I think I've written a bit about how my research deals in part with a branch of literary theory called "affect theory". Literary theory is, broadly speaking, the selection of tools used to understand literature. It goes all the way back to Plato and Aristotle (both critiqued poetry, and Plato was actually really against the act of writing itself, claiming that it made our memories weaker), and tends to borrow from philosophy (Kant, Hegel, Heidegger), psychology (Freud, Lacan), economics (Marx, Engels), and linguistics (Saussure, Althusser), among other disciplines.
Within the past 20 years, a new approach to reading literature--affect theory-- has arisen, and it brings together a lot of disparate fields, including even physics and biology. Whereas the 20th century saw theorists of literature trying to cement its study as an objective science, affect theory brings the subject--the reader-- back into the text by engaging with his/her emotional experience.
Understanding affect theory has helped me understand myself in a more profound way. Once you gain the tools for understanding how emotions circulate textually (pretty much like all other ideas-through repetition), you gain a clearer understanding of the empathy required to even engage with texts. I used to always pull out my hair while reading, and I never understood why. Thanks to affect theory (and other experiences), I now realize that my body--though relatively still while reading--was primed for action because of the heightened emotional state captured by the events I was reading and imagining in my head.
I've recently been reading Canadian professor Brian Massumi's Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation, and I am mildly jealous that I didn't get to write a work like this first. He opens the book with the following sentences: "When I think of my body and ask what it does to earn that name, two things stand out. It moves. It feels." (1). Of course, these sentences then begged the question, "What does one do with a body that actively (consciously or not) fights feeling? That intentionally does not feel? What is that body then?"
I have yet to formulate a response for this, or to really parse these questions of feeling and not-wanting-to-feel, but the one thing that I have learned is that understanding affect theory only works if people know what emotions actually are and how they work within the body. You cannot study feeling if you cannot fully feel for yourself. For me, understanding affect goes hand-in-hand with embodiment practices like meditation, yoga, and pranayama.
Within the past 20 years, a new approach to reading literature--affect theory-- has arisen, and it brings together a lot of disparate fields, including even physics and biology. Whereas the 20th century saw theorists of literature trying to cement its study as an objective science, affect theory brings the subject--the reader-- back into the text by engaging with his/her emotional experience.
Understanding affect theory has helped me understand myself in a more profound way. Once you gain the tools for understanding how emotions circulate textually (pretty much like all other ideas-through repetition), you gain a clearer understanding of the empathy required to even engage with texts. I used to always pull out my hair while reading, and I never understood why. Thanks to affect theory (and other experiences), I now realize that my body--though relatively still while reading--was primed for action because of the heightened emotional state captured by the events I was reading and imagining in my head.
I've recently been reading Canadian professor Brian Massumi's Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation, and I am mildly jealous that I didn't get to write a work like this first. He opens the book with the following sentences: "When I think of my body and ask what it does to earn that name, two things stand out. It moves. It feels." (1). Of course, these sentences then begged the question, "What does one do with a body that actively (consciously or not) fights feeling? That intentionally does not feel? What is that body then?"
I have yet to formulate a response for this, or to really parse these questions of feeling and not-wanting-to-feel, but the one thing that I have learned is that understanding affect theory only works if people know what emotions actually are and how they work within the body. You cannot study feeling if you cannot fully feel for yourself. For me, understanding affect goes hand-in-hand with embodiment practices like meditation, yoga, and pranayama.
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