Working with Affect in Feminist Readings: Disturbing Differences

209 Pages·2010·1.29 MB·English

by  Marianne Liljeström

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Working with A ect in Feminist Readings
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ar Affect has become something of a buzzword in cultural and feminist theory
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n during the past decade. References to affect, emotions and intensities abound;
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J their implications in terms of research practices have often remained less
26 manifest. Working with Affect in Feminist Readings: Disturbing Differences
6 explores the place and function of affect in feminist knowledge production in
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2: generalandintextualmethodologyinparticular.Withaninternationalgroup
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t of contributors from studies of history, media, philosophy, culture, ethnology,
] a art, literature and religion, the volume investigates affect as the dynamics of
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t reading, as carnal encounters and as possibilities for the production of
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rs knowledge. Working with Affect in Feminist Readings asks what exactly are
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v we doing when working with affect, and what kinds of ethical, epistemologi-
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U cal and ontological issues this involves. Not limiting itself to descriptive
t accounts, the volume takes part in establishing new ways of understanding
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c feminist methodology.
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[ Marianne Liljeström is Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of
y Turku, Finland. Her research interests are in Russian/Soviet history, and in
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d feminist theory and methodology. Her most recent publications are Feminist
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d Knowing – Discussions on Methodology (editor, in Finnish, 2004) and Useful
a
o Selves:RussianWomen’sAutobiographicalTextsfromthePost-WarPeriod(2004).
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o Susanna Paasonen is a research fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for
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Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki. With an interest in internet
research, studies of sexuality and popular media culture, she is the author of
Figures of Fantasy (Lang, 2005) and co-editor of Women and Everyday Uses
of the Internet (Lang, 2002) and Pornification: Sex and Sexuality in Media
Culture (Berg, 2007).
Transformations: Thinking Through Feminism
Edited by:
Maureen McNeil, Institute of Women’s Studies, Lancaster University
Lynne Pearce, Department of English, Lancaster University
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y Other books in the series include:
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n Transformations Class, Self, Culture
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J Thinking through feminism Beverley Skeggs
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2 Edited by Sarah Ahmed, Jane Kilby,
6 Celia Lury, Maureen McNeil and Haunted Nations
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2: Beverley Skeggs The colonial dimensions of
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t multiculturalisms
a
] Thinking Through the Skin Sneja Gunew
y
t Edited by Sara Ahmed and
i
rs Jackie Stacey The Rhetorics of Feminism
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v Readings in contemporary cultural
i
n
U Strange Encounters theory and the popular press
t Embodiedothersinpost-coloniality Lynne Pearce
h
c Sara Ahmed
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tr Women and the Irish Diaspora
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[ Feminism and Autobiography Breda Gray
y Texts, theories, methods
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d Edited by Tess Cosslett, Celia Lury Jacques Lacan and Feminist
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d and Penny Summerfield Epistemology
a
o Kirsten Campbell
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w AdvertisingandConsumerCitizenship
o Gender, images and rights Judging the Image
D
Anne M. Cronin Art, value, law
Alison Young
Mothering the Self
Mothers, daughters, subjects Sexing the Soldier
Stephanie Lawler Rachel Woodward and
Trish Winter
When Women Kill
Questions of agency and Violent Femmes
subjectivity Women as spies in popular culture
Belinda Morrissey Rosie White
Pregnancy, Risk and Biopolitics Working with Affect in
Onthethresholdofthelivingsubject Feminist Readings
Lorna Weir Disturbing differences
Edited by Marianne Liljeström and
Feminist Cultural Studies of Susanna Paasonen
Science and Technology
Maureen McNeil Feminism, Culture and
Embodied Practice
Arab, Muslim, Woman The rhetorics of comparison
Voice and vision in postcolonial Carolyn Pedwell
3 literature and film
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0 Lindsey Moore Sociability, Sexuality, Self
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y Relationality and individualization
ar Secrecy and Silence in the Sasha Roseneil
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n Research Process
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J Feminist reflections
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2 Róisín Ryan-Flood and Rosalind Gill
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Working with A ect in
Feminist Readings
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Disturbing di erences
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n Edited by
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6 Marianne Liljeström and
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0 Susanna Paasonen
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Firstpublished2010
byRoutledge
2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN
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1 SimultaneouslypublishedintheUSAandCanada
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2 byRoutledge
y 270MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016
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a RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness
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a © 2010 Marianne Liljeström and Susanna Paasonen for selection and
J editorialmaterial
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6 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010.
