Envisioning the Good LifeThe Limits of Contemporary Vitalism

A new vision of the good life as collective transformation against the fragmentation of contemporary life

• A powerful criticism of contemporary vitalist understandings of life as excess
• An alternative idea of life as integrated into the totality of society and nature
• A wide-ranging map of theoretical and philosophical notions of life in the present moment
• A new argument for the collective transformation of the world, rather than a mythic transfiguration that flees the world

Envisioning the Good Life is a call to re-imagine our lives beyond the limits of recent understandings. While contemporary thinkers of life have promoted a vision of life as excess to escape the crises that beset the present, these vitalist visions leave life detached from reality and fragmented. Contemporary vitalism imagines life as excessive, savage life, as damaged life that flees power, and as redeemed life that forms a new dispersed community. While exploring these visions of life, this book argues for an integrated understanding of the good life. Reading against the limits of the current imaginary, Envisioning the Good Life suggests that our lives are not defined by the limits of illness, death, and finitude. This book urges us to rediscover the vision of the good life in the collective and to grasp our own powers to transform our lives and the world.