What counts as the material of vital materialism? Is it only human labour and the socio-economic entities made by men using raw materials? Or is materiality more potent than that? How can political theory do a better job of recognizing the active participation of nonhuman forces in every event and every stabilization? Is there a form of theory that can acknowledge a certain ‘thing-power’, that is, the irreducibility of objects to the human meanings or agendas they also embody?[9]
In her most frequently cited book, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things,[10] Bennett's argument is that, "Edibles, commodities, storms, and metals act as
quasi agents, with their own trajectories, potentialities and tendencies.".[7] Bennett has also published books on American authors Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman.
Public lectures she has given include "Impersonal Sympathy", a talk theorizing 'sympathy' in which she considered the alchemist-physician
Paracelsus (1493-1541) and
Walt Whitman's collection of poetry, Leaves of Grass.[11] In 2015 Bennett delivered the annual Neal A. Maxwell Lecture in Political Theory and Contemporary Politics at the University of Utah entitled “Walt Whitman and the Soft Voice of Sympathy.”
Fellowships
1997 - Visiting Fellow, Department of Politics, Goucher College, Australian National University[12]
2007 - Visiting Fellow, Department of Politics, University of Nottingham[13]
2010 - Fellow, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, University of London[14]
Bennett, Jane (1987). Unthinking Faith and Enlightenment: Nature and the State in a Post-Hegelian Era. New York: New York University Press.
ISBN9780814710951.
Bennett, Jane (2001). The Enchantment of Modern Life: Attachments, Crossings, and Ethics. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
ISBN9780691088136.
Bennett, Jane (2002). Thoreau's Nature: Ethics, Politics, and the Wild (2nd ed.). Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
ISBN9780742521414.
Bennett, Jane (2010). Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.
ISBN9780822346197.
Book review: Princen, Thomas (March 2011). "Critical Dialogue - "Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things." By Jane Bennett. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010. 176p. $74.95 cloth, $21.95 paper". Perspectives on Politics. 9 (1): 118–120.
doi:
10.1017/S1537592710003464.
S2CID144328266.
Bennett's response to five book reviews of Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things: Bennett, Jane (November 2011). "Author response". Dialogues in Human Geography. 1 (3): 404–406.
doi:
10.1177/204382061100100310.
S2CID220591219.
Bennett, Jane (2020). Influx and Efflux: Writing Up with Walt Whitman. Duke University Press.
ISBN978-1478007791.
Bennett, Jane (2002), "The Moraline Drift", in Bennett, Jane;
Shapiro, Michael J. (eds.), The Politics of Moralizing, New York: Routledge, pp. 11–26,
ISBN9780415934787
Bennett, Jane;
Connolly, William E. (2002), "Mouths, bodies and the state", in
Honig, Bonnie; Mapel, David R. (eds.), Skepticism, Individuality, and Freedom: The Reluctant Liberalism of Richard Flathman, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 244–265,
ISBN9780816639700
Bennett, Jane (2004), "Approaches to Contemporary Political Theory", in
Kukathas, Chandran; Gaus, Gerald F. (eds.), Handbook of Political Theory, London Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE, pp. 46–56,
ISBN9780761967873
Bennett, Jane (2005), "In parliament with things", in Tønder, Lars; Thomassen, Lasse (eds.), Radical Democracy: Politics between Abundance and Lack, Manchester New York: Manchester University Press,
ISBN9780719070440
Bennett, Jane (2006), "The Agency of Assemblages and the North American Blackout", in
de Vries, Hent; Sullivan, Lawrence E. (eds.), Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World, New York: Fordham University Press, pp. 602–616,
ISBN9780823226450
Bennett, Jane (2009), "Thoreau's Techniques of Self", in Turner, Jack (ed.), A Political Companion to Henry David Thoreau, Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, pp. 294–325,
ISBN9780813124780
Bennett, Jane (2009), "Thing-Power and an Ecological Sublime", in White, Luke; Pajaczkowska, Claire (eds.), The Sublime Now, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, pp. 24–35,
ISBN9781443813020
Bennett, Jane (2010), "A vitalist stopover on the way to a new materialism", in
Coole, Diana; Frost, Samantha (eds.), New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics, Durham North Carolina London: Duke University Press, pp. 47–69,
ISBN9780822347729
Bennett, Jane (2010), "Thing-Power", in
Whatmore, Sarah; Braun, Bruce (eds.), Political Matter: Technoscience, Semocracy, and Public Life, Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press,
ISBN9780816670895
Bennett, Jane (2011), "Thing-Power", in Seery, John (ed.), A Political Companion to Walt Whitman, Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, pp. 131–148,
ISBN9780813126548
Bennett, Jane (2012), "Thing-Power", in Elkins, Jeremy; Norris, Andrew (eds.), Truth and Democracy, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 154–158,
ISBN9780812243796
Bennett, Jane (2012), "Powers of the Hoard: Further Notes on Material Agency", in Cohen, Jeffrey (ed.), Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects, Washington, DC: Oliphaunt Books an imprint of Punctum Books, pp. 237–269,
ISBN9780615625355
Abridged version printed (along with an 'assignment') as: Bennett, Jane (2013), "Powers of the hoard: further notes on material agency", in Sutela, Jenna (ed.), Add metaphysics: essays and assignments, Aalto, Finland: Aalto University Digital Design Laboratory, pp. 52–67,
ISBN9789526049540Open access link.
