Earthbound: The Aesthetics of Sovereignty in the Anthropocene - (Edinburgh Critical Studies in Law, Literature and the Humanities) (Paperback)

About the Book

Daniel Matthews shows how sovereignty - the organising principle for modern law and politics - depends on a distinctive aesthetics that ensures that we see, feel and order the world in such a way that keeps the realities of climate change and ecological destruction largely 'off stage'.

Book Synopsis

Daniel Matthews shows how sovereignty - the organising principle for modern law and politics - depends on a distinctive aesthetics that ensures that we see, feel and order the world in such a way that keeps the realities of climate change and ecological destruction largely 'off stage'. Through analysis of a range of legal, literary, ecological and philosophical texts, this book outlines the significance of this aesthetic organisation of power and explores how it might be transformed in an effort to attend to the various challenges associated with the Anthropocene, setting the grounds for a new, ecologically attuned, critical jurisprudence.

From the Back Cover

Examines how sovereignty inures us from the challenges associated with the climate crisis The Anthropocene thesis contends that human impact on the environment has become so extreme that the earth system as a whole has been tipped into a new state. This new geological epoch demands sensitivity to the forces that traverse human and nonhuman life, the geological, ecological and atmospheric. In this book Daniel Matthews shows how sovereignty, the organising principle for modern law and politics, depends on a distinctive aesthetics that ensures that we see, feel and order the world in such a way that keeps the realities of climate change and ecological destruction largely 'off stage.' Through analysis of a range of legal, literary, ecological and philosophical texts, this book outlines the significance of this aesthetic organisation of power and explores how it might be transformed in an effort to attend to the various challenges associated with the Anthropocene, setting the grounds for a new, ecologically attuned, critical jurisprudence. Key Features - An interdisciplinary assessment of sovereignty in the context of the climate crisis - Engages with the work of Bruno Latour, Simone Weil, Clive Hamilton, Jacques Rancière, Donna Haraway, Judith Butler, Giorgio Agamben, Stuart Elden and others. - Presents an innovative theory of sovereignty's 'aesthetics' that will contribute to contemporary debates in legal and political theory - Outlines the key challenges for law and politics provoked by the Anthropocene epoch Daniel Matthews is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Warwick. Cover image: World Shipping Routes 1750-2000 by Ben Schmidt. Image design by Jasper Sutherland. Cover design: www.hayesdesign.co.uk [EUP logo] edinburghuniversitypress.com ISBN 978-1-4744-5530-5 Barcode

About the Author

Daniel Matthews is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Warwick. He works in the fields of jurisprudence, political theory, and law and literature, with a particular focus on theories of sovereignty and political community. He is co-editor, with Scott Veitch, of Law, Obligation, Community (Routledge, 2018) and co-editor, with Tara Mulqueen, of Being Social: Ontology, Law and Politics (Counterpress, 2016). He serves on the editorial committees of Law and Critique and Law & Literature, at the latter he is the book reviews editor.