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: To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
2
0 collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
t
a Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedor
y] utilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,now
it knownorhereafterinvented,includingphotocopyingandrecording,orin
s
r anyinformationstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwriting
e
v fromthepublishers.
i
n
U BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
t AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
h
c LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
e Liljeström,Marianne.
r
Ut Workingwithaffectinfeministreadings:disturbingdifferences/
[ MarianneLiljeströmandSusannaPaasonen.
y p.cm.
d b 1.Affect(Psychology)2.Feminism.I.Paasonen,Susanna,1975-II.Title.
e BF531.L5282009
d 305.42–dc22
a
o 2009014980
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ISBN 0-203-88592-9 Master e-book ISBN
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ISBN13978-0-415-48139-7(hbk)
ISBN13978-0-203-88592-5(ebk)
ISBN100-415-48139-2(hbk)
ISBN100-203-88592-9(ebk)
Contents
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y Notes on contributors ix
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a Introduction: Feeling differences – affect and feminist reading 1
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6 MARIANNELILJESTRÖMANDSUSANNAPAASONEN
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0 1 An affective turn? Reimagining the subject of feminist theory 8
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0 ANUKOIVUNEN
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t PARTI
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rs Affective attachments 29
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U 2 Creating disturbance: Feminism, happiness and affective
t differences 31
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e SARAAHMED
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[ 3 A sense of play: Affect, emotion and embodiment in World of
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b Warcraft 45
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e JENNYSUNDÉN
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o 4 Disturbing, fleshy texts: Close looking at pornography 58
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5 Expanding laughter: Affective viewing, body image incongruity
and Fat Actress 72
KATARIINAKYRÖLÄ
6 Daughters of privilege: Class, sexuality, affect and the
Gilmore Girls 85
LEENA-MAIJAROSSI
viii Contents
PARTII
Dynamics of difference 99
7 Differences disturbing identity: Deleuze and feminism 101
ELIZABETHGROSZ
8 Nomadic bodies, transformative spaces: Affective encounters
with Indian spirituality 112
JOHANNAAHONEN
3 9 Hips don’t lie? Affective and kinaesthetic dance ethnography 126
1
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2 ANULAUKKANEN
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ar 10 Ethics of empathy and reading in Shani Mootoo’s Cereus
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n Blooms at Night 140
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6 ELINAVALOVIRTA
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06 11 Beyond redemption? Mobilizing affect in feminist reading 151
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2 LYNNEPEARCE
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] 12 Crossing the east-west divide: Feminist affective dialogues 165
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it MARIANNELILJESTRÖM
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v 13 Working with affect in the corporate university 182
i
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U MELISSAGREGG
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re Index 193
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Contributors
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0 Sara Ahmed is Professorof Race and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths College
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y and works at the intersection of feminist, queer and critical race studies.
ar Her books include Differences that Matter: Feminist Theory and Post-
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n modernism(1998);StrangeEncounters:EmbodiedOthersinPost-Coloniality
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J (2000);TheCultural Politics ofEmotion(2004)and QueerPhenomenology:
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2 Orientations,Objects,Others(2006).HernextbookThePromiseofHappiness
6 is forthcoming with Duke University Press.
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0 Johanna Ahonen is a PhD student of Finnish National Doctoral School of
at Women’s Studies at the University of Turku and her doctoral thesis in
y] progress deals with gender, embodiment and sexuality in Indian-inspired
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i alternative spiritualities in Finland. Her research interests also include the
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e religious and the secular in the contemporary West, gender in Indian phi-
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ni losophy, Tantric and Shakta traditions, the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze
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and Deleuzian feminism.
