ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses some of the influential work within the field of posthumanist thinking. It explores the potential for political projects of emancipation within a posthumanist frame through the interventions made by Jane Bennett and William Connolly. While Connolly suggests that there are ten distinguishing features which unite the various very different new materialist approaches, we consider that these can be grouped under three main headings. The strand of new materialist posthumanism with which Connolly and Bennett are associated might be referred to as 'new vitalism'. The significance of thing-power, for Bennett, is its ability to generate awareness of non-human matter as significant in the world with which we are interconnected and composed with, and often by. The chapter takes issue with the discussion of agency and action in new vitalism. Chandler suggests that such a politics of stasis is the outcome of new materialism and an intrinsic element of a posthumanist position.
