Alexander M Stoner
Alexander M. Stoner is Associate Professor of Sociology and Department Head, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, at Northern Michigan University. His primary areas of research expertise are Environmental Sociology, Social Theory, and Political Economy. Dr. Stoner’s research examines the relationship between capitalism and the natural environment, and the linkages between political-economic drivers of environmental problems and societal responses to these problems. The scope of his work ranges from the development of an environmental critical theory to the social-psychologically embodied consequences of the environment-society relationship for individuals and the moral and ethical implications involved. Dr. Stoner’s research has been published in journals such as Critical Sociology, Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Ecological Economics, Capitalism, Nature, Socialism and the Journal of World-Systems Research. His book (co-authored with Andony Melathopoulos), Freedom in the Anthropocene: Twentieth-Century Helplessness in the Face of Climate Change, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015. His current research brings together the critique of political economy with insights from classical critical theory (e.g., Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse) to address the crisis of global climate change.
Supervisors: Harry F. Dahms and R. Scott Frey
Address: http://www.alexanderstoner.org
https://nmu.edu/sociologyandanthropology/faculty-and-staff
Supervisors: Harry F. Dahms and R. Scott Frey
Address: http://www.alexanderstoner.org
https://nmu.edu/sociologyandanthropology/faculty-and-staff
less
Related Authors
InterestsView All (22)
Uploads
Books by Alexander M Stoner
While it is clear that the Holocene/Anthropocene transition marks the unprecedented transformation of human societies, scholars have not been able to account for what this transition entails, how it could give rise to our current ecological predicament, and how we might plausibly move beyond it. Without such an understanding, we are left with an inadequate analysis that creates the condition for ill-informed policy decisions and a self-sustaining cycle of unsuccessful attempts to ameliorate societally induced environmental degradation. Freedom in the Anthropocene illuminates our current ecological predicament by focusing on the issue of history and freedom and how it relates to our current inability to render environmental threats and degradation recognizable, and by extension, subject to its conscious and free overcoming by society. Working through the writings of three twentieth century critical theorists (Lukács, Adorno, and Postone), the authors argue that the idea of the Anthropocene is a historically specific reflection of helplessness, which only becomes possible at the close of the twentieth century.
ENDORSEMENTS:
“Freedom in the Anthropocene is a very sharply perceptive book. The authors’ clear and well-constructed argument provides just what a contemporary critical theory should. Their fresh way of understanding the Anthropocene should be read by anyone interested in opposing the juggernaut of the Great Acceleration, and particularly those who think that ‘environmentalism’ is sufficient to that task.” - Andrew Biro, Acadia University, Canada, author of Denaturalizing Ecological Politics (2005) and Critical Ecologies: The Frankfurt School and Contemporary Environmental Crises (2011)
“Stoner and Melathopoulos’s book highlights the urgent need to situate climate change and related environmental issues and phenomena in the context of rigorous critical social theory. The challenge of ethically sound action geared towards ‘saving the planet’ (and, by implication, humanity) must be understood in light of – and in relation to – structural circumstances that thwart solutions to problems identified in the debate about the Anthropocene, on the basis of conscientious individual actions and decisions.” - Harry F. Dahms, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA, author of The Vitality of Critical Theory (2011)
Papers by Alexander M Stoner
While it is clear that the Holocene/Anthropocene transition marks the unprecedented transformation of human societies, scholars have not been able to account for what this transition entails, how it could give rise to our current ecological predicament, and how we might plausibly move beyond it. Without such an understanding, we are left with an inadequate analysis that creates the condition for ill-informed policy decisions and a self-sustaining cycle of unsuccessful attempts to ameliorate societally induced environmental degradation. Freedom in the Anthropocene illuminates our current ecological predicament by focusing on the issue of history and freedom and how it relates to our current inability to render environmental threats and degradation recognizable, and by extension, subject to its conscious and free overcoming by society. Working through the writings of three twentieth century critical theorists (Lukács, Adorno, and Postone), the authors argue that the idea of the Anthropocene is a historically specific reflection of helplessness, which only becomes possible at the close of the twentieth century.
ENDORSEMENTS:
“Freedom in the Anthropocene is a very sharply perceptive book. The authors’ clear and well-constructed argument provides just what a contemporary critical theory should. Their fresh way of understanding the Anthropocene should be read by anyone interested in opposing the juggernaut of the Great Acceleration, and particularly those who think that ‘environmentalism’ is sufficient to that task.” - Andrew Biro, Acadia University, Canada, author of Denaturalizing Ecological Politics (2005) and Critical Ecologies: The Frankfurt School and Contemporary Environmental Crises (2011)
“Stoner and Melathopoulos’s book highlights the urgent need to situate climate change and related environmental issues and phenomena in the context of rigorous critical social theory. The challenge of ethically sound action geared towards ‘saving the planet’ (and, by implication, humanity) must be understood in light of – and in relation to – structural circumstances that thwart solutions to problems identified in the debate about the Anthropocene, on the basis of conscientious individual actions and decisions.” - Harry F. Dahms, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA, author of The Vitality of Critical Theory (2011)