A Feeling for Things: A Conversation around the work of Jane Bennett
A Feeling for Things: A Conversation around the work of Jane Bennett
This workshop discussed the intersections between Bennett's political thought, OOO and feminist/queer theory, and featured responses from Eileen Joy, Joao Florencio, Jussi Parikka, Nigel Clark, Milla Tiainen, Lisa Baraitser and Michael O’Rourke.
Organized by Lisa Baraitser (Birkbeck, University of London) and Michael O’Rourke (Independent Colleges, Dublin)
Participants:
Jane Bennett ( Department of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University)
Lisa Baraitser (Department of Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck)
Nigel Clark (The Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University)
João Florêncio (Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths)
Eileen Joy (BABEL Working Group and Punctum Books USA)
Michael O’Rourke (Department of Arts and Psychotherapy, Independent Colleges, Dublin)
Jussi Parikka (Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton)
Milla Tiainen (Department of English, Communication, Film and Media, Anglia Ruskin)
The work of the political theorist Jane Bennett (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore) over the last decade has consistently drawn attention to and had a feeling for things, for the inorganic, and for the agency or quasi-agency of nonhuman actants. Her project of developing a new political ecology and renewed vitalist thought beginning with Thoreau’s Nature: Ethics, Politics and the Wild, Modernity and Political Thought (1994) was further developed in The Enchantment of Modernity: Crossings, Energetics and Ethics (2001)and found its fullest expression in Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (2010) a book which has thoroughly reshaped the way in which we think about landscape, ecology, matter, vitality and the terrain of continental philosophy in a time of critical climate change.
This event makes the writing of Jane Bennett a vibrant matter for discussion across the fields of philosophy, psychosocial studies, political theory, cultural studies, literary theory, visual theory and performance studies among others. In particular, the focus was on how Bennett’s explorations of vitalism, anthropocentrism, agency, biopolitics and new materialisms contribute to the emerging and fraught conversations between feminist and queer theory, Object Oriented Ontology and Speculative Realism.
Day two consisted of a workshop discussing the intersections between Bennett’s political thought, OOO and feminist/queer theory featuring responses from Eileen Joy, João Florêncio, Jussi Parikka, Nigel Clark, Milla Tiainen, Lisa Baraitser and Michael O’Rourke.
Sponsored by Department of Psychosocial Studies and Birkbeck Institute of Social Research, Birkbeck, University of London