José Luis Romanillos, Speculative Earth: Geophilosophy and Ancient Geographical Thought – Edinburgh University Press, November 2026

See also his open access article ‘Geography and the Classics?‘ in Progress in Human Geography.

Develops a materialist history of philosophical conceptions of ‘earth’ in Greek thought

• Provides a cross-disciplinary engagement with geography, European philosophy, classics and cultural history
• Situates ancient Greek and premodern conceptions of ‘earth’ in the context of materialist histories of the longue durée
• Makes use of philosophical resources from Hegel, Heidegger and Husserl to Bataille, Freud and Sloterdijk to re-animate the archive of ancient geographical thought
• Develops critical readings of landmark figures and texts in the history and philosophy of geographical thought, including: Clarence Glacken, David Livingstone, Denis Cosgrove, David Harvey, Stuart Elden and Veronica della Dora
• Challenges the use of geometry by classicists and geographers to narrate the ‘origins’ of philosophy and geography, and questions the tendency towards geometrism in the history of geographical thought

What sorts of philosophical ideas, images and histories lie coiled in the prefix ‘geo’?

José Luis Romanillos turns to the archive of Greek philosophy, geography and religion to show how existential concern with the environment is not simply a modern preoccupation but a geographical theme of the longue durée.

Romanillos proposes a new kind of geophilosophy, one orientated towards understanding the ideas, beliefs and material practices that shaped ancient understandings of the earth. Engaging with a range of philosophical resources, from Hegel and Deleuze to Bataille and Sloterdijk, he explores the conceptual history of the prefix and develops a materialist reading of the physiological registers of earth in Greek thought.