{"product_id":"vital-moments-life-matter-and-time-in-nineteenth-century-american-literature-hardcover","title":"Vital Moments: Life, Matter, and Time in Nineteenth-Century American Literature - Hardcover","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eThomas Allen\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe environmental and political crises humanity faces today have given rise to influential new theories of life, matter, and time. Vitalism, a controversial term describing the ideas of philosophers from Lucretius to Bergson, provides a common intellectual foundation linking many of the contemporary efforts to reconstruct our understanding of nonhuman agency and the place of humanity in the world. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cem\u003eVital Moments\u003c\/em\u003e argues that it is time to critically assess neovitalism's potential as a discourse of hope in light of the specific ways in which this potential has been shaped by the genealogy of vitalist perspectives. The emergence of modern vitalist representational forms in the nineteenth century was closely tied to colonialist projects of resource extraction and bioprospecting. Literary narratives linked political liberalism to a temporal structure in which life could be defined and controlled for the benefit of a privileged class. Romances of nonhuman agency idealized the democratic promise of life's plenitude even as chattel slavery and industrialization consigned many human beings to the status of things. Meanwhile, more subversive forms of vitalist narrative unsettled the hierarchy of animate and inanimate being. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThese errant vitalisms envision other modes of human being--or being human--that lend themselves to more just and equitable possibilities of existence within the world's matrix of matter and time. By tracing the transformations of vitalist representational forms from the early nineteenth century to the present, \u003cem\u003eVital Moments\u003c\/em\u003e seeks to recuperate the potential of this important perspective to help us imagine more truly democratic practices of life.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThomas Allen \u003c\/strong\u003eis Professor of English at the University of Ottawa. His research focuses on the cultural history of temporal experience, particularly as represented in American literature. He is the author of \u003cem\u003eA Republic in Time: Temporality and Social Imagination in Nineteenth-Century\u003c\/em\u003e \u003cem\u003eAmerica\u003c\/em\u003e, editor of \u003cem\u003eTime and Literature\u003c\/em\u003e, and co-editor of \u003cem\u003eMaterial Cultures in Canada\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 240\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.9 x 8.7 x 6.1 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e March 16, 2026\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43338692526169,"sku":"9780197839300","price":176.29,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0736\/6465\/9545\/files\/DhUA6EPuRh9780197839300.webp?v=1779426910","url":"https:\/\/warrenssanctuaryofthemind.myshopify.com\/fr\/products\/vital-moments-life-matter-and-time-in-nineteenth-century-american-literature-hardcover","provider":"Warren's sanctuary of the mind","version":"1.0","type":"link"}