Se ec ee eS lect studies. The contsibutors inchide many of the central theorists of allel Rees ere conscious knowing thal rive ustoward movement, thought, and ever-changing forms relation, As La Can nae eet eee ee) ee ce een ee oe te ee ceenren mee | Libraries ness of alfet is opening up essing new insights in disciplines stom anthropol ee ee re ne enn enn ‘verse in subject matte, style. and perspective, the contributors demonstrate haw Ihuminates the intertwined realms ofthe aesthetic, the ethiea and the polittal ee ce en eer Pe eee ee Core ee ee ee en i ini lines, The Affct Theory Reader includes an interview with the cultural theory eee ncn ae oo esac ean ‘Concordia Universit Re ee ee een na aifect theory in various arens of study Se ee ee ee eee ee eo Pe ce etter eee tee ee as ee ee eee ELON het ee ee eee ee ee ee eee) this superb collection prove how any serious consideration of culture and polities needs Pee en See econ an ne eee! ee ae ee eee ey workplace allets in the information economy; from the siology of human mimicry to Pr een ae nee eee eee ee enna en see ec nts ee eee er enna pn et a ae ence ener even tc EON ART Race ey Pee cc eet em and Cultural Stadies the University of Syney. GREGORY J. SEIGWORTH isa professor of communication and eee tree eee PN Cea ere ca ety sin FECT THEORY READER Carr Cheon AN a Ratoe Tare(© 2010 Dake University Pres Alrightsrerved Printed inthe United Sates of Ameria on aie paper Designed by nner Hil. Type in Minion Pro by Keystone Typesetting In. Library of ‘Congres Canon in Publication Data ppea on hes printed pag of tht book. ‘Brian Matsuri "The Future Bit ofthe Ai Fat The Political Ontology of Threat” ‘wail publsed in Indesit and Vira, edited by Gran Pollock 1. B Tauris, 2000). ‘An cater vesion of Elspeth Probyas"Wrting Same” appearedin lsh Fas of ‘Shame (Mines, 2003) ‘A eats veson of Laren Beslan’ “Cr Optom” spared in diets 176) (2008):20-36 ‘Anat vesion of Nis Thrifts "Understanding the Material Practices of Glamour ‘speared in ural of Cultural Eonony (2008): 9-2. ‘An case version of Petia Clough’ "The Aflectve Tur: Plt Economy, Biomedi, nd Bodies appearedin Ther, Culture, and Soi, 2) (2008 In memory of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick 1950-2009coNTENTs Acknowledgments ix ‘An Inventoryof Shimmers 1 Gregory I. Seipworth & Melisa Gregg ‘ONE Impingements | Happy Objects 29 Sara Ahmed 2 The Future Birth of the Affective Fact: The Political Ontology of Threat 52 Brian Massuni 3 Writing Shame 71 Elspeth Probyn TWO Aesthetics and the Everyday 4 Cruel Optimism 93 Lauren Berlant 5 Bitter after Tase: Affect, Food, and Soci Ben Highmore Aesthetics 8onents 6 An Ethics of Everyday Infnities and Powers: Félix Guattari on Affect and the Refrain 58 Lone Bertelsen & Andrew Murphie = Incorporeal/ Inorganic Modulating the Excess of Affect: Moralein a StateofToral War” Ben Anderson 4 After Affect: Sympathy, Synchrony, and Mimetie Communication 8 Anna Gibbs 9 The Affective Turn: Political Economy, Biomedia, and Bodies 296 Patricia 7: Clough rouR Managing Affects 1 Effthe Ineffable: Affect, Somatic Management, anc! Mental Heal Service Users 229 Steven D, Brown & lan Tucker (On Friday Night Drinks: Workplace Affeetsin the Age ofthe Cubicle 250 Melissa Gregg 2. Desiring Recognition, Accumulating Affect 269 ‘Megan Watkins ve After Affect 2 Understanding the Material Practices of Glamour 289 Nigel Thrift 4 Affect’ Future: Rediscovering the Virtual inthe Actual 308 Lawrence Grossberg interviewed by Gregory J. Seigworth 8 Melissa Grege) Afterword: Worlding Refrains 339 Kathleen Stewart References 385 Contributors 38: index 385 ‘ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, Partway through the introduction to this collection, it will become clear why it was significant that I read Greys final daft while Iwas cramped on the floor of alte train during along and crowded commute. I write these words from a new home, having embarked on an experiment to disrupt some old habits and hopefully allow more time to register “the stretching” By sheer coincidence, during the final stages ofthis project, both Greg and I moved house on opposite sides of the world in the very same week. This is just one of the sweet synergies and sympathies we have shared over