Policy Press

More-Than-Human Aesthetics

Venturing Beyond the Bifurcation of Nature

Edited by Melanie Sehgal and Alex Wilkie

Published

May 20, 2025

Page count

258 pages

Browse the series

Dis-positions: Troubling Methods and Theory in STS

ISBN

978-1529227796

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Bristol University Press

Published

Apr 30, 2024

Page count

258 pages

Browse the series

Dis-positions: Troubling Methods and Theory in STS

ISBN

978-1529227789

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Bristol University Press

Published

Apr 30, 2024

Page count

258 pages

Browse the series

Dis-positions: Troubling Methods and Theory in STS

ISBN

978-1529227802

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Bristol University Press

Published

Apr 30, 2024

Page count

258 pages

Browse the series

Dis-positions: Troubling Methods and Theory in STS

ISBN

978-1529227802

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Bristol University Press
More-Than-Human Aesthetics

In a present marked by planetary crisis, a radical rethinking of aesthetics is necessary. This inspirational collection proposes a new way of thinking about aesthetics as fundamental to cultivating more liveable futures.

Drawing on the philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead and Félix Guattari, the book develops aesthetics as central to all more-than-human forms of experience, including knowledge practices. Each contribution invites readers on an adventure to explore how this broader view of aesthetics can reshape areas including biomedicine, geological forensics, nuclear waste, race, as well as arts and education.

This is an agenda-setting contribution to understanding the significance of aesthetics in science and technology studies, as well social and cultural research more broadly.

“Alfred N. Whitehead’s daring protest against the ‘bifurcation of nature’ called for the liberation of aesthetics from human exceptionality. More-Than-Human Aesthetics turns this protest into a compelling multifaceted exploration. How would our practices be transformed if we recognized that none of them can be divorced from an aesthetic experience which humans share with all other inhabitants of the earth?” Isabelle Stengers, Université Libre de Bruxelles

Melanie Sehgal is Director of Research at the Institute for Basic Research into the History of Philosophy at the University of Wuppertal.

Alex Wilkie is Professor of Design and Societies and a Director of the Design Societies Research Unit in the Department of Design, Goldsmiths, University of London.

Beyond the Bifurcation of Nature: Tracing More-Than-Human Aesthetics in Times of Socio- Ecological Crisis - Melanie Sehgal and Alex Wilkie

PART I Feeling and Experiencing

2 Whitehead, Dewey, Metaphysics, Aesthetics, Experience and Our World(s) - Michael Halewood

3 Eternal Objects of Nuclear Waste Futures - Thomas P. Keating

4 Geo-Narrativity: Anthropocene, Aesthetics, Forensics - Alexander Damianos

5 Race and Reality: Towards a Social Aesthetics of Race - Michael L. Thomas

PART II Problematizing and (Re)Valuing

6 A New Taste for Life? Value Ecologies and the Aesthetics of the Outside - Martin Savransky

7 Variations on the Great Refusal via Dante and Whitehead - Cécile Malaspina

8 Aesthetic Axiology: Amanda Piña’s Climatic Dances/ Danzas Climáticas - Maximilian Haas

PART III Infecting and Caring

9 To Err is More Than More-Than-Human: Patient Safety and the Aesthetics of a Never Event - Alex Wilkie

10 Machinic Highs and Pathic Patchworks of Addicted Systems - Matthew Fuller and Andrew Goffey

11 On the Aesthetics of Care/ Care of Aesthetics in Social Scientific Research - Mike Michael

PART IV (Un)Learning and Luring

12 An Ethology of Abstractions: Learning How to Cultivate Our Modes of Thought with Stengers - Didier Debaise

13 Back to the Classroom: What Whitehead Took from Art, and What a New Aesthetic Paradigm Can Take from Whitehead - Nicholas Gaskill

14 Schools of Feeling: Unlearning the Bifurcation of Nature Through Aesthetic Education - Melanie Sehgal