Carl Cassegård - Böcker

Challenging the normalization of a capitalist reality in which environmental destruction and catastrophe have become ‘second nature’, Towards a Critical Theory of Nature offers a bold new theoretical understanding of the current crisis via the work of the Frankfurt School. Focusing on key notions of dialectics, natural history, and materialism, a critical theory of nature is outlined in favor of a more traditional Marxist theory of nature, albeit one which still builds on core Marxist concepts to confirm humanity’s central place in manufacturing environmental misery. Pre-eminent thinkers of the Frankfurt school, including, Georg Lukács, Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno, and Alfred Schmidt, are highlighted for their potential to diagnose the interpenetration of capitalism and nature in a way that neither absolutizes nor obliterates the boundary between the social and natural. Further theoretical claims and practical consequences of a critical theory of nature challenge other contemporary theoretical approaches like eco-Marxism, social constructivism and new materialism, to situate it as the only approach with genuinely radical potential. The possibility of utopian idealism for understanding and responding to the current climate crisis is carefully measured against the dangers of false hope in setting out realistic goals for change. Environmental change in turn is seen through the prism of recent cultural currents and movements, situating the power of a critical theory of nature in relation to understandings of the Anthropocene; concepts of apocalypse, and postapocalypse. This book culminates in a powerful tool for an anti-capitalist critique of society’s painfully extractive relationship to a deceptively abstracted natural world.

Challenging the normalization of a capitalist reality in which environmental destruction and catastrophe have become ‘second nature’, Towards a Critical Theory of Nature offers a bold new theoretical understanding of the current crisis via the work of the Frankfurt School. Focusing on key notions of dialectics, natural history, and materialism, a critical theory of nature is outlined in favor of a more traditional Marxist theory of nature, albeit one which still builds on core Marxist concepts to confirm humanity’s central place in manufacturing environmental misery. Pre-eminent thinkers of the Frankfurt school, including, Georg Lukács, Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno, and Alfred Schmidt, are highlighted for their potential to diagnose the interpenetration of capitalism and nature in a way that neither absolutizes nor obliterates the boundary between the social and natural. Further theoretical claims and practical consequences of a critical theory of nature challenge other contemporary theoretical approaches like eco-Marxism, social constructivism and new materialism, to situate it as the only approach with genuinely radical potential. The possibility of utopian idealism for understanding and responding to the current climate crisis is carefully measured against the dangers of false hope in setting out realistic goals for change. Environmental change in turn is seen through the prism of recent cultural currents and movements, situating the power of a critical theory of nature in relation to understandings of the Anthropocene; concepts of apocalypse, and postapocalypse. This book culminates in a powerful tool for an anti-capitalist critique of society’s painfully extractive relationship to a deceptively abstracted natural world.

This study introduces the concepts of naturalization and naturalized modernity, and uses them as tools for understanding the way modernity has been experienced and portrayed in Japanese literature since the end of the Second World War. Special emphasis is given to four leading post-war writers – Kawabata Yasunari, Abe Kobo, Murakami Haruki and Murakami Ryu. The author argues that notions of ‘shock’ in modern city life in Japan (as exemplified in the writings of Walter Benjamin and George Simmel), while present in the work of older Japanese writers, do not appear to hold true in much contemporary Japanese literature: it is as if the ‘shock’ impact of change has evolved as a ‘naturalized’ or ‘Japanized’ process. The author focuses on the implications of this phenomenon, both in the context of the theory of modernity and as an opportunity to reevaluate the works of his chosen writers.

This book analyses how the environmental movement has developed three overarching narratives that co-exist and compete within it.

This volume provides a detailed study and assessment of social movements among young Japanese from the late 1980s until the present day. Discussing anti-war mobilizations, freeter unions, artists in the homeless movement, campus protest, anti-nuclear protest and activists engaged in support for social withdrawers, the author documents how new forms of activism developed hand-in-hand with experiments in using alternative spaces outside mainstream public areas and a struggle with the traumatic legacy of the failure of earlier protest movements. Despite the relative absence of open protest during much of the 1990s, the author demonstrates that this was an important preparatory period, full of experimentation, in which the foundations for today’s protest movements were laid. This book will be welcomed by students of sociological theory relating to Japan as well as those studying the trends and dynamics of contemporary ‘post-Bubble’ Japanese society.

Hur kan det komma sig att miljörörelsen så fullständigt har misslyckats i sina försök att hejda ödeläggelsen av planeten och dess atmosfär? Denna fråga är utgångspunkten för Carl Cassegårds och Håkan Thörns undersökning av miljörörelsens ”långa historia”, "I apokalypsens skugga". Författarna visar hur det moderna industrisamhället har skapat förutsättningar för en aktiv miljörörelse och samtidigt begränsat dess handlingsutrymme. I fokus står Sverige och Japan, två länder som har tillskrivits ledande roller i industrikapitalismens utveckling och som på olika sätt utmärkt sig på både miljöförstöringens och miljöpolitikens områden. I ett antal närstudier belyser författarna de omständigheter, maktförhållanden och intressen som bidragit till att forma motståndet mot miljöförstöring, skogsskövling och andra former av exploatering i de båda länderna. Boken diskuterar också miljörörelsens förutsättningar och handlingsutrymme i ett mer övergripande perspektiv. För trots framgångar för miljöarbetet i form av nationell miljölagstiftning och internationell miljöpolitik befinner vi oss i en allt allvarligare klimat- och miljökris. Fortsatt massmobilisering är en förutsättning för att vi ska kunna hantera denna kris och på samma gång säkra och utveckla den moderna demokratin på ett sätt som värnar de fattigaste och mest sårbara. Kunskaper om miljörörelsens historia är i det sammanhanget en resurs för att – i ljuset av tidigare erfarenheter – utveckla nya perspektiv och former för handling. Carl Cassegård och Håkan Thörn är båda professorer i sociologi vid Göteborgs universitet. De har tillsammans publicerat böckerna "Postapocalyptic Environmentalism" (2022) och "Climate Action in a Globalizing World" (2017). Cassegård har tidigare bland annat publicerat "Toward a Critical Theory of Nature" (2021) och "Youth Movements, Trauma, and Alternative Space in Contemporary Japan" (2014). Till Thörns böcker på svenska hör "1968: Revolutionens rytmer" (2018) och "Stad i rörelse" (2013).