“Jane Bennett has always been interested in reading the ecological from a political point of view and articulating an ecological politics. But this book will be a new moment in how we think about ecology and democracy. For it explains to us not only the possibility of ‘ecological democracy’ but also why a truly democratic personality must be ecological: open and attentive, susceptible to otherness, and welcoming influences. Influx & efflux is a wonderful achievement.” - Branka Arsic, author of Bird Relics: Grief and Vitalism in Thoreau
“In this remarkable book Jane Bennett shows us just why a capacious sense of influence matters so much to our efforts to shape the circumstances we find ourselves in. Generous, surprising, and beautifully illustrated, influx & efflux resounds as a compelling affirmation of the value of drawing diverse elements and agencies into new lines of thinking and feeling. This book does nothing less than shift the tone and terms of political theory, offering us a vital poetic vocabulary for making more of the world's participation in the political and ecological stances we take.” - Derek P. McCormack, author of Atmospheric Things: On the Allure of Elemental Envelopment
"Arguing for an aspirational rather than a polemical Whitman, Bennett charts a body of work generous, egalitarian, and democratic 'wherein the forces of nonhuman agencies and the ubiquity of stupendous, ethereal influences are acknowledged' (p. 116). Ultimately, she concludes that Whitman’s 'I is creative in that it alters and inflects what is taken in, taken on, taken up' (p. 117). Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty." - J. N. Barron, Choice
"Theorists who figure prominently in Bennett’s argument include Gilles Deleuze, Alfred North Whitehead, Harold Bloom, and Michel Serres. This amalgam of influences gives rise to a hybrid style of theorising that blends conventional literary analysis with philosophical and political argument. The result is an exciting and rich intervention in several fields at once." - Sean Seeger, Green Letters
“Influx and Efflux is a welcome contribution to political theory, and the thoughtful, challenging, and charming approach to things here is one that will be of benefit to any reader.” - Michael Epp, Political Theory
“This book can certainly be seen as a successful site and embodiment of influx and efflux at work; consisting of, permeated by, and contributing to a shimmering ecology of political voices, scholarly fields, and creative and literary methods.” - Rebecca Cave, Textual Practice
“The questions that Influx and Efflux raises about cultivating an egalitarian public culture are the most difficult and most central of Whitman’s time and our own.... Theorists will find in Influx and Efflux provocative explorations to engage with for years to come.” - Lisa Gilson, Perspectives on Politics
“Influx & Efflux is an excellent follow-up to Vibrant Matter.... Influx & Efflux manages no easy task: bringing out the vibrancy of Whitman’s poetry as a living political force that needs to be reckoned with in the present.” - Christian P. Haines, ALH Online Review
“[Influx and Efflux] calls the reader to respond with distinctly spiritual and artistic gestures. . . . Bennett effectively exemplifies that democracy does not come from political policies alone, but from a community that prioritizes a porosity, that allows for an influx of the world into the self, and is committed to the efflux of speaking back out and into the world of human, animal, and vibrant matter.” - Karah Lain, Religion and the Arts
"Bennett’s musings have an ethical component: if a nuisance tree, or a dead tree, or a dead rat is my kin, then everything is kin—even a piece of trash. . . . It’s strange to apply the concept of kinship to plastic gloves and bottle caps. Bennett aims to treat pretty much everything as potential kin."
- Morgan Meis, The New Yorker
