Vibrant matter : a political ecology of things / Jane Bennett ; designed by C. H. Westmoreland.

By: Bennett, Jane, 1957-Contributor(s): Westmoreland, C.H [designer.]Material type: TextTextLanguage: English Publisher: United States of America : Duke University Press, 2010Copyright date: ©2010Description: xxii, 176 pages ; 22 cmContent type: text Media type: unmediated Carrier type: volumeISBN: 9780822346333 (paperback)Subject(s): Human ecology -- Political aspects | Human ecology -- Philosophy | Environmentalism -- PhilosophyLOC classification: GF21 .B465 2010
Contents:
The force of things
The agency of assemblages
Edible matter
A life of metal
Neither vitalism nor mechanism
Stem cells and the culture of life
Political ecologies
Vitality and self-interest
Subject: In Vibrant Matter the political theorist Jane Bennett, renowned for her work on nature, ethics, and affect, shifts her focus from the human experience of things to things themselves. Bennett argues that political theory needs to do a better job of recognizing the active participation of nonhuman forces in events. Toward that end, she theorizes a “vital materiality” that runs through and across bodies, both human and nonhuman. Bennett explores how political analyses of public events might change were we to acknowledge that agency always emerges as the effect of ad hoc configurations of human and nonhuman forces. She suggests that recognizing that agency is distributed this way, and is not solely the province of humans, might spur the cultivation of a more responsible, ecologically sound politics: a politics less devoted to blaming and condemning individuals than to discerning the web of forces affecting situations and events. Bennett examines the political and theoretical implications of vital materialism through extended discussions of commonplace things and physical phenomena including stem cells, fish oils, electricity, metal, and trash. She reflects on the vital power of material formations such as landfills, which generate lively streams of chemicals, and omega-3 fatty acids, which can transform brain chemistry and mood. Along the way, she engages with the concepts and claims of Spinoza, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Darwin, Adorno, and Deleuze, disclosing a long history of thinking about vibrant matter in Western philosophy, including attempts by Kant, Bergson, and the embryologist Hans Driesch to name the “vital force” inherent in material forms. Bennett concludes by sketching the contours of a “green materialist” ecophilosophy. https://www.dukeupress.edu/vibrant-matter
Item type Current library Shelving location Call number Status Date due Barcode
Books MEF Üniversitesi Kütüphanesi
Genel Koleksiyon GF 21 .B465 2010 (Browse shelf (Opens below)) Available 0020329

Includes bibliographical references (pages 157-170) and index (pages 171-176).

The force of things

The agency of assemblages

Edible matter

A life of metal

Neither vitalism nor mechanism

Stem cells and the culture of life

Political ecologies

Vitality and self-interest

In Vibrant Matter the political theorist Jane Bennett, renowned for her work on nature, ethics, and affect, shifts her focus from the human experience of things to things themselves. Bennett argues that political theory needs to do a better job of recognizing the active participation of nonhuman forces in events. Toward that end, she theorizes a “vital materiality” that runs through and across bodies, both human and nonhuman. Bennett explores how political analyses of public events might change were we to acknowledge that agency always emerges as the effect of ad hoc configurations of human and nonhuman forces. She suggests that recognizing that agency is distributed this way, and is not solely the province of humans, might spur the cultivation of a more responsible, ecologically sound politics: a politics less devoted to blaming and condemning individuals than to discerning the web of forces affecting situations and events.
Bennett examines the political and theoretical implications of vital materialism through extended discussions of commonplace things and physical phenomena including stem cells, fish oils, electricity, metal, and trash. She reflects on the vital power of material formations such as landfills, which generate lively streams of chemicals, and omega-3 fatty acids, which can transform brain chemistry and mood. Along the way, she engages with the concepts and claims of Spinoza, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Darwin, Adorno, and Deleuze, disclosing a long history of thinking about vibrant matter in Western philosophy, including attempts by Kant, Bergson, and the embryologist Hans Driesch to name the “vital force” inherent in material forms. Bennett concludes by sketching the contours of a “green materialist” ecophilosophy.

https://www.dukeupress.edu/vibrant-matter