Can a Plant Write? Plant-based Criticism in the Age of the Extinction of Theory

Abstract

This article problematizes the vegetalist tone adopted recently in literary criticism and in some debates in contemporary philosophical thought. By assuming the epistemological procedure of thinking non-human lifeforms, plant-sensitive writing questions the correlation between thought and climate crisis, since it asks how to continue thinking critically in a context of ecological devastation. The hypothesis of the article is that plant-sensitive writing is an attempt to escape the modern concept of nature anchored to the general framework of modern literature and, by extension, the assertion of a type of extinction writing in a context of extinction theory. Thus, the article is divided into two parts. The first part discusses the theoretical yield of plant-sensitive writing and analyses the critical conditions for subscribing to an American phytoaesthetic. The second part postulates the notion of plant criticism as a form of theoretical practice charged with describing lesser forms of life for Western metaphysics and, therefore, the revitalization of the plant and sensory dimension of thought. The conclusion of the article is that plant-sensitive writing leads towards the mystery of human rationality —aesthesis— and, thus, constitutes the first sensitive expression of human habitation.