the yeas that T hope will continue long afer this publication Iti Greg’s venerable alac- rity asa reader that makes me so delighted that @ book now stands as an archive ofthe hope and sustenance I have gained from a defining intellectual friendship. Greg’ brilliant mind, graceful words, and contagious hospitality have made this far seater achievement than I could have imagined. Gur contributors have been more than generous in offering, words, afirmation, and patience during the long gestation of| thiscollection, We thank them for believing in us and persist- ing through the many stages—and hope they enjoy the result.Acknoledgmens “Two reviewers ofthe manscipt provided extensive and engaged feedback ‘hat helped us immensely. We thank them for ther time and encourage rent, knowing thatthe collection is tonger for thei suggestions. That we have @ manuscript at al is due tothe brillant editorial work of Bryan Behrenshausen, who hasbeen complete pleasure to work wih, We also thank Ken Wissoker for his enthusiasm and advice from the very beginning, and Mandy Frey for guidance inthe ater stages “Thisbook ook shape whi] was living in Brisbane, Australia, working at the Centre for Critical and ClrralStdies athe Unversity of Queensland For thee help collegiality and energy would like to bank Andrea Mitchel, Rebecca Ralph, Angela Mason, Manren McGrath, John and Lisa Gunes ny van Vuuren, Adrian MabbottAthique, Melisa Banta, Anita Hares, Jinn Ty, Anna Pertierra, Mar Andree and Zala Vole. For support- ing this idea and so many others, give sincere thanks to Graeme Tuner. ‘And for making Brisbane home especially gven that twas oust Begin with, my thanks goto Rachel OReilly, Zala Voli, Nadia Miner, Michelle Dicinoki and Heather Stewart "pth Probyn isthe main reason I became interested in af, adits her remarkable ability to enthuse tat allowed me to write these words and many moe for a ving, Iam forever gael For showing me how to think and write bravely, {also thank Eve Sedgwick, Kate Stewart, Lauren Beant Ros Gil, ara Ahmed, Genevieve Bel, Meaghan Moris, and Cath rine Drscol Finally, my deepest thanks go to Jaton Wilson, who has taught me the most important lesson about affect follow your heat. Melissa Gregg A register of speeds and slowness, relations of motion and rest this is what Deleuze said of Spinoza’s philosophy with its special attention to a body's affects. A book is also, as it turns out, very much all about motion and rest, speed and slowness. From start to finish, Melisa has try been a for © of nature, a great gust of wind, and never once flagged through the duration of this project. Ihave just tried to keep up with her pace, her eminently prac- tical and affective voice, her generosity of spirit. Across longitudes and lati- tudes, we found a rhythm (several actually) and a mutual capacity for the ‘modes of composition that go into making a book, a book of affect and affects, Or that remains our hope. Acnowledginents ‘And “hope” isin the air as 1 write these words. While Melissa composed her acknowledgments in the cramped space of a late-night train from Syd ney, write mine within another kind of cramped space, another kind of. long, dark train—it isthe end of eight yeas ofthe Bush-Cheney administra tion here in the United States. At this very moment, we are on the eve (literally, tomorrow) ofthe inauguration of Barack Obama, Iti difficult to register this change asa shuttling of mere incremental affective intensities. After eight years that have only felt more and more closed the potential for a ‘world, this world, to be otherwise-to open elsewhere, anywhere—is pal- ppable. So much, too much. Promise. We do not yet know. But there is @ collective hope, and that's start~an affecive/ affectionate start. ‘This book, for me, began over twenty-five years ago in Clarion, Pennsyl- vania, when Stan Denski mailed to me an essay by Lawrence Grossberg, In the years since, I have been fortunate to be able to count Stan and Larry as among my dearest friends. It would be impossible for me to sum up what Larry Grossberg’ ongoing work has meant to me (Ican only keep on writing as small recompense). Likewise, l am tremendously indebted to the inspired ‘work of, as well as my correspondences with, Meaghan Morris, Brian