Overview
The Ethics of Extremity critically examines how we can understand, interact with, and intervene in a world where what was once considered extreme has become normalized as part of everyday life. Contributors invite us to re-examine our explicit and implicit expectations that ethics would curtail extremity—and how those assumptions have frequently failed. This opens up a central question: what is the relationship between ethics and extremity today? Rather than offering fixed solutions to this question, the chapters invite readers to rethink how ethics might respond to a world in which extremity is embedded in everyday experience. Through contributions from scholars, artists, and activists, the volume explores how extremity manifests in areas such as public health, digital media, gender violence, combat sports, and ecological collapse. Drawing on diverse methods and contexts, the book unfolds across five thematic interventions proposed by the authors for grappling with extremity today: engaging in uncomfortable forms of closeness; seeing and feeling extremity anew; reclaiming truth in a post-truth era; rethinking illegality and marginality; and using extremity as a teaching tool. Together, these offer entry points for reimagining what ethical life might look like under conditions of persistent crisis.
Full Product Details
Author: Nelson Varas-Díaz ,
Vivek Venkatesh
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Imprint: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9781666957556
ISBN 10: 1666957550
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 19 March 2026
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
This compelling collection probes ethics in extreme contexts—from participatory photography with heroin users to feminist metal pedagogy amid violence, and the unsettling terrain of eco-horror—offering vital insights for scholars of ethics, aesthetics, and social change. * Karl Spracklen, Leeds Beckett University *
This compelling collection probes ethics in extreme contexts—from participatory photography with heroin users to feminist metal pedagogy amid violence, and the unsettling terrain of eco-horror—offering vital insights for scholars of ethics, aesthetics, and social change. * Karl Spracklen, Leeds Beckett University, UK * The Ethics of Extremity is a vital and timely volume that encourages us to form new relationships with the extremes of twenty-first century life, in which media saturation and social silos have normalized all manner of political, social, and economic extremisms. The book’s chapters argue for purposeful and discomfiting engagement with the extreme as a tactic for reclaiming our ability to be shocked, navigating post-truth mediascapes, and ultimately wielding the extreme as a tool for intervention and empowerment. * Ross Hagen, Utah Valley University, USA *
This compelling collection probes ethics in extreme contexts—from participatory photography with heroin users to feminist metal pedagogy amid violence, and the unsettling terrain of eco-horror—offering vital insights for scholars of ethics, aesthetics, and social change. * Karl Spracklen, Leeds Beckett University, UK * The Ethics of Extremity is a vital and timely volume that encourages us to form new relationships with the extremes of 21st century life, in which media saturation and social silos have normalized all manner of political, social, and economic extremisms. The book’s chapters argue for purposeful and discomfiting engagement with the extreme as a tactic for reclaiming our ability to be shocked, navigating post-truth mediascapes, and ultimately wielding the extreme as a tool for intervention and empowerment. * Ross Hagen, Utah Valley University, USA *
Author Information
Nelson Varas-Díaz is Professor of Global and Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University, USA. Vivek Venkatesh is Dean of the Faculty of Education and a James McGill Professor in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University, CAN.
