Commentary/review

Another study from the tribe of researchers following the ideas of Bruno Latour. It was printed in 2010, and produced in audio in 2022.

Ursula K. Le Guin said that “The artist deals with what cannot be said in words”. This work expressed, in academic language, an increasingly common sentiment that everything is interconnected and of consequence. It needed to be spoken out loud in the language of serious philosophical conversation. The idea does not sound revolutionary but it is, if one takes into account the context in which it was expressed. The book contains useful terms allowing the use of its core ideas in academic and public discourses, such as “an assemblage,” “an actant” or “vital materialism”. The text is brimming with comparisons, metaphors, slogans and prospects, as if the Author wanted to make sure that at least some of the ideas expressed there catch fire, explode and fill the public with spores of a surprisingly new worldview.

It is quite possible that the ideas contained within “Vibrant Matter” have certain healing properties. It is, at this point, quite certain that the existing paradigm of “life”, especially the Christian one, proved useless against the challenges of the modern times – challenges brought about with the help of the dualistic approach in which humans are opposed to “everything else”. That criticism is not politicised, however. The book quotes St. Augustine alongside Latour, Adorno and Foucault. “Vibrant Matter” presents a worldview so different from that “old” paradigm that the Author struggles with the limitations of her language. If not for the great philosophers whose ideas could be – rather masterfully – explicated there, the leap would seem impossible.

The audio performance is also perfect which is not an easy feat for an academic production of that scale and scope. Kathleen Godwin maintained a calm, rich tone, read the entire work correctly, including all foreign quotes, and presented the study with a lot of positive, yet neutral energy (if that makes any sense). Without that additional help, it would be difficult to digest the book in the audio format. Very impressive. The narrator became one of the actants that contributed to the spreading and recognition of the book in yet another accessible format.

The cover is not enticing. The title is also not enticing. I read the book only because it was recommended in another study.

Cover Photo by Jan Huber on Unsplash