Mas- sumi, Karen Ocana, Gil Rodman, Greg Wise, Ben Anderson, Michael Gar- diner, Ben Highmore, Charley Stivale, and Nigel Thrift. Thanks also go to ‘my home institution of Millersville University, where [have been supported ‘while being lef fre to follow wherever, whatever I desire: in my research and in the classroom. A special shout-out goes to my Lancaster-York best pal Mike Jarret, both a remarkable sounding board for theories of every stripe and my constant supplier of sounds. Last, and never least, I thank Jackie and Kendall, Jackie has been around forall oft, affect through and through. Gregory J. SeigworthAN INVENTORY OF SHIMMERS Gregory I. Seigworth & Melisa Gregg How to begn when, after all, there is no pure or somehow coriginary state for affect? Affect arises in the midst of in between-ness in the capacities to act and be acted upon. Affect isan impingement or extrusion of a momentary or sometimes ‘more sustained state of relation as well a the passage (and the uration of passage) of forces or intensities. That is, affect is found in those intensities that pass body to body (human, ‘nonhuman, part-body, and otherwise), in those resonances that circulate about, between, and sometimes stick to bodies and worlds, and in the very passages or variations between ‘these intensities and resonances themselves. Affect, tits most anthropomorphic, is the name we give to those forces—visceral forces beneath, alongside, or generally other than conscious knowing, vita forces insisting beyond emotion—that can serve to drive us toward movement, toward thought and extension, that cam likewise suspend us (as if in neutral) across a barely registering accretion of force-relations, or that can even leave us overwhelmed by the world’s apparent intractabilty Indeed, affect is persistent proof of a body's never less than ongoing {immersion in and among the world’s obstinacies and rhythms, its refusals as much asits invitations.Sregny. Selgworth @ Meds Gogg Affect is in many ways synonymous with force or forces of encounter “The term “force” however, can be'a bit of a misnomer since affect need rot be especially forceful (although sometimes, as in the psychoanalytic study of trauma, itis), In fact, it is quite likely that affect more often trans pites within and across the subtlest of shuttling intensities all the minuscule for molecular events of the unnoticed. The ordinary and itsextra-. Affect is bbomn in in-between-nessand resides as accumulative beside-ness. Affect can be ‘understood then asa gradient of bodily capacity—a supple incrementalism ofever-modulating force-relations—that rises and falls not only along vari ‘ous rhythms and modalities of encounter but also through the troughs and sieves of sensation and sensibility, an incrementalism that coincides with belonging to comportments of matter of virtually any and every sort. Hence, affects always immanent capacity for extending further stil: both into and ‘out of the interstices of the inorganic and non-living, the intracellular dival- ences of sinew, tissue, and gut economies, and the vaporous evenescences of the incorporeal (events, atmospheres, feeling-tones). At once intimate and impersonal, affect accumulates across both relatedness and interruptions in ‘relatedness, becoming a palimpsest of force-encounters traversing the ebbs and swells of intensities that pass between “bodies (bodies defined not by an outer skin-envelope or other surface boundary but by their potential to reciprocate or c0-participate inthe passages of affect). Bindings and unbind- ings, becomings and un-becomings, jarring disorientations and rhythmic attunements. Affect marks a body's belonging to a world of encounters or: a ‘world's belonging oa body of encounters but also, in non-belonging,through all those far sadder (de)compositions of mutual in-compossibilities Always there are ambiguous or “mixed” encounters that impinge and extrude for ‘worse and for better, but (most usualy) in-between, In this ever-gathering accretion of force-reations (or, converse, in the peeling or wearing away of such sedimentations) lie the real powers f affect affect as potential: a body’ capacity to affect and to be affected. How does body, marked in its duration by these various