Abstract
Emerging since the late 1990s, new materialism has become one of the most influential philosophies and critical theories in the contemporary West. With its anti-anthropocentric and anti-constructivist stances, new materialism advocates for the agency and vitality of matter and things, thereby proposing a relational ontology. From the perspective of new materialism, humans and nonhumans are materially embedded and entangled. At the same time, nonhuman matter, not unlike its human counterparts, are participatory actants in ecology, society, and politics. Despite its inherent re-enchantment of matter and anthropomorphism, new materialism, as an epistemological-ontological-ethical philosophical framework, can serve as both a new ontology and ecological ethics for the Anthropocene.
Keywords
new materialism, agency, vitality, relational ontology, Anthropocene
First Page
217
Last Page
226
Recommended Citation
Yang, Xiaoli. . "Reconstructing Matter: New Materialism as a New Ontology for the Anthropocene." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 45, (4): pp.217-226. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol45/iss4/21