Bennett, Jane;
Connolly, William (2012), "The Crumpled Handkerchief", in Herzogenrath, Bernd (ed.), Time and History in Deleuze and Serres, New York: Continuum, pp. 153–172,
ISBN9781441163868
Bennett, Jane (2012), "Stones", in Sæbjörnsson, Egill; Herzogenrath, Bernd (eds.), Stones According to Egill Sæbjörnsson, New York: Revolver Publishing / Continuum, pp. 27–36,
ISBN9781441163868
Bennett, Jane;
Connolly, William (2013), "Earthling: Now and Forever?", in Ellsworth, Elizabeth; Kruse, Jaime (eds.), Making the Geologic Now: Responses to Material Conditions of Contemporary Life, Brooklyn, New York: Punctum Books, pp. 244–246,
ISBN9780615766362
Bennett, Jane (2013), "From Nature to Matter", in Archer, Crina; Ephraim, Laura; Maxwell, Lida (eds.), Second Nature: Rethinking the Natural Through Politics, New York: Fordham University Press, pp. 149–160,
ISBN9780823251421
Bennett, Jane (2014), "Of Material Sympathies, Paracelsus, and Whitman", in Iovino, Serenella; Oppermann, Serpil (eds.), Material Ecocriticism, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 149–160,
ISBN9780253013958
Revised and reprinted as Bennett, Jane (2015), "Of sympathies alchemical and poetic", Rare Earth, Vienna: Tyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, pp. 112–118
Bennett, Jane (2014), "The shapes of Odradek and the edges of perception", in Klingan, Katrin; Sepahvand, Ashkan; Rosol, Christoph; Scherer, Bernd M. (eds.), Grain/Vapor/Ray: Textures of the Anthropocene, Berlin: Haus der Kulturen der Welt
Bennett, Jane (2014), "Systems and Things: A Reply to Graham Harman and Timothy Morton", in
Grusin, Richard (ed.), The Nonhuman Turn, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press - forthcoming.
Bennett, Jane (2014), "Green Materialism", in Kennedy, T. Frank; Keenan, James (eds.), Nature as a Force: Scientists, Social Scientists, and Ethicists in a Dialogue of Hope, Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press - forthcoming.
Bennett, Jane (2017), "Vegetal Life and OntoSympathy", in Keller, Catherine; Rubenstein, Mary-Jane (eds.), Entangled Worlds: Religion, Science, and New Materialisms, Fordham University Press, pp. 89–110
Bennett, Jane (2017), "Vibrant matter", in
Braidotti, Rosi; Hlavajova, M. (eds.), Posthuman Glossary, Bloomsbury Publishers
Bennett, Jane; Washick, Bonnie; Wingrove, Elizabeth; Ferguson, Kathy E. (February 2015). "Politics that matter: thinking about power and justice with the new materialists". Contemporary Political Theory. 14 (1): 63–89.
doi:
10.1057/cpt.2014.19.
S2CID145671868.
(Forthcoming) Bennett, Jane (2019). "Out for a walk". Zeitschrift für Kultur und Medienforschung. 10: 93–105.
doi:
10.28937/1000108235.
