Nonmodern Practices: Latour and Literary Studies

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.