What is the good life—for me, for us, for the cosmos?
Good is an ecocritical enquiry into ethical and political dimensions of aesthetics. Following Aristotle’s lead, it starts with ethics as the question concerning what is the good life for me, moving on to politics as the good life for us. Like Aristotle, between ethics and politics it inserts the question of the good life for you and me—the question of love. In the end—which is where we all live today—it goes beyond Aristotle’s human-centred approach, insisting that the good life cannot be thought or lived without including technologies and ecologies. A truly cosmopolitan politics is a politics of the cosmos. Learning from indigenous cultures, it speaks from and with nature and machines in the form of gods and ancestors. Packed with examples from banking apps to cave art, economic manifestos to cookery, passing through music, painting, poetry, and film, the book evokes critical traditions from across the world to present a lucid and accessible case for decolonial and ecocritical aesthetics.
Seán Cubitt is Professor of Screen Studies at the University of Melbourne. He was previously Professor and head of the department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London (2011–2019), the University of Melbourne (2005–2010), the University of Waikato, NZ (2000–2005) and Liverpool John Moores University (1989-199). An elected fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and of the Academia Europe, he has held visiting posts at Chicago, Harvard, Oslo and Dundee. He has keynoted over 50 events on four continents, curated exhibitions in Istanbul, Lima, Liverpool and Melbourne, and is currently working on funded research projects with colleagues in Australia, Austria, Norway, the UK, the USA and China.
What is the good life—for me, for us, for the cosmos?
Good is an ecocritical enquiry into ethical and political dimensions of aesthetics. Following Aristotle’s lead, it starts with ethics as the question concerning what is the good life for me, moving on to politics as the good life for us. Like Aristotle, between ethics and politics it inserts the question of the good life for you and me—the question of love. In the end—which is where we all live today—it goes beyond Aristotle’s human-centred approach, insisting that the good life cannot be thought or lived without including technologies and ecologies. A truly cosmopolitan politics is a politics of the cosmos. Learning from indigenous cultures, it speaks from and with nature and machines in the form of gods and ancestors. Packed with examples from banking apps to cave art, economic manifestos to cookery, passing through music, painting, poetry, and film, the book evokes critical traditions from across the world to present a lucid and accessible case for decolonial and ecocritical aesthetics.
Author
Seán Cubitt is Professor of Screen Studies at the University of Melbourne. He was previously Professor and head of the department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London (2011–2019), the University of Melbourne (2005–2010), the University of Waikato, NZ (2000–2005) and Liverpool John Moores University (1989-199). An elected fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and of the Academia Europe, he has held visiting posts at Chicago, Harvard, Oslo and Dundee. He has keynoted over 50 events on four continents, curated exhibitions in Istanbul, Lima, Liverpool and Melbourne, and is currently working on funded research projects with colleagues in Australia, Austria, Norway, the UK, the USA and China.