S2CID213271406.
Blog posts
Bennett, Jane (18 August 2010).
"On the call from outside". The Immanent Frame. Social Science Research Council.
Published interviews
Khan, Gulshan (February 2009). "Agency, nature and emergent properties". Contemporary Political Theory. 8 (1): 90–105.
doi:
10.1057/CPT.2008.43.
S2CID144483000.
Revised and reprinted as Khan, Gulshan (2012), "Vital materiality and non-human agency: an interview with Jane Bennett", in
Prokhovnik, Raia; Browning, Gary; Dimova-Cookson, Maria (eds.), Dialogues with contemporary political theorists, Houndsmill, Basingstoke, Hampshire New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 42–58,
ISBN9780230303058
Bennett, Jane; Loenhart, Klaus K. (2011), "Vibrant matter - zero landscape: interview with Jane Bennett", in Bélanger, Pierre (ed.), GAM 07: Zero landscape: unfolding active agencies of landscape (Graz Architektur Magazin Graz Architecture Magazine) (German and English Edition), Wein New York: Fakultät für Architektur Technische Universität Graz,
ISBN9783709105368 Also printed as: Bennett, Jane; Loenhart, Klaus K. (19 October 2011).
"Vibrant matter - zero landscape: interview with Jane Bennett". Eurozine.
^Bennett, Jane (2010). Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Duke University Press. pp. viii.
ISBN978-0-8223-4633-3.
^"Bennett, Jane, 1957-". Library of Congress. Retrieved 25 July 2014. Her Unthinking faith and enlightenment, c1987: CIP t.p. (Jane Bennett) data sheet (b. 7/31/57)
^
abBennett, Jane (2018).
"Curriculum Vitae". Johns Hopkins Department of Political Science. Archived from
the original on 18 April 2019. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
^
ab"Jane Bennett". Department of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
^Khan, Gulshan (February 2009). "Agency, nature and emergent properties: an interview with Jane Bennett". Contemporary Political Theory. 8 (1): 90–105.
doi:
10.1057/cpt.2008.43.
S2CID144483000.
What counts as the material of vital materialism? Is it only human labour and the socio-economic entities made by men using raw materials? Or is materiality more potent than that? How can political theory do a better job of recognizing the active participation of nonhuman forces in every event and every stabilization? Is there a form of theory that can acknowledge a certain ‘thing-power’, that is, the irreducibility of objects to the human meanings or agendas they also embody?[9]
In her most frequently cited book, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things,[10] Bennett's argument is that, "Edibles, commodities, storms, and metals act as
quasi agents, with their own trajectories, potentialities and tendencies.".[7] Bennett has also published books on American authors Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman.
Public lectures she has given include "Impersonal Sympathy", a talk theorizing 'sympathy' in which she considered the alchemist-physician
Paracelsus (1493-1541) and
Walt Whitman's collection of poetry, Leaves of Grass.[11] In 2015 Bennett delivered the annual Neal A. Maxwell Lecture in Political Theory and Contemporary Politics at the University of Utah entitled “Walt Whitman and the Soft Voice of Sympathy.”
Fellowships
1997 - Visiting Fellow, Department of Politics, Goucher College, Australian National University[12]
2007 - Visiting Fellow, Department of Politics, University of Nottingham[13]
2010 - Fellow, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, University of London[14]
Bennett, Jane (1987). Unthinking Faith and Enlightenment: Nature and the State in a Post-Hegelian Era. New York: New York University Press.
ISBN9780814710951.
Bennett, Jane (2001). The Enchantment of Modern Life: Attachments, Crossings, and Ethics. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
ISBN9780691088136.
Bennett, Jane (2002). Thoreau's Nature: Ethics, Politics, and the Wild (2nd ed.). Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
ISBN9780742521414.
Bennett, Jane (2010). Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.
ISBN9780822346197.
Book review: Princen, Thomas (March 2011). "Critical Dialogue - "Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things." By Jane Bennett. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010. 176p. $74.95 cloth, $21.95 paper". Perspectives on Politics. 9 (1): 118–120.
doi:
10.1017/S1537592710003464.
S2CID144328266.
