The Evolution of Affect Theory: The Humanities, the Sciences, and the Study of Power

Elements in Histories of Emotions and the Senses

by Donovan O. Schaefer

Across the humanities, a set of interrelated concepts - excess, becoming, the event - have gained purchase as analytical tools for thinking about power. Some versions of affect theory rely on Gilles Deleuze's concept of 'becoming', proposing that affect is best understood as a field of dynamic novelty. Reconsidering affect theory's relationship with life sciences, Schaefer argues that this procedure fails as a register of the analytics of power. By way of a case study, this work concludes with a return to the work of Saba Mahmood, in particular her 2005 study of the women's mosque movement in Cairo, Politics of Piety.

75 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 30, 2019

About the author

Donovan Schaefer is an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned his B.A. in the interdisciplinary Religion, Literature, and the Arts program at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. His master’s and doctoral degrees are from the Religion program at Syracuse University. After completing his PhD, he held a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Haverford College. From there, he went on to teach in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at Oxford for three years before taking up his position at Penn in 2017. His research focuses on the role of embodiment and emotion in religion, science, and secularism.

Reviews

[Owlseyes · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Colbert's analysis of the message)

"Affect theory is an approach to history, politics, culture, and all other aspects of embodied life that emphasizes the role of nonlinguistic and non- or paracognitive forces.
...
How can a face shape political life? Why do we like music that is without words? This is what it means to be a body – to be an animal – and to be susceptible to power. Affect theory proposes that affects are the living matter of subjectivity"
...
...affect – that is, “precognitive sensory experience and relations to surroundings”.


The author says that Trump had the habit of watching his interviews tapes in 2016, ...but without sound.

Politics should be the domain of strong messages vehiculated through words or discourse. But when words are lies or when what "they" (politicians, namely) say is just "lip service".... when words have no meaning, then Affect Theory is valuable. Maybe. Or, through Affect Theory can we recognize the validity/Truth of the message? Maybe too. Affects and words matter. And yet, it sounds to me that the author is not much interested in the message per se, but on the ways in which the message is put out.

(Baruch Spinoza)

(Henri Bergson)

(Gilles Deleuze)

The philosophical works of Spinoza, Bergson, Deleuze and others thinkers, on affects, help the author framing his own view.

"For British member of Parliament Disraeli, speaking at Oxford in 1864 in the early aftermath of the shock of the Darwinian revolution, animal religion remained unthinkable: religion was the exclusive property of humans, an index of our participation in the divine fabric of the universe"
Donovan O. Schaefer in "Affects: Animality, Evolution, and Power"

Donovan O. Schaefer is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, at the University of Pennsylvania.

My view is not coincidental with Schaefer's, nonetheless. When I was younger I didn't like much watching classical music concerts on TV. Why images? what for? I was interested solely on the sound. So I would move way from the screen...or made it turn black....

CONCLUSION

The book has a lot to offer on philosophical and psychological perspectives on emotion, affect, feminism, animality, desire, yet little on power or politics. Much less on how did Trump win the 2016 election, or how he became a ferocious political animal, loved by many. Hated by many more.

Affects running wild as he moves (check on his visits abroad, namely, recently, to the UK) through dire straits (check on the Mueller Report and the attempts by Democrats to impeach him or put him in jail), one can only wonder: will he get "selected" [by the People, of course] in the 2020 election? The book says nothing about that. The author started by Trump. It should have ended mentioning Trump.


Just a little detail. Schaefer approaches a number of times the "animality" issue and that should be put in the right (political) context: it's, no doubts, a "progressive" ideology, trending, in our days. But there are other ways to look at the issue (animality).

Back to Trump and 2020. One would better ask Colbert. He knows better. For sure. Maybe he read(s) the message.Or the tweets.


Recommendation to Schaefer: try to read the words of this next political character: