Hot off the press: 'Dismay, dissembly and geocide: Ways through the maze of Trumpist geopolitics'

Several months ago, I had the pleasure of being invited to write a short piece for a review forum in Law and Critique on Kyle McGee's new book Heathen Earth: Trumpism and Political Ecology.

The other contributions are now online, along with Kyle's own introduction:

Introduction: Law Between Two Vertigos, Kyle McGee
The Denier-in-Chief: Climate Change, Science and the Election of Donald J. Trump, Kari De Pryck and François Gemenne
Earthbound Law: The Force of an Indigenous Australian Institution, Stephen Muecke
Trumpism and Being in Worlds that Fall Between Worlds, Lilian Moncrieff

My own piece seems to have gotten jammed in the cogs of Springer's editorial bureaucracy, hopefully to be dislodged some time soon. However, I've uploaded a pre-print and will re-advertise the situation once the finalised version emerges.

So, 'hot off the pre-press,' then: Dismay, dissembly and geocide: Ways through the maze of Trumpist geopolitics

[Update 23/06/17: The full and final version is out now in open access.]

The short of it is that Heathen Earth is excellent and well worth a read for anyone concerned with issues of political ecology, the politics of climate and earth systems, the Anthropocene, the tawdry dementedness of he-who-shall-remain-nameless and so on, particularly (although by no means exclusively) in relation to law.

However, my piece is not really a review as such. Rather, it take Kyle's provocative postulates as a spur for my own worries, musings and therapeutic rhetorical splurges.

All in all, very pleased to have been involved!

Kyle McGee's 'Bruno Latour: The Normativity of Networks'

I'm currently reading the above.  I had to order it on inter-library loan (all the way from Scotland; thanks University of Glasgow!) as it's only available in hardback and for an utterly stupid price.  I hope it comes out in paperback soon; it's really very good.

For a start it's easily the best introduction to Latour's work I've read.  It is right up to date, including a discussion of the modes of existence project but that's not its only quality – it's written with stunning clarity, has absolutely no wasted words and is just generally very fluid and readable while at the same time being impeccably precise.  It comes as no surprise that the author is a practicing lawyer as well as being a legal philosopher!

I'm yet to get deep into the philosophy of law part so I'll reserve judgement on that for now.  But, based on early impressions, I highly recommend it to anyone wanting an introduction to Latour's work in general and, of course, anyone interested in socio-legal studies or anything of the sort should get their hands on it if they possibly can.

There are three extracts from the book on the AIME website (registration required):
The co-presence of [pol] and [law]
The ontology of lawyer jokes
Legal reasoning as de-stratification

I may write a (somewhat) more substantial review when I've finished the book.