`Author:` [[Jane Bennett]] ## Summary Jane Bennett argues that matter is not passive or inert but possesses its own vitality — the capacity to act as quasi-agent with trajectories, propensities, and tendencies of its own. Things — food, electricity, metals, storms — don't just sit there waiting for humans to use them; they impede, enable, accelerate, or derail human plans according to their own forces. Her project is political: she wants us to attend to the agency of materials so we stop treating the world as dead stuff available for conquest and consumption. Drawing on Spinoza, Deleuze, Whitehead, Bergson, and Dewey, Bennett traces a vitalist tradition stretching back two thousand years and asks what would change in our politics if we gave non-human forces their due. She illustrates this with cases including a North American power blackout, childhood obesity, stem cell research, and food supply chains. ## Quotes - ## Notes `Concepts:` `Knowledge Base:`