Ecosophical Aesthetics ― Art, Ethics and Ecology With Guattari

Inspired by the ecosophical writings of Felix Guattari, this book explores the many ways that aesthetics – in the forms of visual art, film, sculpture, painting, literature, and the screenplay – can act as catalysts, allowing us to see the world differently, beyond traditional modes of representation. This is in direct parallel to Guattari's own attempt to break down the 19th century Kantian dialectic between man, art, and world, in favour of a non-hierarchical, transversal approach, to produce a more ethical and ecologically sensitive world view.

Each chapter author analyses artworks which critique capitalism's industrial devastation of the environment, while at the same time offering affirmative, imaginative futures suggested by art. Including contributions from philosophers, film theorists and artists, this book asks: How can we interact with the world in a non-dominant and non-destructive way? How can art catalyze new ethical relations with non-human entities and the environment? And, crucially, what part can philosophy play in rethinking these structures of interaction?

Colin Gardner is Professor of Critical Theory and Integrative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA where he teaches in the departments of Art, Film and Media Studies, Comparative Literature and the History of Art and Architecture.

Patricia MacCormack is Professor of Continental Philosophy, Anglia Ruskin University, UK, researching and writing on Deleuze, Guattari, Irigaray and Serres, poshumanism, ethics, animal rights, body modification, queer theory, transgression and horror film. She is the editor of The Animal Catalyst (Bloomsbury 2014).