Author Meets Critics: Earthborn(e) Democracy

Session Submission Type: Author meet critics

Session Description

Earthborn Democracy (Columbia UP, 2024) begins with the observation that the relationship between ecology and democracy has a complex history and an uncertain future. Ecological crises threaten all forms of life on earth, and democracy too is endangered, as popular discontent, elite malfeasance, and unresponsive institutions herald democratic crisis if not collapse. Earthborn Democracy maintains that our present political concepts and institutions are inadequate for meeting the challenges of living in right relation with the more-than-human world. It argues, moreover, that these inadequacies are themselves symptoms of a failing political-cultural story and a lack of concrete practices of ecological renewal. Earthborn Democracy excavates political practices and stories illustrating the interdependence necessary to inspire and orient the work of ecological renewal. Resonating across these practices and stories past and present is a belief that we are all – human as well as non-human – earthborn, and this can serve as the basis for re-envisioning democracy and the vocation of political theory.

Sub Unit

• Division 2: Foundations of Political Theory

Chair

• Paulina Ochoa Espejo Haverford College

Presenters

• Ali Aslam Mount Holyoke College

• Joel Alden Schlosser Bryn Mawr College

• David W. McIvor Colorado State University

• Neil Roberts Williams College

• Benjamin McKean Ohio State University

• William E. Connolly Johns Hopkins University

• Alyssa Battistoni Barnard College