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John Peter Antonacci

Binghamton University, Sociology, Graduate Student

St. Joseph's College, Sociology, Undergraduate

New School for Social Research, Sociology, Graduate Student

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John Peter Antonacci is a PhD Candidate (ABD) at SUNY Binghamton’s Department of Sociology, where he studies and teaches world-ecology, military sociology, and environmental history. His dissertation, tentatively titled "Climates of Coercion, Climates of Capital: Military Revolutions in the Capitalist World-Ecology, 1492-1815," situates military revolutions as turning points in the environmental history of early modern capitalism. Chapter themes center on the Columbian Invasions of the Long Sixteenth Century, European Invasions of Ming China & the Ottoman Empire during the Crisis of the Seventeenth Century, the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) in North America, and the French Revolutionary/Napoleonic Wars (1789-1815.)

He is also currently working on a longue durée world- history of Blue Point Oyster production on Long Island, from Indigenous oyster harvesting, primitive settler accumulation, to industrial and post industrial production of oysters with Kirk S. Lawrence (SJUNY.)

He holds a B.A. in Sociology and Philosophy from St. Joseph's College, New York, and an M.A. in Sociology from the New School for Social Research in New York.
As of Fall 2019, I am pursuing my PhD in Sociology at Binghamton University.
Supervisors: Jason W. Moore, Ravi Palat, and John T. Wing

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Publications by John Peter Antonacci

Profit, Power, and Planetary Justice: Opportunities for World-Ecology and Political Ecology

Grassroots: Journal of Political Ecology, 2024

The world-ecology and political ecology perspectives employ complementary conceptual apparatuses ... more The world-ecology and political ecology perspectives employ complementary conceptual apparatuses and share congruent political concerns. As such, they have much to learn from each other. This article will begin by reflecting on the crisis of the contemporary juncture, arguing that we must employ a body of concepts that can tackle interlinked problems of power, profit, and planetary justice. The article will then briefly introduce the world-ecology perspective, an ongoing set of conversations of relevance to political ecologists. Finally, the article will conclude by outlining opportunities for world-ecologists and political ecologists to engage in dialogue on sets of problems relevant to their shared project, with the aim of charting out opportunities for further collaboration.

Green Großraum: Carl Schmitt's political ecology of space

Nordia Geographical Publications, 2023

How scholars conceptualize the driving forces of planetary crisis is intimately connected to how ... more How scholars conceptualize the driving forces of planetary crisis is intimately connected to how they conceptualize solutions to it. Recent scholarship has drawn on the work of Carl Schmitt, Nazi jurist and political philosopher, to articulate concepts in political ecology. These works of political ecology, however, do not engage with the problematic political history of the work and concepts developed by Schmitt. This article asks: what kinds of assumptions do we adopt when deploying Schmitt's geographical, political, and ecological conceptual apparati? First, the article draws on the work of Minca and Rowan (2015, 2016) and Giaccaria and Minca (2016) to argue that Schmitt's thought is geographical, that Nazi geographical thought was intimately tied to geographies of conquest on the part of the Nazis. It argues that Schmitt's concept of Großraum or "greater space/ sphere of influence" is bound up with Schmitt's and the Nazi's politics of an ethnically/ racially motivated politics of "Friend versus Enemy." The article then evaluates Schmitt's concept of the political and considers its implications in relation to the environmental crisis of contemporary conjuncture, arguing that Schmitt's amorphous conceptualization of the political allows the distinction between friend and enemy to be left open to interpretation, making it possible for both intellectuals and green political parties to articulate xenophobic and reactionary political positions in environmental terms.

