Nonmodern Practices: Latour and Literary Studies

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This collection of essays responds to the urgent call in the humanities to go beyond the act of negative critique which, so far, has been the dominant form of intellectual inquiry in academia. The contributors take their inspiration from Bruno Latour's pragmatic, relational approach and his philosophy of hybrid world where culture is immanent to nature and knowledge is tied to the things it co-creates. In such a world, nature, society, and discourse relate to, rather than negate, each other. The 11 essays, ranging from early modern humanism and modern theorization of literature to contemporary political ecology and animal studies, propose new productive ways of thinking, reading, and writing with, not against, the world. In carrying out concrete practices that are inclusive, rather than exclusive, contributors strive to exemplify a form of scholarship that might be better attuned to the concerns of our post-humanist era.

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Nonmodern Practices assembles an outstanding body of distinguished international scholars to consolidate the multifaceted work of Bruno Latour as a provocation to comparative literary studies. William Paulsons foreword and Rita Felskis afterword join co-editor Elisabeth Arnould-Bloomfields lucid introduction to provide a short course in Latours master trope of the nonmodern. His actor-network theory comes forward as opening a field of empirical and interpretive possibilities ready to inform a renovated literary academy following Latours lead beyond the (im)postures of ideological critique. A suite of spare and spirited essayswith standout contributions by Vinciane Despret and Graham Harmanmodel the practice of nonmodernity by stepping over the purified national, periodic, and disciplinary boundaries of standard literary discussion. * Bruce Clarke, Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of Literature and Science and Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology, Texas Tech University, USA *
To a man holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a modern scholar, everything looks like an occasion to prove ones mastery by devising neat distinctions between science and illusion, progress and tradition, emancipation and servitude. We may never have been (fully) modern, but neither can we simply trash modernity as a bad idea. Our most important task may be to complement modernizationand to contain its dramatic excesses, leading to the sixth great extinction and climate changeby reclaiming nonmodern practices, which trade self-righteous hammers for careful attention. Literary studies are best positioned to do so, as this volume brilliantly demonstrates. What has been held against them (not being scientific enough) may be their strongest asset: in fact, literary studies have always been nonmodern. They mobilize the power of illusions in their solicitude towards fiction, they are intrinsically rooted in cultural traditions, and they often uncover the hidden servitudes of emancipatory claims. From Montaigne to Donald Trump through Kafka, via orientalism and animal territories, this volume joyfully illustrates the platform of transdisciplinarity provided by Latour-inspired literary studies. * Yves Citton, Professor in Literature and Media, Universit Paris 8, France, and co-editor of the journal Multitudes *

Author Bio

Elisabeth Arnould-Bloomfield is Associate Professor of French at the University of Colorado, Boulder, USA. She is the author of Georges Bataille, la terreur et les lettres (2009). Claire Chi-ah Lyu is Associate Professor of French at the University of Virginia, USA. She is the author of A Sun within a Sun: The Power and Elegance of Poetry (2006).