Radical Thought in the Anthropocene: Dimensions and Potentials of Critical Theory

This book strives to establish a close relationship between Critical Theory and social practice. Given the enormous global contemporary challenges humanity faces, the contributors to this volume urge for sustained efforts to link critical theory and innovative practice in a way that is effective for global publics and transcends disciplines, cultures and generations. Featuring academics and artists, the book takes a critical perspective on geopolitical developments, the irresponsible treatment of nature, the neoliberal and populist challenge as well as the permanent violation of human rights in most of today’s societies. Against the backdrop of the recent ‘discovery’ of the Anthropocene, the emerging certitude that humanity is provoking devastating climate change, the contributions to this volume discuss different dimensions of critique–including psychoanalytical, feminist and historical, technological and media-related–from a wide range of academic and sociocultural viewpoints, with specific emphasis on the tensions across theoretical reflection and social practice. This volume offers a broad, critical, and important approach to the question of the role and possibilities of critical theory within the Anthropocene. Among other themes, the book addresses the issue of feminist emancipation, non-European perspectives, as well as the potential of art, both from theoretical angles and from the viewpoint of artists. This makes visible how many fields are affected and which also in turn have a prospective for critical intervention — Anders Bartonek, Södertörn University