Good Science, Bad Climate, Big Lies: Climate, Class & Ideology in the Capitalocene

Working Papers in World-Ecology (1), 2023

Anthropogenic phraseology serves double duty for much of the Green Left. It works descriptively, ... more Anthropogenic phraseology serves double duty for much of the Green Left. It works descriptively, advancing a naïve empiricism. To the degree that a philosophical an-thropology is offered, we are served up a philosophy of history that turns on a self-referential, even tautological, conception of human nature: “The struggle for freedom represents the inner-human need to be free in terms of self-activity and human development.” For Marx, as we’ll show, the struggle for freedom is neither limited to humans – “the creatures, too, must become free” – nor does it derive from an “inner-human need.” In contrast, Marx underlines that the relational essence of “human need” is “outside itself.” That relational essence of human experience is grounded in “modes of life” that are irreducible to the interaction (collision) of acting units: human groups and ecosystem units. Rather, these must be grasped through an underlying labor-metabolic relation. Thus: “labor created man.” Through the metabolic labor process, historical man’s conditions of possibility emerge, entwining a “physical life-process” and a “historical life-process.” Modes of life and modes of production are constituted through social relations of environment-making within environments that are once, and unevenly, producers and products of those social relations. At the same time, given geographical conditions – Marx and Engels call them “natural bases” – necessarily exceed the narrow confines of a particular mode of production.

Periodizing the Capitalocene as Polemocene: Militarized Ecologies of Accumulation in the Long Sixteenth Century

Journal of World- Systems Research, 2021

Lewis and Maslin explore geological markers for the beginning of the "Anthropocene"-beginning, in... more Lewis and Maslin explore geological markers for the beginning of the "Anthropocene"-beginning, in their periodization, in either 1492 (naming the birth of capitalism as the cause of planetary crisis) or 1945 (naming elitedriven militarization as its cause). In this essay, I argue for a synthesis of these two dynamics, locating both the birth of capitalism and a transformation of elite-driven militarization in the conquest of the New World during the Long Sixteenth Century. As such, I propose narrating planetary history through a "capitalocene as polemocene," "the age of capital as an age of war" framework.

"Embeddedness" in the Federal Reserve Comic Books: An Inquiry Into the Ideological Constructions of the Social

Public Seminar, 2019

Three comic books on the Federal Reserve’s website claim to teach students “basic economic princi... more

The Uneven Ecological Developments of a Bivalve: Oyster Production in the Long Twentieth Century

December 10, 2018

Pgs. 18-20 of PEWSNews Fall 2018

Books & Articles by John Peter Antonacci

Good Science, Bad Climate, Big Lies: Climate, Class & Ideology in the Capitalocene

by Jason W. Moore and John Peter Antonacci

Working Papers in World-Ecology 1 (2023), 2023

Anthropogenic phraseology serves double duty for much of the Green Left. It works descriptively, ... more Anthropogenic phraseology serves double duty for much of the Green Left. It works descriptively, advancing a naïve empiricism. To the degree that a philosophical an-thropology is offered, we are served up a philosophy of history that turns on a self-referential, even tautological, conception of human nature: “The struggle for freedom represents the inner-human need to be free in terms of self-activity and human development.” For Marx, as we’ll show, the struggle for freedom is neither limited to humans – “the creatures, too, must become free” – nor does it derive from an “inner-human need.” In contrast, Marx underlines that the relational essence of “human need” is “outside itself.” That relational essence of human experience is grounded in “modes of life” that are irreducible to the interaction (collision) of acting units: human groups and ecosystem units. Rather, these must be grasped through an underlying labor-metabolic relation. Thus: “labor created man.” Through the metabolic labor process, historical man’s conditions of possibility emerge, entwining a “physical life-process” and a “historical life-process.” Modes of life and modes of production are constituted through social relations of environment-making within environments that are once, and unevenly, producers and products of those social relations. At the same time, given geographical conditions – Marx and Engels call them “natural bases” – necessarily exceed the narrow confines of a particular mode of production.

Interviews by John Peter Antonacci

Environmental Ideologies Map: Capitalism

by John Peter Antonacci and Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta

http://eidmap.commedia.wiki/#/, 2023

My contribution, in the form of an interview, to the Environmental Ideologies Map developed by Ge... more My contribution, in the form of an interview, to the Environmental Ideologies Map developed by Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta at the Mistra Environmental Communication Research Programme. Capitalism as a mode of production and reproduction of life.

