New Books Network Heather Davis, "Plastic Matter" (Duke UP, 2022)
Nov 23, 2025
Heather Davis, Assistant Professor at the New School and author of 'Plastic Matter,' dives deep into the cultural and political implications of plastic in our lives. She shares her family's connection to DuPont and how plastics have influenced domestic environments. Davis presents 'plastic matter' as a concept illustrating our relationship with manipulable materials. She argues that plastic pollution manifests colonial legacies, critiques apocalyptic narratives for evading accountability, and explores the intersections of queer theory and ecological responsibility.
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Milk Bag Family Story
- Heather Davis describes her grandfather, a DuPont chemical engineer, who helped develop the plastic milk bag and tested prototypes with her grandmother.
- She uses this family story to show how industry shaped everyday plastic objects and erased women's labor in design.
Plastic Matter As A Worldview
- "Plastic matter" names a recursive relation where the world is imagined as pliable and manipulable, a precondition for plastics' rise.
- Davis links molecular engineering and Western philosophical assumptions to a broader cultural claim that matter should conform to human desires.
Pollution As Colonial Practice
- Davis argues plastic pollution functions like colonialism because settler access to land enables dispossession and toxic dumping.
- Plastic's synthetic universality erases place and labor, revealing petrocapitalism's racial and colonial violences.
