Anticipatory Materialisms in Literature and Philosophy, 1790-1930

Anticipatory Materialisms explores nineteenth and early twentieth-century literature thatanticipates and pre-empts the recent philosophical 'turn' to materiality and affect. Criticalvolumes that approach literature via the prism of New Materialism are in the ascendence. Thiscollection stakes a different claim: by engaging with neglected theories of materiality in literaryand philosophical works that antedate the twenty-first century 'turn' to New Materialism andtheories of affect, the project aims to establish a dialogue between recent theoreticalconsiderations of people-world relations in literature and that which has gone before. Thisproject seeks to demonstrate the particular and meaningful ways in which interactions betweenpeople and the physical world were being considered in literature between the nineteenth andearly twentieth centuries. The project does not propose an air of finality; indeed, it is our hopethat offering provocative and challenging chapters, which approach the subject from variouscritical and thematic perspectives, the collection will establish a broader dialogue regarding theways in philosophy and literature have intersected and informed each other over the course of thelong nineteenth century.