encounters with mixed forces, come to shift its affections (its being-affected) into action (capacity to affect? Sigmund Freud once claimed, in his very earliest project, that affect does not so much reflector think; affect acts (1966: 357-59). However, Freud also believed that these passages of affect persist in immediate adja- ‘cency to the movements of thought: close enough that sensate tendrils con- stantly extend between unconscious (or, bette, non-conscious) affect and conscious thought. In practice, then, affect and cognition are never fully ‘An Inventory of hn ess separable—iffor no other reason than that thought is itself body, embodied. (Cast forward by its open-ended in-between-ness affect is integral toa body's perpetual becoming (always becoming otherwise, however subtly, than what italzeady is), pulled beyond its seeming surface-boundedness by way of its relation to, indeed its composition through, the forces of encounter. With affect, a body is as much outside itself asin itself-webbed in its relations ~ ‘uni ultimately such frm distinctions cease to™matter ‘in what undoubtedly has become one of the most oft-cited quotations concerning affect, Baruch Spinoza maintained, “No one has yet determined ‘what the boéy can do” (1959: 87). Two key aspects are immediately worth emphasizing, or re-emphasiing, here: frst, the capacity ofa body is never defined by a body alone but is always aided and abetted by, and dovetails with, the fiek! or contest ofits force-elations; and second, the “not yet” of “knowing the body” is still very much with us more than 330 years after Spinoza composed his Ethics, But, as Spinoza recognized, this issue is never ‘the generic figuring of “the body” (any body) but, much more singularly, endeavoring to configure a body and its affects/effecednes, its ongoing affectual composition of a world, the this-nessof a world anda body. ‘The essays of this collection are, each in their own way, an attempt to address this “yet-ness” ofa body’saffectual doings and undoings. Bach essay presents its own account of encounters with forces and passages of intensity ‘that bear out, while occasionally leaving bare, the singularly and intimately {mpersonal—even sub-personal and pre-personal—folds of belonging (or snon-belonging) to a world. That isthe unceasing challenge presented by Spinoza's “not yet” conveying a sense of urgency that transforms the matter and matterings of afect into an ethical, aesthetic, and politcal task all at cnce. But then, of course, Spinoza must have also understood that affec’s “not yet” was never really supposed to find any ultimate resolution. No one ‘ill ever finally exclaim: “So there i ss now, we know all that a body can do! Let’ call ita day” Iti this Spinorist imperative, ever renewed by the “not yet” knowing of affective doing, that drives affect—as well as those theories ‘that attempt to negotiate the formative powers of affect—forward toward the zext encounter of forces, and the next, and the nest and the next It would be, though, a rather serious misrepresentaton of contemporary theories of affect if we were to understand each of these “not yets” and their “nexte” as moving forward in some kind of integrated lockstep. There is no single, generalizable theory of affect: not yet, and (thankfully) there never willbe. If anything, its more tempting to imagine that there can only everego Sigmon & Meliss Giese be infinitely multiple iterations of affect and theories of affect: theories as diverse and singularly delineated aster own highly paticalar encounters with bodies, affects, worlds. (Isn't theory-any theory with or without @ capital T—supposed to work this way? Operating with a certain modest ‘methodological vitality rather than impressing itself upon a wiggling world like a snap-on grid of shape-setting interpretability)! Sut such a state of affairs might also go some distance toward explaining why fist encounters ‘with theories of affect might fel lke a momentary (sometimes more perma- ‘nent) methodological and conceptual fre fall. Almost all ofthe tried-and- ‘true handholds and footholds for so much critical-culturl-philosophical inquiry and for theory—subject/object, representation and meaning, ratio- nalty, consciousness, time and