Bennett's response to five book reviews of Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things: Bennett, Jane (November 2011). "Author response". Dialogues in Human Geography. 1 (3): 404–406.
doi:
10.1177/204382061100100310.
S2CID220591219.
Bennett, Jane (2020). Influx and Efflux: Writing Up with Walt Whitman. Duke University Press.
ISBN978-1478007791.
Bennett, Jane (2002), "The Moraline Drift", in Bennett, Jane;
Shapiro, Michael J. (eds.), The Politics of Moralizing, New York: Routledge, pp. 11–26,
ISBN9780415934787
Bennett, Jane;
Connolly, William E. (2002), "Mouths, bodies and the state", in
Honig, Bonnie; Mapel, David R. (eds.), Skepticism, Individuality, and Freedom: The Reluctant Liberalism of Richard Flathman, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 244–265,
ISBN9780816639700
Bennett, Jane (2004), "Approaches to Contemporary Political Theory", in
Kukathas, Chandran; Gaus, Gerald F. (eds.), Handbook of Political Theory, London Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE, pp. 46–56,
ISBN9780761967873
Bennett, Jane (2005), "In parliament with things", in Tønder, Lars; Thomassen, Lasse (eds.), Radical Democracy: Politics between Abundance and Lack, Manchester New York: Manchester University Press,
ISBN9780719070440
Bennett, Jane (2006), "The Agency of Assemblages and the North American Blackout", in
de Vries, Hent; Sullivan, Lawrence E. (eds.), Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World, New York: Fordham University Press, pp. 602–616,
ISBN9780823226450
Bennett, Jane (2009), "Thoreau's Techniques of Self", in Turner, Jack (ed.), A Political Companion to Henry David Thoreau, Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, pp. 294–325,
ISBN9780813124780
Bennett, Jane (2009), "Thing-Power and an Ecological Sublime", in White, Luke; Pajaczkowska, Claire (eds.), The Sublime Now, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, pp. 24–35,
ISBN9781443813020
Bennett, Jane (2010), "A vitalist stopover on the way to a new materialism", in
Coole, Diana; Frost, Samantha (eds.), New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics, Durham North Carolina London: Duke University Press, pp. 47–69,
ISBN9780822347729
Bennett, Jane (2010), "Thing-Power", in
Whatmore, Sarah; Braun, Bruce (eds.), Political Matter: Technoscience, Semocracy, and Public Life, Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press,
ISBN9780816670895
Bennett, Jane (2011), "Thing-Power", in Seery, John (ed.), A Political Companion to Walt Whitman, Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, pp. 131–148,
ISBN9780813126548
Bennett, Jane (2012), "Thing-Power", in Elkins, Jeremy; Norris, Andrew (eds.), Truth and Democracy, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 154–158,
ISBN9780812243796
Bennett, Jane (2012), "Powers of the Hoard: Further Notes on Material Agency", in Cohen, Jeffrey (ed.), Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects, Washington, DC: Oliphaunt Books an imprint of Punctum Books, pp. 237–269,
ISBN9780615625355
Abridged version printed (along with an 'assignment') as: Bennett, Jane (2013), "Powers of the hoard: further notes on material agency", in Sutela, Jenna (ed.), Add metaphysics: essays and assignments, Aalto, Finland: Aalto University Digital Design Laboratory, pp. 52–67,
ISBN9789526049540Open access link.
