The Evolution of Affect Theory

Download or read book The Evolution of Affect Theory written by Donovan O. Schaefer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-30 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.