Telemorphosis: Theory in the Era of Climate Change

Abstract

Some theory books at first startle you but then grow comfortable. Tom Cohen's edited volume Telemorphosis is not one of them. It grows more unsettling chapter by chapter. Cohen positions the collection as a critique of theory in the context of climate change: “How might one read the implicit, unseen collaboration that critical agendas coming out of twentieth century master-texts unwittingly maintained with the accelerated trajectories [of ecological and economic disaster] in question? The mesmerizing fixation with cultural histories, the ethics of ‘others,’ the enhancement of subjectivities, ‘human rights’ and institutions of power not only partook of this occlusion but ‘we theorists’ have deferred addressing biospheric collapse, mass extinction events, or the implications of resource wars and ‘population’ culling” (15). Cohen is calling for theory to engage with ecocriticism, yet this list of mesmerizing fixations provocatively includes theoretical concerns that ecocritics have been pursuing. One could read this as unawareness of ecocritical trends, but one could also use this as an opportunity to consider the degree to which these fixations have made ecocriticism a collaborator, too.

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