Critical Theory and New Materialisms

Bringing together authors from two intellectual traditions that have, so far, generally developed independently of one another – critical theory and new materialism – this book addresses the fundamental differences and potential connections that exist between these two schools of thought. With a focus on some of the most pressing questions of contemporary philosophy and social theory – in particular, those concerning the status of long-standing and contested separations between matter and life, the biological and the symbolic, passivity and agency, affectivity and rationality – it shows that recent developments in both traditions point to important convergences between them and thus prepare the ground for a more direct confrontation and cross-fertilization. The first volume to promote a dialogue between critical theory and new materialism, this collection explores the implications for contemporary debates on ecology, gender, biopolitics, post-humanism, economics and aesthetics. As such, it will appeal to philosophers, social and political theorists, and sociologists with interests in contemporary critical theory and materialism.

Hartmut Rosa is Professor of Sociology at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena and Director of the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt, Germany. He is the author of Resonance: A Sociology of the Relationship to the World and Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity and the coeditor of Lost in Perfection: Impacts of Optimisation on Culture and Psyche.

Christoph Henning is Philosophy Fellow at the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt, Germany. He is the author of Philosophy after Marx: 100 Years of Misreadings and the Normative Turn in Political Philosophy and the coeditor of The Good life beyond Growth: New Perspectives and Social Capital, Social Identities: From Ownership to Belonging.

Arthur Bueno is Lecturer and Research Fellow at the University of Frankfurt, Visiting Professor at the University of São Paulo and President of the Georg Simmel Gesellschaft in Bielefeld, Germany. He is the author of Economies of Life: Simmel on Money and Art and the coeditor of De-Centering Global Social Theory and Research: The Peripheral Turn in Sociology.