Tom Cohen

Twilight of the Anthropocene Idols collects a preface and three long essays on the Anthropocene from literary theorists Clare Colebrook, Tom Cohen and J. Hillis Miller. The book is part of the Critical Climate Change series published by the Open Humanities Press, who allow you to freely download the book in PDF format from their website, or they will sell you this (cheaply printed) paperback copy.

This is an explicitly philosophical treatise on the implications of the Anthropocene for the humanities, largely drawing on and rethinking the work of Nietzsche and Paul De Man, as well as Derrida, Levinas and other poststructuralist thinkers, in the light of climate change. The clearest and most concisely written section of the book is the Preface, co-authored by Colebrook and Cohen, which plainly sets out the stakes of the Anthropocene for humanism, philosophy and the humanities in general. The subsequent chapters are useful and enlightening but occasionally uneven in their argumentation and, in the case of Cohen’s chapter, written with a kind of nihilistic bravado and unnecessary obscurantism that grates after fifty pages. That said, there are many important ideas here and it represents a significant volume of work in the quickly expanding field of Anthropocene Studies. Pretty much essential reading for scholars in the field of ecocriticism and/or literary theory.… (altro)