Reading and Writing Affect

Reading and Writing Affect is a monthly reading group and writing workshop that offers a thorough overview of the current field of affect theory and related discourses such as trauma studies and phenomenology. The study of emotions is a rapidly growing field of interest across a number of disciplines, including literary studies, geography, philosophy, biology, neuroscience, genetics, sociology, psychology, and cultural anthropology. 

The diversity of our reading selections and membership fosters interdisciplinary conversations and approaches across these areas. Our readings, discussions, and activities theorize the production and expression of affect in terms of reading both literary forms and socio-cultural contexts. Additionally, our writing workshops provide a space of support and feedback for those who are experimenting with affect-related methodologies, and/or with more embodied affective or autobiographical styles of writing, both academic and creative.

This year, our group is reading work by Baruch Spinoza and Gilles Deleuze, Elizabeth Anker, and Fredric Jameson. We also host speakers, including Kathleen Woodward, Director of the Simpson Center for the Humanities, Lockwood Professor in the Humanities, and Professor of English, who will discuss her book Statistical Panic: Cultural Politics and Poetics of the Emotions (Duke, 2009). Finally, we will be examining the work of Lauren Berlant in preparation for her talk as a Katz Distinguished Lecturer. 

Meeting Dates:
2:30-4:30 pm, Friday, October 9: Guest Speaker Professor Michael Rosenthal on Baruch Spinoza and Affect (HUB Room 238)
1:30-3:30, Friday, November 6: Affect Theory Conference Reports/Give Papers; Elizabeth Anker: Orgies of Feeling/Politics and Affect
1:30-3:30, Friday, December 11: Aesthetics and Affect
1:30-3:30, Friday, January 15: Reading and Writing Affect Meeting
1:30-3:30, Friday, February 5: Guest Speaker Professor Kathy Woodward
1:30-3:30, Friday, February 26: The Work of Lauren Berlant (in preparation for her Distinguished Katz Lecture)
1:30-3:30, Friday, April 8: Zach Tavlin on Phenomenology
1:30-3:30, Friday, May 13: Reading and Writing Affect Meeting