Deadline: November 1, 2022
Contact: Andrew Rose
Email: andrew.rose@cnu.edu

Environmental Politics After Humanism (edited collection)

This edited collection of essays aims to invigorate and expand an emerging interdisciplinary conversation, based in posthuman and new materialist theory, between political science and environmental humanities scholars.

One of the most intriguing ideas within new materialist and posthuman theory is undoubtedly the concept of post-anthropocentric, or distributed, agency. The work of Bruno Latour, Karen Barad, Jane Bennett, Stacy Alaimo, to name just a few influential scholars, has produced a definitive critique of humanist models of subjectivity, agency and anthropocentrism. These disanthropocentric frameworks will also have a profound impact, however, upon how we conceive of social movement organizing and political efficacy. It seems recognizing agency, or actancy in Latourian terms, as a co-production of forces spanning the human and nonhuman worlds will also entail a reimagining of political subjectivity and agency for a posthuman and postnatural world.

We invite chapter proposals that engage with one or more of the complex relationships between theories
of posthuman subjectivity, distributed agency and actancy, contemporary theories of the State, citizenship, environmental justice, and climate activism. This collection ultimately aims to place humanities and social science scholarship that engages posthuman political agency into conversation. The goal is to trace the potential, and possible limitations, of emerging disanthropocentric models of
subjectivity and agency amidst the ongoing climate crisis in a critical, speculative and interdisciplinary
fashion.

Submissions might engage with some of the following questions: How does one recognize and empower
the political actor, and the political ‘act,’ or ‘event,’ in a post-anthropocentric context? What new types of
citizenship might emerge from posthuman cultures and artforms? What do effective post-anthropocentric
organizing strategies look like? As the relevance of the liberal humanist political subject and the
conceptual norms of political realism recede, which theories of national and international politics are best
positioned to help us navigate the environmental politics of the 21st century? How might posthuman and
new materialist theory impact our understanding of conventional “targets” of environmental activism? In
what ways, for instance, are the institutions of the neoliberal State and/or transnational corporations
impacted, threatened or fortified by the decentering of the human political subject?

We have had positive preliminary discussions with Palgrave Macmillan about publication, and the editor
of the Environmental Politics and Theory series is looking forward to receiving a full proposal once the
abstracts have been selected.

Proposals of 500 words and abbreviated CVs listing academic affiliation and publications will be
accepted until November 1, 2022. Proposals should be for original works not previously published
(including in conference proceedings) and that are not currently under consideration for another edited
collection or journal.

Notifications will be made by November 15, 2022. If accepted for the collection, a full draft (6,000-8,000
words) will be required by July 1, 2023.

Co-Editors: Stefanie Fishel, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations (University of the Sunshine
Coast / Queensland, Australia) & Andrew Rose, Assistant Professor in English (Christopher Newport
University / Virginia, U.S.)

Please send all queries and proposals to both andrew.rose@cnu.edu and sfishel@usc.edu.au

Posted on October 3, 2022