Anthropocene Alerts: Critical Theory of the Contemporary as Ecocritique

by Timothy W. Luke

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From the late 1970s, Timothy W. Luke has developed critical analyses of significant social, political, and cultural conflicts, with a particular focus on the entangled politics of culture, economy, and nature. Luke’s “ecocritiques,” many of which first appeared in the pages of Telos, advance a critical theory of the contemporary that takes aim at our ongoing ecological crisis, a period marked by rapid climate change, extensive biodiversity loss, and deep ecospheric damage. The essays collected here range across diverse topics, from the politics of the Anthropocene, Paolo Soleri’s urban design experiments, the Unabomber manifesto, the Trump administration’s attacks on environmental protections, and the informationalization of ecological change, to community agriculture projects, deep ecology, the symbolic politics of climate change treaties, Edward Abbey’s ecological writings, and the biopolitics of accelerationism and the Dark Enlightenment. Taken together, this collection documents crucial moments in Luke’s project of ecocritique as well as the commitment of Telos to environmental criticism, political theory, and policy analysis.

Praise for Anthropocene Alerts

"Tim Luke is a leading critical theorist of his generation, and the one who has been most attuned to the changing global ecology. These lively, varied essays span the forty-year period in which neoliberal globalization greatly enlarged the global economy relative to the biosphere and sharply accelerated resource throughput and production of waste. Luke analyzes incisively sociopolitical and cultural responses to accelerating ecological problems that threaten life on the planet and civilization, as we have known them. Rooted firmly in the historicist method and critical project going back to Marx, Luke’s work inspires reflection about and begins the task of fashioning an ecologically informed critical theory capable of addressing the emergent prospects and possibilities of the brave new Anthropocene."
—Robert J. Antonio, Professor of Sociology, University of Kansas

“In this timely collection of essays, Timothy Luke consistently shows the incredibly productive way in which a ‘critical theory of the contemporary’ can be practiced, engaged, and ready for political deployment. In a period in which a diverse assortment of individuals (from well-meaning liberals to earnest leftists to corporate CEOs to paleo-conservatives) seem to regularly invoke ecological destruction and climate change as deeply troubling signs of our Anthropocenic misadventures, Luke astutely unpacks the intricate relationships between capitalist political economy, culture, and nature that undergird and reinforce these devastating developments, and which all-too-often go unnoticed in dominant discourses. In the process, Luke employs ‘ecocritique’ to engage a host of attempted environmental reforms, practices, and visions, showing how, in the name of ecological sustainability, many help to reinforce the ruinous practices associated with our current neoliberal ‘capitalocenic’ trajectory. A must-read for critical theorists, activists, and concerned citizens!”
—Bradley J. Macdonald, Professor of Political Science, Colorado State University

Contents

Preface
Introduction
1. Radical Ecology and the Crisis of Political Economy
2. Informationalism and Ecology
3. The Dreams of Deep Ecology
4. Community and Ecology
5. The Politics of Arcological Utopia: Soleri on Ecology, Architecture, and Society
6. Searching for Alternatives: Postmodern Populism and Ecology
7. Re-Reading the Unabomber Manifesto
8. A Harsh and Hostile Land: Edward Abbey’s Politics and the Great American Desert
9. Hashing It Over: Green Governmentality and the Political Economy of Food
10. On the Politics of the Anthropocene
11. On the Road to Marrakesh: A Politics of Mitigation or Mystification for Global Climate Change?
12. Seven Days in January: The Trump Administration’s New Environmental Nationalism
13. Science at Dusk in the Twilight of Expertise: The Worst Hundred Days
14. The Dark Enlightenment and the Anthropocene: Readings from the Book of Third Nature as Political Theology
15. Reflections from a Damaged Planet: Adorno as Accompaniment to Environmentalism in the Anthropocene

ISBN 978-0-914386-75-9
304 pages
Pub. Date: December 9, 2019