New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics

Published by Duke University Press 2010

New Materialisms

Ontology, Agency, and Politics

Edited by: Diana Coole and Samantha Frost
With contributions by: Jane Bennett , Pheng Cheah , Melissa A. Orlie and Elizabeth Grosz

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822392996

Overview
Contents

About this book

Leading 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.

Author / Editor information

Diana Coole is Professor of Political and Social Theory at Birkbeck College, University of London, England. She is the author, most recently, of Merleau-Ponty and Modern Politics after Anti-Humanism. She is a Leverhulme Research Fellow, 2010–13.

Samantha Frost is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, the Gender and Women’s Studies Program, and the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of Lessons from a Materialist Thinker: Hobbesian Reflections on Ethics and Politics.

Reviews

“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

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introducing the New Materialisms Diana Coole and Samantha Frost Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
The Force of Materiality
A Vitalist Stopover on the Way to a New Materialism Jane Bennett Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	47
Non-Dialectical Materialism Pheng Cheah Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	70
The Inertia of Matter and the Generativity of Flesh Diana Coole Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	92
Impersonal Matter Melissa A. Orlie Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	116
Political Matters
Feminism, Materialism, and Freedom Elizabeth Grosz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
Fear and the Illusion of Autonomy Samantha Frost Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	158
Materialities of Experience William E. Connolly Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	178
The Politics of ‘‘Life Itself ’’ and New Ways of Dying Rosi Braidotti Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
Economies of Disruption
The Elusive Material, What the Dog Doesn’t Understand Rey Chow Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	221
Orientations Matter Sara Ahmed Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	234
Simone de Beauvoir: Engaging Discrepant Materialisms Sonia Kruks Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	258
The Materialism of Historical Materialism Jason Edwards Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	281
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	299
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	319
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	323

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 347

eBook

Published: September 9, 2010
ISBN: 9780822392996