The Affect Theory Reader

As an outsider (several degrees, but none in psychology) I found this collection of essays brilliant and revelatory. It brought to mind several of the emotional quandaries I've had for many years, and provided clues to an answer. Without thinking about it much, I had assumed that "affect" was another word for "emotion," but affect turns out to be more basic. Here's a useful definition from p.316 (Lawrence Grossberg): "... I am not sure that emotions can simply be described as affect, even as configurations of affect. I have always held that emotion is the articulation of affect and ideology. Emotion is the ideological attempt to make sense of some affective productions.” The chapter "Cruel Optimism" by Lauren Berlant is especially brilliant, and the reader might want to start there. That said, the prose can be tough going for the non-specialist, e.g., "Preemption's logical regress from actual fact makes for a disjointedness between its legitimating discourse and the objective content of the present context, which its affirmations ostensibly reference." But the reward is worth the struggle.

The editors generously and transparently lay out their relationship to affect theory and to the making of this reader. There are a wide range of essays inside, so you can pick and choose what seems relevant or accessible to you for a given context. I appreciated having this in my collection.

I needed this book for a class, so I thought it would be a good purchase for my kindle fire and it is. The only problem I have is that there are no page numbers and therefore no way for me to cite this item. So if you are a student thinking to lighten your totebag load be warned this is not fornatted like a book so you can't cite it.

Fun! Great intro. Great refrain. Lots of nice, lovely essays!

Pure, unintelligible gibberish. So bad it's kind of funny (like a certain kind of horror movie). The various authors use the term "affect" to signify different concepts. It doesn't shine a very impressive light on Affect Theory.

Item as described