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Affect and Literature

Affect and Literature

Affect and Literature

Editor:
Alex Houen, University of Cambridge
Alex Houen, Dana LaCourse Munteanu, Stefan Uhlig, John Protevi, Helen Thaventhiran, Ross Wilson, Jean-Michel Rabaté, Geoff Gilbert, Anthony Uhlmann, Sneja Gunew, Alison Denham, Benedict S. Robinson, Matthew Bevis, Derek Attridge, Christopher Nealon, Amber Musser, Ankhi Mukherjee, Stephen Morton, Margaret Ronda, Emily Horton, Amira Jarmakani, Andrew Murphie, Eric Jenkins, Claire Colebrook
Published:
February 2020
Availability:
Available
Format:
Hardback
ISBN:
9781108424516

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    This book considers how 'affect', the experience of feeling or emotion, has developed as a critical concept within literary studies in different periods and through a range of approaches. Stretching from the classical to the contemporary, the first section of the book, 'Origins', considers the importance of particular areas of philosophy, theory, and criticism that have been important for conceptualizing affect and its relation to literature. Includes ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, eighteenth-century aesthetics, Marxist theory, psychoanalysis, queer theory, and postcolonial theory. The chapters of the second section, 'Developments', correspond to those of the previous section and build on their insights through readings of particular texts. The final 'Applications' section is focused on contemporary and future lines of enquiry, and revolves around a particular set of concerns: media and communications, capitalism, and an environment of affective relations that extend to ecology, social crisis, and war.

    • Presents cutting-edge research on concepts of affect in terms of a range of literary genres: fiction, poetry, drama
    • Explores a large range of positive, negative, and aesthetic affects
    • Considers different interdisciplinary approaches to affect theory

    Reviews & endorsements

    'A seminal body of meticulous, informative, and deftly presented scholarship, Affect and Literature is an extraordinary and unreservedly recommended addition to community and academic library Literary Criticism & Theory collections and supplemental curriculum reading lists.' Jim Cox, The Midwest Book Review

    See more reviews

    Product details

    February 2020
    Hardback
    9781108424516
    470 pages
    235 × 160 × 30 mm
    0.78kg
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • Introduction: affect and literature Alex Houen
    • Part I. Origins:
    • 1. Poetic fear-related affects and society in Greco-Roman antiquity Dana LaCourse Munteanu
    • 2. Secondary affect in Lessing, Mendelssohn, and Nicolai Stefan Uhlig
    • 3. Affect and life in Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Bergson John Protevi
    • 4. Feelings under the microscope: new critical affect Helen Thaventhiran
    • 5. 'We manufacture fun: capital and the production of affect Ross Wilson
    • 6. Jacques Lacan's evanescent affects Jean-Michel Rabaté
    • 7. The durability of affect and the ageing of gay male queer theory Geoff Gilbert
    • 8. Affect, meaning, becoming, and power: Massumi, Spinoza, Deleuze, and neuroscience Anthony Uhlmann
    • 9. Translating postcolonial affect Sneja Gunew
    • 10. Making sorrow sweet: emotion and empathy in the experience of fiction Alison Denham
    • Part II. Developments:
    • 11. Feeling feelings in early modern England Benedict S. Robinson
    • 12. Laughable poetry Matthew Bevis
    • 13. Modernism, formal innovation, and affect in some contemporary Irish novels Derek Attridge
    • 14. The antihumanist tone Christopher Nealon
    • 15. Bette Davis's eyes and minoritarian survival: camp, melodrama, and spectatorship Amber Musser
    • 16. Affective form Ankhi Mukherjee
    • 17. Subaltern affects Stephen Morton
    • Part III. Applications:
    • 18. Affect and environment in contemporary ecopoetics Margaret Ronda
    • 19. Contemporary crisis fictions: twenty-first century disaffection Emily Horton
    • 20. Shiny happy imperialism: an affective exploration of 'ways of life' in the war on terror Amira Jarmakani
    • 21. The digital's amodal affect Andrew Murphie
    • 22. Digital special affects: on exhilaration and the STUN in CGI blockbuster films Eric Jenkins
    • 23. Cartesian affect Claire Colebrook.
      Contributors
    • Alex Houen, Dana LaCourse Munteanu, Stefan Uhlig, John Protevi, Helen Thaventhiran, Ross Wilson, Jean-Michel Rabaté, Geoff Gilbert, Anthony Uhlmann, Sneja Gunew, Alison Denham, Benedict S. Robinson, Matthew Bevis, Derek Attridge, Christopher Nealon, Amber Musser, Ankhi Mukherjee, Stephen Morton, Margaret Ronda, Emily Horton, Amira Jarmakani, Andrew Murphie, Eric Jenkins, Claire Colebrook

    • Editor
    • Alex Houen , University of Cambridge

      Alex Houen is author of Terrorism and Modern Literature (2002), and Powers of Possibility: Experimental American Writing since the 1960s (2012). His edited publications include: a special issue on 'Affects, Text, and Performativity' of Textual Practice (March/April 2011); and (with Jan-Melissa Schramm), Sacrifice and Modern War Literature: Battle of Waterloo to the War on Terror (2018). He also co-edits the international journal of poetry, Blackbox Manifold.