The map can be accessed at http://eidmap.commedia.wiki/#/

Drafts by John Peter Antonacci

Irish Socialism and the Easter Rising Through the Writings of James Connolly

A term paper written for Dr. Andrew Arato's GSOC 6198 Socialism: Its Past and Future course at NS... more

The Relevance of Classical Sociological Theory

A debate within the academic sociological community has arisen, over the importance and relevance... more A debate within the academic sociological community has arisen, over the importance and relevance of learning and discussing classical sociological theory. Are theories written over a century ago, before the end of the First World War, still relevant to our understanding of the social world? Can dated views, conceptualized in a completely different day and age, still pertain to our world, so far removed from the days of the German Empire and American Isolationism, the dawn of mechanical flight, and the battles for women' suffrage? The issue is still one of relevance and debate in today's sociological conversation.

Profit, Power, and Planetary Justice: Opportunities for World-Ecology and Political Ecology

Grassroots: Journal of Political Ecology, 2024

The world-ecology and political ecology perspectives employ complementary conceptual apparatuses ... more The world-ecology and political ecology perspectives employ complementary conceptual apparatuses and share congruent political concerns. As such, they have much to learn from each other. This article will begin by reflecting on the crisis of the contemporary juncture, arguing that we must employ a body of concepts that can tackle interlinked problems of power, profit, and planetary justice. The article will then briefly introduce the world-ecology perspective, an ongoing set of conversations of relevance to political ecologists. Finally, the article will conclude by outlining opportunities for world-ecologists and political ecologists to engage in dialogue on sets of problems relevant to their shared project, with the aim of charting out opportunities for further collaboration.

Green Großraum: Carl Schmitt's political ecology of space

Nordia Geographical Publications, 2023

How scholars conceptualize the driving forces of planetary crisis is intimately connected to how ... more How scholars conceptualize the driving forces of planetary crisis is intimately connected to how they conceptualize solutions to it. Recent scholarship has drawn on the work of Carl Schmitt, Nazi jurist and political philosopher, to articulate concepts in political ecology. These works of political ecology, however, do not engage with the problematic political history of the work and concepts developed by Schmitt. This article asks: what kinds of assumptions do we adopt when deploying Schmitt's geographical, political, and ecological conceptual apparati? First, the article draws on the work of Minca and Rowan (2015, 2016) and Giaccaria and Minca (2016) to argue that Schmitt's thought is geographical, that Nazi geographical thought was intimately tied to geographies of conquest on the part of the Nazis. It argues that Schmitt's concept of Großraum or "greater space/ sphere of influence" is bound up with Schmitt's and the Nazi's politics of an ethnically/ racially motivated politics of "Friend versus Enemy." The article then evaluates Schmitt's concept of the political and considers its implications in relation to the environmental crisis of contemporary conjuncture, arguing that Schmitt's amorphous conceptualization of the political allows the distinction between friend and enemy to be left open to interpretation, making it possible for both intellectuals and green political parties to articulate xenophobic and reactionary political positions in environmental terms.

Good Science, Bad Climate, Big Lies: Climate, Class & Ideology in the Capitalocene

Working Papers in World-Ecology (1), 2023

Anthropogenic phraseology serves double duty for much of the Green Left. It works descriptively, ... more Anthropogenic phraseology serves double duty for much of the Green Left. It works descriptively, advancing a naïve empiricism. To the degree that a philosophical an-thropology is offered, we are served up a philosophy of history that turns on a self-referential, even tautological, conception of human nature: “The struggle for freedom represents the inner-human need to be free in terms of self-activity and human development.” For Marx, as we’ll show, the struggle for freedom is neither limited to humans – “the creatures, too, must become free” – nor does it derive from an “inner-human need.” In contrast, Marx underlines that the relational essence of “human need” is “outside itself.” That relational essence of human experience is grounded in “modes of life” that are irreducible to the interaction (collision) of acting units: human groups and ecosystem units. Rather, these must be grasped through an underlying labor-metabolic relation. Thus: “labor created man.” Through the metabolic labor process, historical man’s conditions of possibility emerge, entwining a “physical life-process” and a “historical life-process.” Modes of life and modes of production are constituted through social relations of environment-making within environments that are once, and unevenly, producers and products of those social relations. At the same time, given geographical conditions – Marx and Engels call them “natural bases” – necessarily exceed the narrow confines of a particular mode of production.

