Paul - many thanks for your response - I found it very helpful. Many thanks! Cheers,
Jay Singh, PhD, MBA
2003-04 AAAS Science & Diplomacy Fellow
On Tue, 29 Jun 2004, Paul Harrison wrote:
> Dear Simon,
>
> There is no one definition of affect and it has been and is being used
> quite differently by a number of different people in a number of
> different traditions. Currently the term is undergoing something of a
> renaissance not least due to, 1. moves (which have been underway for
> some time) within cognitive science to take emotions, embodied activity,
> the affectual seriously, as modes of 'cognition in action' or
> 'pre-cognition' 2. the continued influence of the writing of Deleuze and
> Guattari in Anglophone social science. 3. the cross-over of these two
> lines! Found in particular in the work of Brain Massummi, William
> Connolly and, to a certain extent Jane Bennett. 4. the continued import
> of the Freudian tradition, esp. via Lacan and Zizak. 5. Feminist
> accounts of embodiment, often influenced by one or more of the above.
> For example, the work of Elizabeth Grosz, Gail Wiess, Moria Gaitens,
> Genevieve Lloyd, Elspeth Probyen, Sara Ahmend. 6. an apparent
> reassessment and quite widespread re-engagement with the
> phenomenological tradition across the social sciences, in particular
> with the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In geography it is probably the
> work of Nigel Thrift and Sarah Whatmore which has gone furthest down
> this path of investigation.
>
> Deleuze draws the concept of affect primarily from Spinosa. In his
> important essay 'Spinosa and Us' he lays out the use of Spinosa's
> writing for contemporary theory, concentrating in particular on how
> thinking about the affectual leads to a rethinking of how we define
> bodies (apologies for the long quote but it contains a very good
> example):
>
> "Concretely, if you define bodies and thoughts as capacities for
> affecting and being affected, many things change. You will define an
> animal, or a human being, not by its form, its organs, and its
> functions, and not as a subject either; you will define it by the
> affects of which it is capable. Affective capacity, with a maximum
> threshold and a minimum threshold, is a constant notion in Spinosa. Take
> any animal and make a list of affects, in any order. Children know how
> to do this: Little Hans, in the case reported by Freud, make a list of
> the affects of a draft horse pulling a cart in a city (to be proud, to
> have blinkers, to go fast, to pull a heavy load, to collapse, to be
> whipped, to kick up a racket, etc.). For example: there are greater
> differences between a racehorse than between an ox and a plow horse.
> This is because the racehorse and the plow horse do not have the same
> affects nor the same capacity for being affected; the plow horse has
> affects in common rather with the ox" (1988 p.124 - 'Spinosa: Practical
> Philosophy)
>
> So what we have here is a relational definition of bodies; bodies
> defined not in terms of an identity, an essence, but in terms of
> capacities for connection (or becoming). This allows one to both keep an
> appreciation of the singularity of a particular body without
> essentialising any element thereof. Of equal importance this way of
> describing bodies is done so primarily in terms of potential and
> therefore considers the horizons of those bodies and how those horizons
> come to be as such. Hence for Deleuze the question of 'what a body can
> do' i.e. of its 'affective capacity' is an intrinsically political
> question in so far as it is about the ability of bodies to act, combine,
> relate, experience. Thus the question of 'affective capacity' is a
> practical political question in terms of the social forces which shape
> and seek to determine proper or appropriate affections; i.e. becomings
> and modes of relating. It is within this context that questions of a
> renewed and slightly different cultural politics take shape; one which
> is as concerned with practical ways of being and becoming and with
> events, with the passions and with the force of aesthetic practices, as
> much as with identity, representation and signification.
>
> Apologies for the long answer to such a short question.
>
> Yours,
>
> Paul
>
> Dr. Paul Harrison
> Department of Geography, University of Durham
> Science Laboratories, South Road
> Durham, DH1 3LE
> +44 (0)191 3341893
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: A forum for critical and radical geographers
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Simon Batterbury
> Sent: 25 June 2004 19:12
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: CRIT-GEOG-FORUM Digest
>
> what is "affect?"
>
> --
> Dr Simon Batterbury
> Currently in UK
> http://geog.arizona.edu/~web/simon.htm
>
> From mid July 2004:
> lecturer, SAGES
> University of Melbourne
> 221 Bouverie Street
> Melbourne Vic 3010
> Australia
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.geography.unimelb.edu.au/
>
>
>
> Quoting Automatic digest processor <[log in to unmask]>:
>
> > There are 2 messages totalling 196 lines in this issue.
> >
> > Topics of the day:
> >
> > 1. Translocal Subjectivities AAG 2005 CFP
> > 2. CFP: Playing with Mother Nature: Video Games, Space, and Ecology
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
|