Bennett, Jane;
Connolly, William (2012), "The Crumpled Handkerchief", in Herzogenrath, Bernd (ed.), Time and History in Deleuze and Serres, New York: Continuum, pp. 153–172,
ISBN9781441163868
Bennett, Jane (2012), "Stones", in Sæbjörnsson, Egill; Herzogenrath, Bernd (eds.), Stones According to Egill Sæbjörnsson, New York: Revolver Publishing / Continuum, pp. 27–36,
ISBN9781441163868
Bennett, Jane;
Connolly, William (2013), "Earthling: Now and Forever?", in Ellsworth, Elizabeth; Kruse, Jaime (eds.), Making the Geologic Now: Responses to Material Conditions of Contemporary Life, Brooklyn, New York: Punctum Books, pp. 244–246,
ISBN9780615766362
Bennett, Jane (2013), "From Nature to Matter", in Archer, Crina; Ephraim, Laura; Maxwell, Lida (eds.), Second Nature: Rethinking the Natural Through Politics, New York: Fordham University Press, pp. 149–160,
ISBN9780823251421
Bennett, Jane (2014), "Of Material Sympathies, Paracelsus, and Whitman", in Iovino, Serenella; Oppermann, Serpil (eds.), Material Ecocriticism, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 149–160,
ISBN9780253013958
Revised and reprinted as Bennett, Jane (2015), "Of sympathies alchemical and poetic", Rare Earth, Vienna: Tyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, pp. 112–118
Bennett, Jane (2014), "The shapes of Odradek and the edges of perception", in Klingan, Katrin; Sepahvand, Ashkan; Rosol, Christoph; Scherer, Bernd M. (eds.), Grain/Vapor/Ray: Textures of the Anthropocene, Berlin: Haus der Kulturen der Welt
Bennett, Jane (2014), "Systems and Things: A Reply to Graham Harman and Timothy Morton", in
Grusin, Richard (ed.), The Nonhuman Turn, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press - forthcoming.
Bennett, Jane (2014), "Green Materialism", in Kennedy, T. Frank; Keenan, James (eds.), Nature as a Force: Scientists, Social Scientists, and Ethicists in a Dialogue of Hope, Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press - forthcoming.
Bennett, Jane (2017), "Vegetal Life and OntoSympathy", in Keller, Catherine; Rubenstein, Mary-Jane (eds.), Entangled Worlds: Religion, Science, and New Materialisms, Fordham University Press, pp. 89–110
Bennett, Jane (2017), "Vibrant matter", in
Braidotti, Rosi; Hlavajova, M. (eds.), Posthuman Glossary, Bloomsbury Publishers
Bennett, Jane; Washick, Bonnie; Wingrove, Elizabeth; Ferguson, Kathy E. (February 2015). "Politics that matter: thinking about power and justice with the new materialists". Contemporary Political Theory. 14 (1): 63–89.
doi:
10.1057/cpt.2014.19.
S2CID145671868.
(Forthcoming) Bennett, Jane (2019). "Out for a walk". Zeitschrift für Kultur und Medienforschung. 10: 93–105.
doi:
10.28937/1000108235.
S2CID213271406.
Blog posts
Bennett, Jane (18 August 2010).
"On the call from outside". The Immanent Frame. Social Science Research Council.
Published interviews
Khan, Gulshan (February 2009). "Agency, nature and emergent properties". Contemporary Political Theory. 8 (1): 90–105.
doi:
10.1057/CPT.2008.43.
S2CID144483000.
Revised and reprinted as Khan, Gulshan (2012), "Vital materiality and non-human agency: an interview with Jane Bennett", in
Prokhovnik, Raia; Browning, Gary; Dimova-Cookson, Maria (eds.), Dialogues with contemporary political theorists, Houndsmill, Basingstoke, Hampshire New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 42–58,
ISBN9780230303058
Bennett, Jane; Loenhart, Klaus K. (2011), "Vibrant matter - zero landscape: interview with Jane Bennett", in Bélanger, Pierre (ed.), GAM 07: Zero landscape: unfolding active agencies of landscape (Graz Architektur Magazin Graz Architecture Magazine) (German and English Edition), Wein New York: Fakultät für Architektur Technische Universität Graz,
ISBN9783709105368 Also printed as: Bennett, Jane; Loenhart, Klaus K. (19 October 2011).
"Vibrant matter - zero landscape: interview with Jane Bennett". Eurozine.
^Bennett, Jane (2010). Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Duke University Press. pp. viii.
ISBN978-0-8223-4633-3.
^"Bennett, Jane, 1957-". Library of Congress. Retrieved 25 July 2014. Her Unthinking faith and enlightenment, c1987: CIP t.p. (Jane Bennett) data sheet (b. 7/31/57)
^
abBennett, Jane (2018).
"Curriculum Vitae". Johns Hopkins Department of Political Science. Archived from
the original on 18 April 2019. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
^
ab"Jane Bennett". Department of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
^Khan, Gulshan (February 2009). "Agency, nature and emergent properties: an interview with Jane Bennett". Contemporary Political Theory. 8 (1): 90–105.
doi:
10.1057/cpt.2008.43.
S2CID144483000.