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"In 1998, Derrida hailed ecology as a 'new dimension of 'living together.' Almost twenty years later, ecology is nothing new: It even risks having overtaken itself in the sense of no longer marking any specific domain. It is clear that ecology traverses all spheres of all existences. The eco-deconstruction undertaken in this volume means both an ecology of deconstruction (what is a disseminated
oikos? a differing-deferring one? a prosthetic one?) and also a deconstruction of ecology, thus of economy, ecopolitics, ecomythics, and ecosophy."-Jean-Luc Nancy, University of Strasbourg
"A terrific collection of essays penned by a stellar group of scholars,
Eco-Deconstruction definitively demonstrates the continued relevance of deconstruction in our era of ecological disaster. No mere echo chamber of agreement,
Eco-Deconstruction likewise shows us where deconstruction can be helpfully supplemented with other approaches going forward into an uncertain ecological future. Essential reading for anyone interested in environmental philosophy."-Jeffrey Nealon, The Pennsylvania State University
"Timely, original, and extraordinarily innovative. . . . It will be an invaluable reference point for all those interested in the intersection of continental philosophy, literary criticism, posthumanism, and environmental concerns."-Mick Smith, Queens University
Eco-Deconstruction marks a new approach to the destruction of our natural environment. While the work of Jacques Derrida, with its relentless interrogation of the anthropocentric metaphysics of presence, has already proven highly influential in posthumanism and animal studies, the present volume, drawing on published and unpublished work, builds on these insights to address the most pressing environmental issues of our time.
From critiquing our facile understanding of temporality, to exploring an originary environmentality that marks the constitutive ecological embeddedness of mortal life, to examining such remains of human culture as nuclear waste, to articulating an ecological demand for justice,
Eco-Deconstruction will resonate with readers not only of philosophy, but across the humanities and the social and natural sciences.
Contributors: Karen Barad, Timothy Clark, Claire Colebrook, Matthias Fritsch, Vicki Kirby, John Llewelyn, Philippe Lynes, Michael Marder, Dawne McCance, Michael Naas, Kelly Oliver, Michael Peterson, Ted Toadvine, Cary Wolfe, David Wood
Matthias Fritsch is Professor of Philosophy at Concordia University, Montréal.
Philippe Lynes is Fulbright Canada Visiting Research Chair in Environmental Humanities at the University of California, Irvine.
David Wood is W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University.
List of contents
Abbreviations for Works by Jacques Derrida
Introduction
Matthias Fritsch, Philippe Lynes, and David Wood
Part I. Diagnosing the Present1. The Eleventh Plague: Thinking Ecologically after Derrida
David Wood
2. Thinking after the World: Deconstruction and Last Things
Ted Toadvine
3. Scale as a Force of Deconstruction
Timothy Clark
Part II. Ecologies4. The Posthuman Promise of the Earth
Philippe Lynes
5. Un/limited Ecologies
Vicki Kirby
6. Ecology as Event
Michael Marder
7. Writing Home: Eco-choro-spectrography
John Llewelyn
Part III. Nuclear and Other Biodegradabilitie8. E-phemera: Of Deconstruction, Biodegradability, and Nuclear War
Michael Naas
9. Troubling Time/s and Ecologies of Nothingness: On the Im/Possibilities of Living and Dying in the Void
Karen Barad
10. Responsibility and the Non(bio)degradable
Michael Peterson
11. Extinguishing Ability: How we Became Post-Extinction Persons
Claire Colebrook
Part IV. Environmental Ethics12. An Eco-Deconstructive Account of the Emergence of Normativity in "Nature"
Matthias Fritsch
13. Opening ethics onto the other shore of another heading
Dawne McCance
14. Wallace Stevens's Birds, or, Derrida and Ecological Poetics
Cary Wolfe
15. Earth: Love It or Leave It
Kelly Oliver
List of Contributors
Index
About the author
Matthias Fritsch (Edited By) Matthias Fritsch is Professor of Philosophy at Concordia University, Montréal. He is the author of
The Promise of Memory: History and Politics in Marx, Benjamin, and Derrida and
Taking Turns with Earth: Ways to Intergenerational Justice through Phenomenology and Deconstruction and co-translator of Heidegger's
The Phenomenology of Religious Life.
Philippe Lynes (Edited By) Philippe Lynes is Fulbright Canada Visiting Research Chair in Environmental Humanities at the University of California, Irvine. He is the translator of Derrida's
Advances.
David Wood (Edited By) David Wood is W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. His most recent book is
Deep Time, Dark Times: On Being Geologically Human.
Summary
A collection bringing together a wide-varietyof world-renowned scholars on the import of Derrida's philosophy with respectto the current environmental crisis, our ecological relationships to 'nature'and the earth, our responsibilities with respect to climate change, pollution, and nuclear destruction, and the ethics and politics at stake in responding tothese crises.
