Speculative Ecology: The Challenge of Aesthetics in an Era of Fundamentalism

Claire Colebrook
Speculative Ecology: The Challenge of Aesthetics in an Era of Fundamentalism
Outbound: Essays in Circulation

Speculative Ecology: The Challenge of Aesthetics in an Era of Fundamentalism is a new essay by philosopher Claire Colebrook. Published in dialogue with the exhibition Syncretic Wilds: Phasmahammer and Natasha Tontey, it reopens ecology as a speculative question, challenging the assumption that nature, environment and humanity provide self-evident foundations for politics and ethics. Against contemporary forms of ecological and political fundamentalism, Colebrook argues for worlds in which identities, environments and futures remain open to transformation.

Outbound: Essays in Circulation is a new annual series co-published by Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) and Perimeter Editions. Each volume begins with an exhibition and moves outward, circulating thought beyond the gallery. The series creates space for forms of research and writing that extend beyond the interpretive and documentary functions often associated with exhibition publishing.

Taking MUMA's exhibitions as points of departure, each volume explores the broader social, cultural, political and philosophical questions they open up, carrying these into urgent contemporary debates. Grounded in the perspectives and conditions of Australia and the Asia–Pacific, the series positions MUMA and its collaborators within live international conversations in contemporary art and critical theory.

These books are made to travel: to be carried, read in transit and returned to long after the exhibition has closed. Outbound expands the conceptual horizons of MUMA's exhibitions by advancing disruptive, prescient and precise arguments, affirming the museum as a site where art and ideas are not only presented but actively produced.

Claire Colebrook is Cecile Parrish Memorial Chair of English Literature at Monash University. She has published extensively on contemporary European philosophy, literary theory, gender studies, queer theory, visual culture and feminist philosophy. Her most recent book is Who Would You Kill to Save the World? (2023).

104 pages, 19.8 x 12.9 cm, cold-glue perfect bound, softcover, B&W
Author: Claire Colebrook
Editors: Stephanie Berlangieri and Rebecca Coates
Contributing Editor: Dan Rule
Designers: Duncan Blachford and James Vinciguerra
Copyeditor: Linda Michael
Proofreader: Olga Bennett
Edition: 1000
Year: 2026
ISBN: 978-1-922545-73-2
Published by: Monash University Museum of Art and Perimeter Editions, Naarm/Melbourne