space, insde/outsie, human/nonhuman, identity, structure, background/foreground, and so forth—become decid- edly less sure and more nonsequental (any notion of strict “determination” or directly linear cause and effect goes out the window too) Because affect emerges out of muddy, unmedisted relatedness and notin some dialectical reconciliation of cleanly oppositional elements or primary units, it makes casy compartmentalisms give way to thresholds and tensions, blends and. blurs. As Brian Massumi (2002) has emphasized, approaches to affect would feel great deal less ike a free fall if our most familiar modes of inquiry had. begun with movement rather than stasis, with process always underway :ather than positon taken. It is no wonder too that when theories have dared to provide even a tentative account of affect, they have sometimes been viewed as nalvely or romantically wandering to far out into the groundlessness ofa world’s or a body's myriad inter-implcations, letting themselves get lst in an over~ abundance of swarming, sliding differences: chasing tiny firefly intensities that flicker faintly in the night, registering those resonances that vibrate, subtleto seismic, under the flat wash of broad daylight, dramatizing (indeed, forthe unconvinced, over-dramatizing) what so often passes beneath men- tion. But, as our contributors wll show, affect’ impinging/extruded belong- ing to worlds, bodies, and their in-betweens—affect in its immanence— signals the very promise of affect theory too: casting illumiation upon the “not yet” of @ body's doing, casting a line along the hopeful (though also fearful) cusp of an emergent Futurity, casting its lot with the infiitely con- nectabl, impersonal, and contagious belongings to this world, Affectual Orientations ‘So, what can an affect theory do? Unquestionably, there has been an in creased interest in various manifestations/conceptualizations of affect—as can be found ina growing numberof essays and books (suchas this one), ‘ella conference themes, special journal issues, symposia, and so forth, But ft would be impossible to believe that these diverse renderings of affect «an somehow be resolvee into a tidy picture. There is no single unwavering line that might unfut tovard or around afect and its singularities, let alone its theories only swerves and knottings, perhaps afew marked and unremerked intersections a wellas those unforeseen crosshatchings ofarticulationsyetto bbe made,refastened, or unmade. Traveling at varying tempos and durations within specific fields of inquiry while also sipping past even the most ead {ast of disciplinary boundaries (for example, the affective interface of neu- tology and architecture, anyone’), the concept of Yaflec” has gradually ac~ crued a sweeping assortment of philosophical/psychological physiological underpinnings, critical vocabularies, and ontological pathways, and, thus, can be (and has been) turned toward all manner of politial/pragmatic/ performative ends. Peshaps one ofthe surest things that canbe sid of both affect and its theorizationis that they will exceed, abveys exceed thecontextof their emergence, as the exces of ongoing proces. Undoubtedly the watershed moment forthe most recent resurgence of interest and intrigue regarding affect and theories of affect came in 1995 when two essaysone by Eve Sedgwick and Adam Frank (‘Shame inthe Cybernetic Fold”) andoneby Brian Massumn ("The Autonomy of Affect”)— were published. Not only has the theoretical content of these particular works proven to be invigorating (combining affect’ displacement of the centrality of cognition with affect theory's own displacement of debates over, the centrality of structuralism and poststructuralism) but the voice and Stylistics of their wriings—where alec serves as force and form-—havelke- wise contributed to ther wide circulation and considerable influence inthe ‘Yeas since. These twoessays from 1995, along with subsequent work under- taken by their authors have given substantial shape to the two domicant ‘ectors of affect study in the humanities: Sivan Tomkins'spsychobiologr of differential affects (i962) (Sedgwick and Frank) and Gilles Deleuze’sSpino- 2ist ethology of bodily capacities (1988a) (Massum). With Tomkins, afect follows