This edited volume reconsiders the notion of life and conceptualizes those forms of life which have been excluded from modern philosophy, such as post-Anthropocene life, the life of non-human animals and the life of inorganic objects.
The contributors, who include prominent contemporary philosophers and theorists ask a wide range of questions including: what new forms of subjection can we see with the return of the 'Anthropos'?, what can animals teach us in the Anthropocene?, can we reconstruct the perceptual world of animals and take a look into their 'subjectivity'?, what happens to inorganic matter (waste or digital objects) when no longer used by any subject and can we think about inorganic matter in terms of subjective self-awareness?
The first section, Life Beyond the Anthropocene, critically questions Anthropocene theory and outlines alternative scenarios, such as Gaia theory or post-Anthropocene forms of life on Earth and other planets, as well as new forms of subjectivity. The second part, Human and Non-Human Interactions, investigates the obscure boundary, between life and non-life, and between human and non-human animal life forms. The third part, Forms of Life and New Ontologies, concentrates on new ontologies and discusses life in terms of vitalism, new materialism, movement, form-taking activity and plasticity.
S. E. Wilmer is Professor Emeritus of Drama at Trinity College, Dublin. He is the author of Performing Statelessness in Europe (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), Theatre, Society and the Nation: Staging American Identities (Cambridge University Press, 2002); The Dynamic World of Finnish Theatre (Like Press, 2006). His edited and co-edited books include Interrogating Antigone in Postmodern Philosophy and Criticism (Oxford University Press, 2010); Deleuze and Beckett (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); Resisting Biopolitics: Philosophical, Political and Performative Strategies (Routledge 2016).
Audronė Žukauskaitė is Chief Researcher in the Department of Contemporary Philosophy at the Lithuanian Culture Research Institute. Her publications include From Biopolitics to Biophilosophy (2016, in Lithuanian) and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s Philosophy: The Logic of Multiplicity (2011, in Lithuanian). She co-edited Life in the Posthuman Condition: Critical Responses to the Anthropocene (Edinburgh University Press, 2023), Interrogating Antigone in Postmodern Philosophy and Criticism, (Oxford University Press, 2010), Deleuze and Beckett, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) and Resisting Biopolitics: Philosophical, Political and Performative Strategies, (Routledge, 2016).
