Radical Animism: Reading for the End of the World

by Jemma Deer

Overview

The reckoning of climate change calls for us to fundamentally rethink our notions of human centrality, superiority and power. Drawing on a wide range of modern writers and thinkers – from Freud and Darwin to Latour and Derrida, from Shakespeare and Carroll to Woolf and Kafka – Radical Animism develops a new theory of life for a planet in crisis. In this original and timely work, Jemma Deer reframes our thinking of the Anthropocene with ideas from anthropology, astronomy, deconstruction, evolutionary biology, psychoanalysis, quantum physics and veganism. Through readings that are both inventive and compelling, this book shows how 'literary animism' – the active and transformative life of literature – can open our thinking to the immense power of the non-human world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350111172
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	09/17/2020
Series:	Environmental Cultures
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	910 KB

About the Author

Jemma Deer is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Environment, USA.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Radical Animism: Climate Change and Other Transformations
2. Surviving the Anthropocene: Revolutionary Rhythms
3. Animals at the End of the World: The Evolution of Life and Language
4. Hatching: Psychoanalysis and the Textual Unconscious
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index

Conclusion

Notes
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

Not only does Radical Animism dig deep into the roots of animism and reveal its relations to climate change and other disquieting (s)cenes of the Anthropos, but it does so by means of seismic analyses of texts from Kafka to Woolf, from Shakespeare to Freud, that shout aloud Jemma Deer's claim that 'nonliving forces read and write'. This book is just asking to be arrested.
David Wills, Professor of French Studies and Comparative Literature, Brown University, USA

From the Publisher