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.

List of contents

Chapter 1 Why Thoreau Hates Politics Chapter 2 Techniques of the Self Chapter 3 Writing a Heteroverse Chapter 4 Art and Politics Chapter 5 Fronting Thoreau

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.

Product details

• Authors: Jane Bennett
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 03.04.2002
• EAN: 9780742521414
• ISBN: 978-0-7425-2141-4
• Dimensions: 146 mm x 230 mm x 13 mm
• Weight: 254 g
• Series: Modernity and Political Thought
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; Social Theory, PHILOSOPHY / History & Surveys / Modern, PHILOSOPHY / History & Surveys / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Social Theory, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 19th Century, American English, Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900, Western philosophy from c 1800, Western philosophy: c 1600 to c 1900, Philosophical traditions and schools of thought, Western Philosophy, From C 1900 -