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c Melissa Gregg is a lecturer in the Department of Gender and Cultural Stu-
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tr dies, University of Sydney, specialising in media, intimacy and work cul-
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[ tures. She is author of Cultural Studies’ Affective Voices (Palgrave, 2006)
y and co-editor, with Gregory J. Seigworth, of The Affect Theory Reader
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d (Duke University Press, forthcoming).
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a Elizabeth Grosz teaches in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at
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nl Rutgers University, New Jersey. She has worked on feminist and French
w
philosophy, particularly on theories of the body and theories of space and
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D time. She is the author most recentlyof Chaos, Territory, Art: Deleuze and
the Framing of the Earth (Columbia University Press, 2008).
Anu Koivunen is Associate Professor in the Department of Cinema Studies at
Stockholm University and a member of the Finnish Centre of Excellence
in Political Thought and Conceptual Change (Academy of Finland), The
Politics of Philosophy and Gender Research Team 2006–11. She is the
author of Performative Histories, Foundational Framings. Gender and
Sexuality in Niskavuori Films (1938–1984) (Helsinki: Finnish Historical
Society, 2003), and currently conducting research on ‘Moving experiences:
Affective turns in Cinema and Media Studies’.
x Contributors
Katariina Kyrölä is a researcher in Media Studies, University of Turku, and
finalizing her PhD research on fat bodies in contemporary media, affect
and corporeal viewing. She has published several articles on the topic and
co-edited the first Finnish anthologyon feminist politics of body size (Size
Matters! Helsinki: Like, 2007).
Anu Laukkanen is a PhD student of Folkloristics at the School of Cultural
Research,UniversityofTurku.InherPhDthesissheexploreswhatkindof
encounters between differentially positioned subjects are possible in the
field of belly dancing in Finland. Her main interests are intercultural per-
3 formances, feminist dance ethnography, and the role of emotions and the
1 body in the research process.
0
2
y Marianne Liljeström is Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of
r
a Turku,Finland. Herresearch interestsareinRussian/Soviet history,and in
u
n feminist theory and methodology. Her most recent publications are Fem-
a
J inist Knowing – Discussions on Methodology (editor, in Finnish, 2004) and
26 UsefulSelves:RussianWomen’sAutobiographicalTextsfromthePost-War
6 Period (2004).
0
:
2
0 Susanna Paasonen is a research fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for
at Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki. With an interest in internet
y] research, studies of sexuality and popular media culture, she is the author
t
i of Figures of Fantasy (Lang, 2005) and co-editor of Women and Everyday
s
er Uses of the Internet (Lang, 2002) and Pornification: Sex and Sexuality in
v
ni Media Culture (Berg, 2007).
U
t Lynne Pearce is Chairof Literary Theory and Women’s Writing at Lancaster
h
c University, UK. Her books include Woman/Image/Text: Readings in Pre-
e
tr Raphaelite Art and Literature (1991), Reading Dialogics (1994), Feminism
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[ and the Politics of Reading (1997), The Rhetorics of Feminism (2004) and
y Romance Writing (2007), as well as several edited collections focused on
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d issues of reception and epistemology. From 2006–9 she was director and
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d principal investigator of the AHRC-funded research project ‘Moving
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o Manchester: Mediating marginalities’.
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Leena-Maija Rossi is Associate Professorof Gender Studies at the University
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D of Helsinki. Her research interests include performativity of gender and
sexuality, and intersections of different aspects of identity, especially in
representations of visual culture. She is the author of the books Art in
Power (1999, in Finnish) and Hetero Factory (2003, in Finnish).
Jenny Sundén is Assistant Professor at the Department of Media Technology,
Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. Her research interests
are primarily in new media studies, science and technology studies, queer/
feminist theory and games. She is the author of Material Virtualities:
Approaching Online Textual Embodiment (Lang, 2003), and co-editor of
Cyberfeminism in Northern Lights: Gender and Digital Media in a Nordic