Periodizing the Capitalocene as Polemocene: Militarized Ecologies of Accumulation in the Long Sixteenth Century

Journal of World- Systems Research, 2021

Lewis and Maslin explore geological markers for the beginning of the "Anthropocene"-beginning, in... more Lewis and Maslin explore geological markers for the beginning of the "Anthropocene"-beginning, in their periodization, in either 1492 (naming the birth of capitalism as the cause of planetary crisis) or 1945 (naming elitedriven militarization as its cause). In this essay, I argue for a synthesis of these two dynamics, locating both the birth of capitalism and a transformation of elite-driven militarization in the conquest of the New World during the Long Sixteenth Century. As such, I propose narrating planetary history through a "capitalocene as polemocene," "the age of capital as an age of war" framework.

"Embeddedness" in the Federal Reserve Comic Books: An Inquiry Into the Ideological Constructions of the Social

Public Seminar, 2019

Three comic books on the Federal Reserve’s website claim to teach students “basic economic princi... more

The Uneven Ecological Developments of a Bivalve: Oyster Production in the Long Twentieth Century

December 10, 2018

Pgs. 18-20 of PEWSNews Fall 2018

Good Science, Bad Climate, Big Lies: Climate, Class & Ideology in the Capitalocene

by Jason W. Moore and John Peter Antonacci

Working Papers in World-Ecology 1 (2023), 2023

Anthropogenic phraseology serves double duty for much of the Green Left. It works descriptively, ... more Anthropogenic phraseology serves double duty for much of the Green Left. It works descriptively, advancing a naïve empiricism. To the degree that a philosophical an-thropology is offered, we are served up a philosophy of history that turns on a self-referential, even tautological, conception of human nature: “The struggle for freedom represents the inner-human need to be free in terms of self-activity and human development.” For Marx, as we’ll show, the struggle for freedom is neither limited to humans – “the creatures, too, must become free” – nor does it derive from an “inner-human need.” In contrast, Marx underlines that the relational essence of “human need” is “outside itself.” That relational essence of human experience is grounded in “modes of life” that are irreducible to the interaction (collision) of acting units: human groups and ecosystem units. Rather, these must be grasped through an underlying labor-metabolic relation. Thus: “labor created man.” Through the metabolic labor process, historical man’s conditions of possibility emerge, entwining a “physical life-process” and a “historical life-process.” Modes of life and modes of production are constituted through social relations of environment-making within environments that are once, and unevenly, producers and products of those social relations. At the same time, given geographical conditions – Marx and Engels call them “natural bases” – necessarily exceed the narrow confines of a particular mode of production.

Environmental Ideologies Map: Capitalism

by John Peter Antonacci and Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta

http://eidmap.commedia.wiki/#/, 2023

My contribution, in the form of an interview, to the Environmental Ideologies Map developed by Ge... more My contribution, in the form of an interview, to the Environmental Ideologies Map developed by Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta at the Mistra Environmental Communication Research Programme. Capitalism as a mode of production and reproduction of life.

The map can be accessed at http://eidmap.commedia.wiki/#/

Irish Socialism and the Easter Rising Through the Writings of James Connolly

A term paper written for Dr. Andrew Arato's GSOC 6198 Socialism: Its Past and Future course at NS... more

The Relevance of Classical Sociological Theory

A debate within the academic sociological community has arisen, over the importance and relevance... more A debate within the academic sociological community has arisen, over the importance and relevance of learning and discussing classical sociological theory. Are theories written over a century ago, before the end of the First World War, still relevant to our understanding of the social world? Can dated views, conceptualized in a completely different day and age, still pertain to our world, so far removed from the days of the German Empire and American Isolationism, the dawn of mechanical flight, and the battles for women' suffrage? The issue is still one of relevance and debate in today's sociological conversation.