Against Affect

Against Affect examines how the language of emotion is historically gendered and racialized. It questions a number of shibboleths about feeling and reason, and their relationship with progressive values, gender, and freedom in the 21st century. It argues that the popularity of the ‘affective turn’ in the academic humanities has coincided with the broader deployment of a public rhetoric that prioritizes and exploits feeling over reason. It explores the claim that prioritizing ‘feeling’ may not benefit those historically excluded from ‘reason’ – in fact quite the reverse.