2004/05/27 by Jane Bennett · 7 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Critical Theory and Philosophy #Posthumanist Ethics and Activism #Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics
paper · doi:10.1177/0090591703260853
openalex publication_date 2004/05/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
This essay seeks to give philosophical expression to the vitality, willfullness, and recalcitrance possessed by nonhuman entities and forces. It also considers the ethico-political import of an enhanced awareness of “thing-power.” Drawing from Lucretius, Spinoza, Gilles Deleuze, Bruno Latour, and others, it describes a materialism of lively matter, to be placed in conversation with the historical materialism of Marx and the body materialism of feminist and cultural studies. Thing-power materialism is a speculative onto-story, an admittedly presumptuous attempt to depict the nonhumanity that flows around and through humans. The essay concludes with a preliminary discussion of the ecological implications of thing-power.