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Theories of new materialism have gained increasing traction in the social and human sciences in recent decades, as thinkers like Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour and Jane Bennett have reinvigorated the philosophical interest in topics such as the agency of nonhuman matter, the relational nature of existence and the limitations of anthropocentric forms of inquiry. However, these theories have faced criticism from post-Marxist critical theorists, who argue that theories of new materialism blunt social and capitalist critique and promote obscurity by flattening the world to a single ontological plane. In this article, I argue that these critiques rely on mischaracterizations of new materialist scholarship and that theories of new materialism can in fact help us re-examine – not reject, as their critics suggest – the role of critique, responsibility and human politics in the context of the Anthropocene and its unfolding ecological crises.

Through an encounter with a plantation forest in western Denmark called Klosterheden, this article explores the possibilities for what Anna Tsing calls multispecies resurgence – the ability of ecologies to survive and recover through interspecies cooperation. Highlighting endangered conditions for ongoing survival in a world of Anthropocene proliferations, the article tells three entangled stories of how the forest landscapes in Klosterheden have changed in the past century: First, the story of the forest as a landscape of war. Then, the story of the forest as a landscape of multispecies companionship. And finally, the story of the forest as a landscape in between resurgence and disrepair. The overarching argument is that in an Anthropocene world altered by human activities, ongoing survival requires renewed care and attention towards the complexities of multispecies resurgence. This entails, among other things, making space for the resurgent dynamics of natural ecologies and recognizing the limits of human existence vis-à-vis other forms of earthly life.

Since its origin in the natural sciences in the early 2000s, the concept of the Anthropocene has spread far and wide. Following the concept's journey away from the natural sciences, where it was invented to designate the advent of a new geological epoch, and into the social and human sciences, its meaning has opened up to many different interpretations. This article examines three competing theoretical narratives about the Anthropocene, which have gained particular traction within social and political theory in recent years: The 'good' Anthropocene promoted by ecomodernists. The 'bad' Anthropocene, or so-called Capitalocene, critiqued by eco-Marxists. And, lastly, the 'uncanny' Anthropocene envisioned by new materialists. Each of these three stories differ not only in their interpretation of the Anthropocene, they also engender notably different political responses. Echoing the insights of new materialists such as Jane Bennett, Bruno Latour and Donna Haraway, the article argues that we cannot rely on a single grand narrative of the Anthropocene today. What is needed, instead, is the proliferation of a multiplicity of different Anthropocene stories: Situated, troubling and more-than-human stories that seek to displace idiosyncratic notions of the autonomous human subject so that we might begin to see what else is there.

In this reply, we question whether 'the knot' is the best way to describe the relationship between the discursive and the material. Our main objective is to show that the discursive and material are co-extensive and therefore emerge from within the same assemblage, prior to any 'knot' between them. To develop this idea, we draw on the new materialism of Karen Barad and Jane Bennett, especially their argument for how and why it makes sense to approach the discursive and the material as hyphenated ('discursive-material') as well as performatively constituted.

This article offers three lessons for a post-pandemic democratic politics. First, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the deep ontological entanglements of human and non-human systems: A submicroscopic agent jumping from an animal to a human host impacts human societies across the world. In the process, the virus has revealed a second lesson: Public responses to the pandemic have exacerbated already existing inequalities and fuelled anti-democratic desires for national and individual fortification. In a world where political emergencies like the pandemic are becoming more prevalent due to climatic and ecological destabilizations, there is an urgent need to promote new countervailing democratic forces. Together, these two insights motivate a third lesson: In order to address the ecological and political challenges of the so-called Anthropocene, democratic activism and political organizing must itself become more like the virus, more viral. Inspired by swarming behaviour in complex systems, a democratic politics of transformative change must give up illusions of simple solutions and central control, and instead rely on dispersed multi-sited actions happening at many scales at once, while working towards the improbable but necessary goal that these actions might, eventually, come together and bring about change at a planetary scale.

The world has changed dramatically since the emergence of post-Marxism, and a reassessment is needed to determine its significance in the modern world. First published as a special issue of Global Discourse, this book explores the theoretical position of post-Marxism and investigates its significance in recent global political developments such as Brexit, Trump and the rise of the far right. With valuable insights from international contributors across a range of disciplines, the book puts forward a strong case for the continuing relevance of post-Marxism and, particularly, for Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's theory of radical democracy