This course explores the realm of the intangible and
the unseen to think through `vibes', `energies', and
`sentiments? that are associated with situations in which
cultural formations are blocked, suspended or
mobilized. The task at hand is to attend to the ways
in which non-cathartic states of feeling
create affective spheres that mobilize public opinion.
Building up on a multiplicity of resources ranging
from visual material, Marxism, critical race theory,
queer studies, feminism, psychoanalysis, and ethnographies
of militarism, the course explores a domain of politics
where that which is repressed is denied further by or
returns in spectral forms in cultural memory. The
course aims to stimulate reflection on affective
concepts in the ethnographic contexts where they
seem most at stake to explore the intersections
of gender, race, labor, and militarism and to problematize
the nationalist processes of fact and memory building.
|