Theory and the burgeoning field of New Materialisms, combining an approach predicated on the idea of the woman as object with one which questions the very distinction between subject and object. This productive tension leads us to decentre the male subject—and to put centre stage not only the woman as object but also the agency of women and objects. Homeric women are shown to be not only objectified but also well-versed users of objects. This is something that Homer portrays clearly, that Odysseus understands—but that has often escaped many other men, from Odysseus’ alter ego Aethon in Odyssey 19 to modern experts on Homeric epic.
Raymond Malewitz
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780804791960
- eISBN:
- 9780804792998
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804791960.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter provides a conceptual bridge between contemporary thing theories, which champion the aesthetic products of the creative misuse of objects, and new materialisms, which use the same ...
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This chapter provides a conceptual bridge between contemporary thing theories, which champion the aesthetic products of the creative misuse of objects, and new materialisms, which use the same activities as a means of understanding and resisting the negative effects of consumerism under late capitalism. The thing theories of Martin Heidegger, Bill Brown, and Ken Alder maintain that the aesthetic “thing” comes into being when an object breaks down and can no longer fulfill its standard function. Through an extended reading of the failed Apollo 13 mission, the chapter shows how this idea was redirected to critique what Evan Watkins calls the “technoideological” culture of late capitalism. While a similar shift from aesthetics to political practice informs twenty-first-century maker communities and environmental activist groups, the chapter shows how the practitioners of these activities often operate instead as champions of late capitalism and clear manifestations of its dominant politics.Less
This chapter provides a conceptual bridge between contemporary thing theories, which champion the aesthetic products of the creative misuse of objects, and new materialisms, which use the same activities as a means of understanding and resisting the negative effects of consumerism under late capitalism. The thing theories of Martin Heidegger, Bill Brown, and Ken Alder maintain that the aesthetic “thing” comes into being when an object breaks down and can no longer fulfill its standard function. Through an extended reading of the failed Apollo 13 mission, the chapter shows how this idea was redirected to critique what Evan Watkins calls the “technoideological” culture of late capitalism. While a similar shift from aesthetics to political practice informs twenty-first-century maker communities and environmental activist groups, the chapter shows how the practitioners of these activities often operate instead as champions of late capitalism and clear manifestations of its dominant politics.
Emanuela Bianchi, Sara Brill, and Brooke Holmes (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198805670
- eISBN:
- 9780191843624
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198805670.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Countering an unflagging modernist infatuation with the new, Antiquities beyond Humanism maps out the ground for a richer and more sustained encounter with Greco-Roman antiquity, excavating an ...
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Countering an unflagging modernist infatuation with the new, Antiquities beyond Humanism maps out the ground for a richer and more sustained encounter with Greco-Roman antiquity, excavating an ante-humanism that nonetheless does not seek any kind of return to a pre-humanist arcadia. The volume arises from a commitment to actively engage the ancient philosophical tradition as a powerful field through which to tackle some of the most urgent questions addressed by the new materialisms and forms of post- and non-humanism. The papers gathered here take up ancient Greek philosophical and literary texts as at once live with possibilities for the present and uncannily distant. Collectively, they approach antiquity as neither origin nor telos but as asynchronous or untimely in Nietzsche’s sense. By bringing together a range of international scholars actively working at the intersections of ancient philosophy, literature, continental philosophy, feminist theory, and political theory, the volume opens up new vectors for thinking beyond the human that are informed by and responsive to the contemporary world while proposing a complex set of relationships to the longue durée of Western history, to deep time, and to the profound strangeness and unsettling familiarity of the Greco-Roman world. In this way, the volume resists and displaces the seductions of presentism, scientism, and technological determinism that often limit the horizons of new materialist thinking.Less
Countering an unflagging modernist infatuation with the new, Antiquities beyond Humanism maps out the ground for a richer and more sustained encounter with Greco-Roman antiquity, excavating an ante-humanism that nonetheless does not seek any kind of return to a pre-humanist arcadia. The volume arises from a commitment to actively engage the ancient philosophical tradition as a powerful field through which to tackle some of the most urgent questions addressed by the new materialisms and forms of post- and non-humanism. The papers gathered here take up ancient Greek philosophical and literary texts as at once live with possibilities for the present and uncannily distant. Collectively, they approach antiquity as neither origin nor telos but as asynchronous or untimely in Nietzsche’s sense. By bringing together a range of international scholars actively working at the intersections of ancient philosophy, literature, continental philosophy, feminist theory, and political theory, the volume opens up new vectors for thinking beyond the human that are informed by and responsive to the contemporary world while proposing a complex set of relationships to the longue durée of Western history, to deep time, and to the profound strangeness and unsettling familiarity of the Greco-Roman world. In this way, the volume resists and displaces the seductions of presentism, scientism, and technological determinism that often limit the horizons of new materialist thinking.
Stacy Alaimo
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780816621958
- eISBN:
- 9781452955223
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816621958.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
The introduction of Exposed briefly lays out the methodology, theories, arguments, and central questions of the book. It argues that a material sense of exposure and pleasure fosters ontologies, ...
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The introduction of Exposed briefly lays out the methodology, theories, arguments, and central questions of the book. It argues that a material sense of exposure and pleasure fosters ontologies, epistemologies, ethics, and politics that interconnect the human with the nonhuman, the inhuman and the more than human. As a cultural studies project, Exposed takes activist and other “low” practices seriously, as potent modes of political contestation.Less
The introduction of Exposed briefly lays out the methodology, theories, arguments, and central questions of the book. It argues that a material sense of exposure and pleasure fosters ontologies, epistemologies, ethics, and politics that interconnect the human with the nonhuman, the inhuman and the more than human. As a cultural studies project, Exposed takes activist and other “low” practices seriously, as potent modes of political contestation.
Ann D’Orazio
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781496802217
- eISBN:
- 9781496802262
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496802217.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
Using Bill Brown’s “thing theory” and Jane Bennett’s materialist theory, Ann D’Orazio analyzes how objects such as tea, tomatoes, trees, and the hijab function as nonhuman agents in Sacco’s ...
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Using Bill Brown’s “thing theory” and Jane Bennett’s materialist theory, Ann D’Orazio analyzes how objects such as tea, tomatoes, trees, and the hijab function as nonhuman agents in Sacco’s Palestine, endowing the text with a powerful depth and resonance.Less
Using Bill Brown’s “thing theory” and Jane Bennett’s materialist theory, Ann D’Orazio analyzes how objects such as tea, tomatoes, trees, and the hijab function as nonhuman agents in Sacco’s Palestine, endowing the text with a powerful depth and resonance.
Stacy Alaimo
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780816621958
- eISBN:
- 9781452955223
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816621958.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
The conclusion of Exposed critiques substantial paradigms by the ways of new materialism. It critiques object-oriented ontology by ways of material feminisms. It argues that there is no positions ...
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The conclusion of Exposed critiques substantial paradigms by the ways of new materialism. It critiques object-oriented ontology by ways of material feminisms. It argues that there is no positions outside, no straight paths, no transparent global systems of knowledge, but only modest protests and precarious pleasures from within compromised locations shadowed by futures that will surely need repair.Less
The conclusion of Exposed critiques substantial paradigms by the ways of new materialism. It critiques object-oriented ontology by ways of material feminisms. It argues that there is no positions outside, no straight paths, no transparent global systems of knowledge, but only modest protests and precarious pleasures from within compromised locations shadowed by futures that will surely need repair.
