Joyful Extinction

In the face of our increasingly nihilistic attitude towards the current polycrisis, this bookproposes a radically hopeful perspective, arguing that futures are possible if we embrace the joyful extinction of damaging humanist ways of living.

In the face of our pervasively nihilistic attitude towards the present polycrisis, Joyful Extinction proposes a radically hopeful perspective, arguing that futures are possible if we gladly embrace the extinction of damaging humanist ways of living.

Taking a posthumanist and material feminist approach to the social, political, economics and existential crises in which we are embroiled, Christine Daigle foregrounds the fundamental entanglement - material and subjective - of all beings. From the concept of the Anthropocene as post-apocalyptic discourse, to an examination of extinction, and an inquiry into the life/death continuum, these reflections on individual and collective death demonstrate the importance of 'storying' extinction. The result is the original concept of 'joyful extinction' – a vision of the acceptance of death that, nevertheless, doesn't see the end of the human species just yet. Daigle argues that as instances of life, humans have one last chance to dramatically change their course: only this will allow for futures to unfold, with a reworlding fuelled by hope.

As well as chapters on entanglement, extinction and the Anthropocene, the book contains a collection of 'meanderings' that take reflections and experiences from the author’s own life to illustrate the theoretical perspectives discussed.