New Materialism: Interviews & Cartographies

edited by Rick Dolphijn and Iris van der Tuin

This book is the first monograph on the theme of “new materialism,” an emerging trend in 21st century thought that has already left its mark in such fields as philosophy, cultural theory, feminism, science studies, and the arts. The first part of the book contains elaborate interviews with some of the most prominent new materialist scholars of today: Rosi Braidotti, Manuel DeLanda, Karen Barad, and Quentin Meillassoux. The second part situates the new materialist tradition in contemporary thought by singling out its transversal methodology, its position on sexual differing, and by developing the ethical and political consequences of new materialism.

“In New Materialism four prominent theorists who have grappled throughout their careers with crucial issues of materiality, embodiment and subjectivity present their latest thinking in lively and engaging dialogues. In their follow-up analysis Dolphijn and Van der Tuin expertly contextualize the discussions in relation to the current debates around speculative realism and process thought. New Materialism’s contribution to the discussion will be highly appreciated by all those concerned with the current renewal of interest in realist perspectives respecting the autonomy of the nonhuman.”
Brian Massumi – Université de Montréal
“New Materialism is a title intended to provoke. The authors concede that the book’s various arguments are not exactly new, and further, that certain expressions of materialism are uncannily immaterial. And yet it is precisely here, in this muddling of conventional analytical terms and oppositional co-ordinates that the book offers a fresh and lively intervention. If the error of binary and hierarchical thinking can be corrected and dispatched through diagnosis and negation (because such responses inadvertently reiterate and entrench the problem), and if past, historical arguments can appear strangely contemporary, then the authors encourage us to revisit every detail of our practice and its routine justifications. This collection of essays embarks on such an exercise, and it does so with an honest and eager curiosity that is both refreshing and useful. Interviews with luminaries such as Rosi Braidotti, Karen Barad, Manuel DeLanda and Quentin Meillassoux make for compelling reading, especially as their collective voices are only sometimes in unison. Indeed, it is the uneasy frisson between these different visions that underlines the book’s aims and rhythms; namely, to find wonder, again and again, in the complex nature of being.”
Vicki Kirby – University of New South Wales

Editor Bio

Rick Dolphijn is assistant professor at the Department of Media and Culture Studies and senior fellow at the Centre for the Humanities, both Utrecht University, the Netherlands. In 2004 he published Foodscapes, towards a Deleuzian Ethics of Consumption. He has published on continental philosophy, art and new materialism in Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, Deleuze Studies, Collapse: Journal of Philosophical Research and Development and Inflexions: a Journal for Research Creation (to which he is a contributing editor).

Iris van der Tuin is assistant professor of Gender Studies at the Department of Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. In 2011-12 she was visiting scholar at the Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, the USA. Her work on new feminist materialism has appeared in Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, Australian Feminist Studies, European Journal of Women’s Studies, and Women’s Studies International Forum.

Series Design

The New Metaphysics series design is by Katherine Gillieson with cover illustrations by Tammy Lu