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Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (a John Hope Franklin Center Book)
by
Jane Bennett
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 ru...more
Paperback, 200 pages
Published
January 4th 2010
by Duke University Press Books
(first published December 14th 2009)
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Jane Bennett writes on "new" vitalism for 120 pages without mentioning indigenous epistemologies. By engaging extensively with western philosophy in outlining the history of vitalism she completely erases the ontological foundations of First Nations peoples who are and have been actively recognizing "intra-connections" (to borrow from Barad) between human & nonhuman in their philosophies and politics.
She encourage the reader to consider the possibility of non-hierarchical existence and "thi...more
She encourage the reader to consider the possibility of non-hierarchical existence and "thi...more
Clear account of the conceptual components required for an active ("vibrant") materialism, though Bennett doesn't really add too much in this regard, and it occasionally lacks detail and argumentative force. Not sure how convinced I'd be if I wasn't already broadly on-board with the Deleuzian/DeLandian elements - and some parts felt very under-developed (eg. the use of Deleuze's indefinite "a life" from his final published essay). The chapter on the history of vitalism was the most detailed and...more
Variations on object-oriented ontology are all the rage these days. Vibrant Matter lacks the verve and comprehensiveness of Hodder's Entangled or the clear specificity of Bogost's older Unit Operations, but it's a quick, clear, graceful tour of philosophy from Spinoza to modern environmentalism that makes a point, sketches its origins without tedium, and moves on.
Bennett is clear on distinguishing her work from ANT, and on its potential consequences as an alternative to hair-shirt environmental...more
Bennett is clear on distinguishing her work from ANT, and on its potential consequences as an alternative to hair-shirt environmental...more
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Bennett makes a great effort to defend her materialist position from a vitalist stance. Her way of presenting is great in that she uses a succesful example as a starting point, reading almost as a case study. Overall a great read. I found some of the chapters inconvincing to support her arguments. She defends for example that a vital materialist ontology can act as a “safety net” for inequalities produced by essentialist views simply by blaming heteronomy as responsible for much of the human suf...more
Great feminist take on material culture and new media studies. Lots of Deleuze & Guittari, Spinoza, and her personal fave, Thoreau.
I can't believe I put all my recreational reading on hold for this! Bennett has an interesting concept, but as so many others have/will note: there's nothing new and there's nothing here (outside of Bennett's grasp of philosophy) that you couldn't find in a New Ager's anthology. I don't think this book will shake political or philosophical foundations and it's a neat footnote, but has little value in anything that I am interested in. Some of it comes off as lazy, but Bennett did put a great deal...more
Non-humanism and distributive agency are all the rage now, and Bennett's contribution is benign and convincing. I liked the fact that she approached it from the perspective of political theory, yet the textual surface is, for my taste, too much a collage of citations and intertextuality. I mean, almost not a single sentence without evocation of some other thinker or a quote.
A philosophical look at things, materialism/materiality, individual motivations, and the energy flowing through animate and inanimate matter connecting everything at the level of energy flows. Bennett makes some interesting arguments but some areas are not well-theorized and the book doesn't tie together well. It makes for a good read though because there are a number of truly good ideas in there.
VERY readable / teachable; has several helpful bits, especially theorizing the agency of metal. Doesn't add anything new, particularly, to Latour's work, but does collate the conversations about networks and agency in a concise, engaging study, which makes it useful for anyone just starting to explore or use object-oriented or actor-network theories.
A fascinating and insightful book on how materialities constantly infect and affect human society and vice versa. Bennett convincingly argues how things have agencies and how the dividing lines between human-nonhuman and nature-culture are not tenable.
Highlights the complexity of affect theory, materialism and political ecology. An interesting and accessible philosophy of the role of things and assemblages of things in our lives.
Somewhat disappointing. I had hoped for more than a brief, exploratory bringing-together of Spinoza's pan-conativity, Nietzsche's physiology, Thoreau's romanticism, D&G's assemblage-theory, and Bergson's vitalism. The books spends more time talking about the benefits of proffering a vital materiality than actually proffering that vital materiality. A nice starting point, but little more.
Read all the chapters for the colloquium on friday. I am very excited by this book and think of it, frankly, as companion species to my own book Networked Reenactments, and helpful for thinking about the angle into my next book, Speaking with Things.
Great points and an interesting think. Actor network theory is everything to do with everything we study today. I just wish she'd write in a more approachable way.
Brilliant exploration of the political impact of corellationism. Bennett is perhaps my favorite author of ideas related to OOO/SR.
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“A life thus names a restless activeness, a destructive-creative force-presence that does not coincide fully with any specific body. A life tear the fabric of the actual without ever coming fully 'out' in a person, place, or thing. A life points to ... 'matter in variation that enters assemblages and leaves them. A life is a vitality proper not to any individual but to 'pure immanence,' or that protean swarm that is not actual though it is real: 'A life contains only virtuals. It is made of virtualities.”
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3 people liked it
“The pure power of a life can manifest as beatitude, or as an unspeakable, sheer violence...”
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Aug 08, 2012 02:13pm