Thoreau's Nature - Ethics, Politics, and the Wild

Thoreau's Nature: Ethics, Politics, and the Wild explores how Thoreau crafted a life open to "the Wild," a term that marks the startling element of foreignness in every object of experience, however familiar. Thoreau's encounters with nature, Bennett argues, allowed him to resist his all-too-human tendency toward intellectual laziness, social conformity, and political complacency. Bennett pursues this theme by constructing a series of dialogues between Thoreau and our contemporaries: Foucault on identity and power, Haraway on the nature/culture of division, Hollywood celebrities on the Walden Woods Project, the National Endowment for the Humanities on politics and art, and Kafka on the question of political idealism.

About the author

Jane Bennett is a political theorist at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the author of The Enchantment of Modern Life and a coordinating editor of Theory & Event.

Summary

Thoreau's encounters with nature, the author argues, allowed him to resist his all-too-human tendency toward intellectual laziness, social conformity and political complacency. Bennett pursues this theme by constructing a series of dialogues between Thoureau and modern contemporaries.

Product details

• Authors: Jane Bennett, Rebecca Jane Bennett
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.12.2019
• EAN: 9780742521407
• ISBN: 978-0-7425-2140-7
• No. of pages: 176
• Dimensions: 158 mm x 231 mm x 18 mm
• Weight: 367 g
• Series: Modernity and Political Thought; Modernity and Political Though; Modernity and Political Thought; Modernity and Political Though
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: antiquity to present day; Sozialtheorie, Moderne Philosophie: nach 1800, Amerikanisches Englisch