Affect Theory Reader

Melissa Gregg works in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney in Australia. She is the author of Cultural Studies’ Affective Voices.Gregory J. Seigworth is a professor in communication and theater at Millersville University in Pennsylvania.

“The Affect Theory Reader is . . . a very valuable resource: it presents essaysin conversation in such a way as to provoke further discussion, to hone various definitions and approaches to affect. Gregg and Seigworth frame the conversations in such a way as to draw out the differences between approaches, and their substantial introduction serves as an apt survey of current work. . . . Gregg and Seigworth have assembled an impressive collection of essays and, in their introduction, certainly recognize the limits and scope of such a project. The work is impressive and will certainly catalyze further development in affect theory across disciplines.” - Russ Leo, Reviews in Cultural Theory “As the first definitive collection of essays on affect studies, The Affect Theory Reader demonstrates how the affective turn in academia has been, and continues to be felt, throughout a variety of disciplines.” - Marcie Bianco, Elevate Difference “While a reader of the book might be left less rather than more sure of what precisely constitutes ‘affect theory’, or even affect itself, s/he is nevertheless very likely to be moved by the range of both thought and affective styles that make up the volume and constitute what the editors call in the introduction, an ‘inventory of shimmers’ (p11). This incitement to ‘more than discourse’,the capacity ‘to touch, to move, to mobilise readers’ (p24) is exactly what one would hope for from a reader of affect theory, and is what the contributions that make up this collection indeed achieve.” - Michael Goddard, New Formations “The Affect Theory Reader is unique. It gathers interesting and provocative articles on affect by well-known theorists and suggestively brings to expression the productive divergence between different philosophical and psychological positions on the subject.”-Erin Manning, author of Politics of Touch: Sense, Movement, Sovereignty “Written by some of the most interesting and important thinkers in the field, the essays in this superb collection prove how any serious consideration of culture and politics needs to involve serious attention to affect. The Affect Theory Reader covers remarkable ground: from the ontology of ‘future threat’ in Bush’s preemptive politics to the management of workplace affects in the information economy; from the biology of human mimicry to attachments to promises of the ‘good life’ that often cruelly wear out economically precarious subjects. Thoughtfully curated and genuinely interdisciplinary, with contributors from fields ranging from media studies to geography, Melissa Gregg’s and Gregory J. Seigworth’s reader will be indispensable to anyone working in or adjacent to affect theory.”-Sianne Ngai, author of Ugly Feelings “The Affect Theory Reader is . . . a very valuable resource: it presents essays in conversation in such a way as to provoke further discussion, to hone various definitions and approaches to affect. Gregg and Seigworth frame the conversations in such a way as to draw out the differences between approaches, and their substantial introduction serves as an apt survey of current work. . . . Gregg and Seigworth have assembled an impressive collection of essays and, in their introduction, certainly recognize the limits and scope of such a project. The work is impressive and will certainly catalyze further development in affect theory across disciplines.” - Russ Leo (Reviews in Cultural Theory) “As the first definitive collection of essays on affect studies, The Affect Theory Reader demonstrates how the affective turn in academia has been, and continues to be felt, throughout a variety of disciplines.” - Marcie Bianco (Elevate Difference) “While a reader of the book might be left less rather than more sure of what precisely constitutes ‘affect theory’, or even affect itself, s/he is nevertheless very likely to be moved by the range of both thought and affective styles that make up the volume and constitute what the editors call in the introduction, an ‘inventory of shimmers’ (p11). This incitement to ‘more than discourse’, the capacity ‘to touch, to move, to mobilise readers’ (p24) is exactly what one would hope for from a reader of affect theory, and is what the contributions that make up this collection indeed achieve.” - Michael Goddard (New Formations)

• Acknowledgments ixAn Inventory of Shimmers / Gregory J. Seigworth and Melissa Gregg 1One. Impingements 1. Happy Objects / Sara Ahmed 292. The Future Birth of the Affective Fact: The Political Ontology of Threat / Brian Massumi 523. Writing Shame / Elspeth Probyn 71Two. Aesthetics and the Everyday 4. Cruel Optimism / Lauren Berlant 935. Bitter after Taste: Affect, Food, and Social Aesthetics / Ben Highmore 118An Ethics of Everyday Infinities and Powers: FÈlix Guattari on Affect and the Refrain/ Lone Bertelsen and Andrew Murphie 138Three. Incorporeal/Inorganic 7. Modulating the Excess of Affect: Morale in a State of "Total War" / Ben Anderson 1618. After Affect: Sympathy, Synchrony, and Mimetic Communication / Anna Gibbs 1869. The Affective Turn: Political Economy, Biomedia, and Bodies / Patricia T. Clough 206Four. Managing Affects 10. Eff the Ineffable: Affect, Somatic Management, and Mental Health Service Users / Steven D. Brown and Ian Tucker 22911. On Friday Night Drinks: Workplace Affects in the Age of the Cubicle / Melissa Gregg 25012. Desiring Recognition, Accumulating Affect / Megan Watkins 269Five. After Affect 13. Understanding the Material Practices of Glamour / Nigel Thrift 28914. Affect's Future: Rediscovering the Virtual in the Actual / Lawrence Grossberg (An Interview with Gregory J. Seigworth and Melissa Gregg) 309Afterword. Worlding Refrains / Kathleen Stewart 339References 355Contributors 381Index 385