a quasi-Darwinian “innate-st” bent toward matters of evolutionary hardwiring, But these wires are by no means fully insulated nor do they‘Gregory J Seigworth Melissa Grexs terminate with the brain o flesh; instead they spark and fray just enough to transduce those influences borne aig by the ambient irradiation of social relations, Meanwhile, Deleuze’s Spinozan route locates affect in the midst of things and relations (in immanence) and, then, in the complex assemblages that come to compose bodies and worlds simultaneously. There is, then, & certain sense of reverse flow between these lines of inquiry—a certain inside ‘out/outside-in difference in directionality: affect as the prime “interest” ‘motivator that comesto put te drive in bodily drives (Tomkins); affect as an entire, vital, and modulating field of myriad becomings across human and nonhuman (Deleuze). While there is no pretending that these two vectors of affect theory could ever be easily r fully reconciled, they can be made to interpenetrate at particular points and to resonate (see, in particular, the ‘work of Gibbs, Probyn, and Watkins inthis volume). ‘But there are far more than jut :wo angles onto affects theori now (and only for now), we can tentatively lay out, as @ set of necessarily brief and blurry snapshots eight ofthe main orientations that undulate and ‘sometimes overlap in their approsches to affect. Each of these regions of investigation enumerated for conveniences sake and in no particular order highlights a slightly diferent set of concerns, often reflected in ther ini- tiating premises, the endpoints of teir aims, or both, on, For | One approach is found in the sometimes archaic and often occulted practices of human/nonhuman nature as intimately interlaced, includ- ing phenomenologies and post-phenomenologies of embodiment as ‘well as investigations into a bedy'sincorporative capacities for scaffold- ing and extension (Vivian Sobchack, Don Ihde, Michel Henry, Laura Marks, Mark Hansen, and other). 2 Another is located along an intertwined line to the first item: in the ‘more recent but, in some ways, no less occulted (though better-funded) assemblages ofthe human/machine/inorganic such as cybernetics, the neurosciences (of matter, of distributed agency, of emotion/ sensation, and soon), ongoing research in artifical inteligence, robotics, and bio informatis/bio-engineering where life technologies work increasingly to smudge the affectional linebetween the living and the non-living). 4 The third is found in certain nonhumanist, oftimes subterranean, and ‘generally non-Cartesien traditions in philosophy, usvally linking the moverents of matter with « processual incorporealty (Spinozism): particularly as found in those contemporary approaches that try to ‘move beyond various gendered and other cultural limitations in phi An Lvewury fShimsers losophy, whether in feminist work (Rosi Braidow, lizabeth Grosz, Genevieve Loyd, and Moira Gatens), or in Italian autonomism (Paolo Virno or Mauriaio Lazzaratta), or in philosophically inflected cultural studies (Lawrence Grossberg, Meaghan Morris, Brian Massumi), or in politcal philosophy (Giorgio Agamben and Michael Hardt and An. tonio Neg 4 The fourth occurs in certain ins of psyeiologial and psychoanalytic inquiry where a relatively unabashed biologi: remains co-crtatvely ‘open to ongoing impingement and pressures fom intersubjective and inerobjectve systems of social desiring (carly Sigmund Freud, Sivan ‘Tomkins, Daniel Stern, Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, and so forth). I is similar tothe third item above, although generally more prone—by way of disciplinary expecations—toa categoria naming of affects and also quite likly to provide operationally defined contous for a particu- Jar range of affects, with ultimate aims that are offen more human- centered. '5 The fifths found inthe regulary hidden-in-plan-sight politically en- snged work—perhaps most often undertaken by feminists, queer theo- "st, sail activists, and subaltrn peoples living under the thumb of a normativizing power—that attends tothe hard and fast material- ties, aswell asthe fleting and lowing ephemera, ofthe daly andthe ‘workadly, of everyday and every-night life, and of “experience” (un-