The ECPR selected my book No Other Planet for the shortlist for the Onora O’Neill Prize 2026. This new prize is awarded to the best book published in political theory in the last three years.
Category: News and Events
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Full Special Issue in the EJST
All our papers are now out “in print” and openly accessible:
12356 {12356:5VVHBBIB},{12356:6XSUIBW9},{12356:Y725RAXN},{12356:GPDZUB54},{12356:GJ2RE5Z7},{12356:FBIJJC2P},{12356:RPM45ZKP},{12356:6MJ6FTYV},{12356:F4M8RXCD} 1 chicago-fullnote-bibliography 50 default 1908 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Kimberly. “Forever Failing: Feminist Practices of Peace in War/Violence.” European Journal of Social Theory 29, no. 3 (August 1, 2026): 526–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310251379197.Coward, Martin, and Debbie Lisle. “Irretrievable Failure: Life in the Ruins of Utopian Dreaming.” European Journal of Social Theory 29, no. 3 (August 1, 2026): 507–25. https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310251379196.Davis, Laurence. “Revolutionary Failure and Utopia: William Morris and the Paris Commune.” European Journal of Social Theory 29, no. 3 (August 1, 2026): 483–506. https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310251391541.Sande, Mathijs van de. “Extra/Ordinary Moments: Utopia, Everyday Life and the Method of Transduction.” European Journal of Social Theory 29, no. 3 (August 1, 2026): 465–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310261416849.Mrovlje, Maša. “‘Fail Better’: Utopia, Rosa Luxemburg, and Learning from Failure.” European Journal of Social Theory 29, no. 3 (August 1, 2026): 447–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310251379194.Swain, Dan. “Disaster Utopia and the State: Success, Failure and the Fear of Co-Option.” European Journal of Social Theory 29, no. 3 (August 1, 2026): 426–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310251379192.Renz, Flora. “Disability, Chronic Illness and COVID-19: Creating Criptopias in the Wake of a Global Pandemic.” European Journal of Social Theory 29, no. 3 (August 1, 2026): 407–25. https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310251379193.Garforth, Lisa. “Climate and Failure: For a Weak Utopianism.” European Journal of Social Theory 29, no. 3 (August 1, 2026): 389–406. https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310251392829.Thaler, Mathias, Davina Cooper, and Ruth Houghton. “Utopia and Failure: A Complex Relationship.” European Journal of Social Theory 29, no. 3 (August 1, 2026): 373–88. https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310261452967. -
Special Issue (EJST) Intro Now Out in Print
Check it out here:
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Intro to Special Issue
The introduction to our Special Issue for the European Journal of Social Theory is now online first:
Thaler, Mathias, Davina Cooper, and Ruth Houghton. “Utopia and Failure: A Complex Relationship.” European Journal of Social Theory, ahead of print, June 2, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310261452967.
This is the final ouput of our AHRC Research Networking grant.
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Visiting Professor at the EHESS
In May and June 2026, I am a Visiting Professor at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, giving four lectures based on my ongoing book project (The Anthropocene Interregnum).
I will be based at the Institut Jean Nicod of the the École Normale Supérieure.
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Book contract
I have just signed a book contract with Oxford University Press to publish my new manuscript, tentatively entitled The Anthropocene Interregnum.
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Paper now out in print
My paper on Kierkegaard, repetition and the climate crisis is now out in print in Political Theory. You can find the open access version here:
“Repetition in Action: Søren Kierkegaard and the Problem of Human Agency in the Anthropocene.” Political Theory 54 (2): 238–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/00905917251398784.
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New Paper in Political Studies
My new paper, which grew out of my inaugural lecture in Edinburgh, has now appeared online first in Political Studies (open access).
Thaler, Mathias. “Transition or Interregnum? Two Ways of Understanding Politics in the Anthropocene.” Political Studies, ahead of print, January 22, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217251410748.
Abstract
In our times, talk of ‘transitioning’ to a world without fossil fuels has become pervasive. Despite its prevalence in environmental politics, this article argues that it is counterproductive to envisage the current conjuncture through the prism of a transition. I defend this claim by first outlining three respects in which the transition paradigm falls short: political corruptibility, historical inadequacy and conceptual confusion. Rather than recuperate the meaning of transitioning for progressive purposes, the constructive part of the article then asks which analytical framework should take its place. My proposal is to take inspiration from Antonio Gramsci’s notion of an interregnum to illuminate the distinctive political challenges of the Anthropocene. Gramsci’s conceptual apparatus foregrounds the fundamental openness of the future and thus facilitates a better understanding of various ‘morbid symptoms’, whose proliferation today can only be explained through a theoretical approach that combines attention to both individual well-being and social pathologies.
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Short piece in Current History
The journal Current History has just published a short piece of mine on climate pessimism:
Thaler, Mathias. “For a Fearless, Stirring, and Loving Climate Pessimism.” Current History 125, no. 867 (2026): 35–37. https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.2026.125.867.35.
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New Paper in Political Theory
My new paper on Kierkegaard and the Anthropocene has just been published (online first) in Political Theory. The abstract is below and the paper can be accessed openly here:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00905917251398784
Abstract
One of the most perplexing aspects of life on a climate-changed planet concerns the status of human action. As Donna Haraway observes, we appear to be stuck between a rock and a hard place: On the one hand, there is the “position that the game is over, it’s too late, there’s no sense trying to make anything any better,” and on the other side, we encounter “the comic faith in technofixes.” In this paper, my goal is to investigate how we might overcome this persistent stalemate and recover a type of action that is properly adjusted to the exigencies of the climate emergency. Building on Sharon Krause’s re-conceptualization of nonsovereign, normatively inflected agency, I shall demonstrate that a critical turn to Søren Kierkegaard’s discussion of repetition provides valuable resources for precisely such an endeavor. “Repetition” here means, surprisingly, the complete opposite of business as usual. Rather, Kierkegaard’s thoughts reveal a mode of acting that allows us to get the world back at the very moment when all seems lost. Paradoxically, this only becomes an option once an agent forsakes the pretense of control and mastery over their environment. The paper suggests that this complex notion of agency, and the attendant conception of existential attunement (via faith, resignation, hope, and anxiety), is best suited for navigating the disconcerting reality of the Anthropocene.
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