Jane Bennett (born July 31, 1957)
is an American
political theorist
A political theorist is someone who engages in constructing or evaluating political theory, including political philosophy. Theorists may be academics or independent scholars. Here the most notable political theorists are categorized by their ...
and
philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
. She is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities at the Department of Political Science,
Johns Hopkins University School of Arts and Sciences
The Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts & Sciences is an academic division of the Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. The school is located on the university's Homewood campus. It is the core of Johns Hopkin ...
.
She was also the editor of the academic journal ''
Political Theory
Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, l ...
'' between 2012-2017.
Education
Jane Bennett originally trained in
environmental studies
Environmental studies is a multidisciplinary academic field which systematically studies human interaction with the environment. Environmental studies connects principles from the physical sciences, commerce/economics, the humanities, and social ...
and
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
. She then went on to
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
to study
environmental science
Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physics, biology, and geography (including ecology, chemistry, plant science, zoology, mineralogy, oceanography, limnology, soil science, geology and physical geograp ...
. After Cornell she studied political theory and gained her degree (''
magna cum laude
Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some So ...
'') in 1979 from
Siena College
Siena College is an American private Franciscan college in Loudonville, New York. Siena was founded by the Order of Friars Minor in 1937. The college was named after Bernardino of Siena, a 15th-century Italian Franciscan friar and preacher. St ...
,
Loudonville, New York
Loudonville is a hamlet in the town of Colonie, in Albany County, New York, United States. Loudonville was a census-designated place in the 1970, 1980, and 1990 US Census, but ceased to be in the 2000 Census, but became a CDP again in 2020.
Hist ...
. Whilst at Siena College Bennett met
Kathy Ferguson Kathy E. Ferguson is an American author, political theorist, educator, and Fulbright Grant recipient. She is professor of political science and women's studies at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.
In 2009, the American Political Science Associa ...
. Bennett then went on to the
University of Massachusetts
The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system and the only public research system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes five campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and a medica ...
and qualified as a doctor of
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
in 1986.
Philosophical work
Bennett's work considers
ontological
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...
ideas about the
relationship between humans and 'things', what she calls "vital materialism":
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?
In her most frequently cited book, ''Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things'',
[" Strawberries on Life Support by Antónia Szabari & Natania Meeker"]
''Los Angeles Review of Books''] Bennett's argument is that, "Edibles, commodities, storms, and metals act as
Agency (philosophy), quasi agents, with their own trajectories, potentialities and tendencies."
. 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
''Leaves of Grass'' is a poetry collection by American poet Walt Whitman. Though it was first published in 1855, Whitman spent most of his professional life writing and rewriting ''Leaves of Grass'', revising it multiple times until his death. Th ...
''.
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
* 2007 - Visiting Fellow, Department of Politics, University of Nottingham
* 2010 - Fellow, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, University of London
* 2011 - Fellow, Oxford University, Keble College
* 2017 - Fellow,
Bauhaus University
The Bauhaus-Universität Weimar is a university located in Weimar, Germany, and specializes in the artistic and technical fields. Established in 1860 as the Great Ducal Saxon Art School, it gained collegiate status on 3 June 1910. In 1919 the sc ...
, Internationales Kolleg fur Kulturtechnikforschung und Medienphilosophie
Bibliography
Books
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::: Bennett's response to five book reviews of ''Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things'':
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Edited books
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Book chapters
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Journal articles
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::Also occasionally referred to with the alternative title "The order of nature in Lucretius", this article discusses ''
De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things)'' by
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into E ...
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Alexander Livingston on Academia.edu.*
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Blog posts
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Published interviews
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References
External links
Jane Bennett, Johns Hopkins University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bennett, Jane
1957 births
American political philosophers
21st-century American philosophers
Continental philosophers
Cornell University alumni
Environmental sociologists
Epistemologists
Johns Hopkins University faculty
Living people
Metaphysical realism
Metaphysical theories
Metaphysicians
Ontologists
Philosophers of social science
Political philosophers
Siena College alumni
Social philosophers
Transdisciplinarity
University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Social and Behavioral Sciences alumni