The Immanence of a Crisis

The very notion of crisis in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, widespread social unrest, economic instability, and worsening climate change seems almost mundane. Combining rigorous philosophical analysis with literary expressionism, The Immanence of a Crisis rethinks the idea of calamity to explore how human beings collectively resist and adapt to the external conditions imposed on them.

Challenging the conventional pathological standpoint that views crises as singular episodes, each with a locatable and decisive cause, The Immanence of a Crisis frames its subject as a multiplicity of overlapping events that are shaped by both natural and artificial forces. Drawing on a diverse range of thinkers such as Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Alfred North Whitehead, Gilles Deleuze, and Michel Foucault, Gregg Lambert offers timely philosophical reflections on how to contend with the many existential challenges we face in a rapidly changing world.

Concluding what the author calls a “four-part trilogy” on Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, this work demonstrates how modern governance seeks to justify its power by embedding populations in a state of perpetual emergency. By refusing the idea of a return to normal, The Immanence of a Crisis instead theorizes how we might redeem the present moment and develop new forms of resilience amidst what is now a permanent and pervasive condition of crisis.

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