‘On the Obsolescence of Bourgeois Theory in the Anthropocene’ is an attempt to think theory beyond the stereotypes of what it is considered to be. This includes preconceived notions of what it is to be a
theorist, and to create, publish and disseminate critical theory.
Many thinkers, for example, are currently attempting to replace the tyranny of the human with an emphasis on the nonhuman, the posthuman and the Anthropocene. Yet such ‘post-theory’ theorists continue to remain bound up with the human in the very performance of their attempts to think through and beyond it. Regardless of the anti-humanist philosophies they profess — be they inspired by Deleuze, Kittler or Latour — in their practices, in the forms their work takes, in the ways they create, publish and disseminate it, in their associated upholding of notions of individual human rights, freedom, property and so on, they continue to operate in terms of a liberal, humanist model of what it is to be and do as a theorist.
‘On the Obsolescence of Bourgeois Theory in the Anthropocene’ thus asks, what forms is critical theory to take if, in its performance, it is not to be simply liberal and humanist — nor indeed human — but something else besides? In this way it endeavours to anticipate a future where new roles and conditions for theory materialize that has never previously been imagined
