Universiteit Maastricht

News and Events

 


21st IRSCL conference, 10-14 August 2013. Maastricht, The Netherlands



 

 


The 21ST biennual IRSCL conference will be be hosted this year by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of Maastricht University in Maastricht, the Netherlands, on 10-14 August 2013.

The theme is: Children’s Literature and Media Cultures.

Click here for more information.

 






NICA Soirees – Approaching Affect


The soirees are fully booked

and registration has closed!

--------------------------------------------------------------------

What is it?


Affect is one of the buzzwords of contemporary cultural theory, yet at the same time it remains curiously ungraspable. Even the editors of the Affect Theory Reader do not provide a precise definition; they use their introduction to chart a range of “affective orientations” that do not congeal into a singular theoretical framework, but elude such disciplining by persisting as “an inventory of shimmers.” While there is nothing wrong with a concept that remains heterogeneous, there is a danger of reaching the point where a term is thrown about in scholarly work without seeming to require specification.


To prevent ourselves from assuming that affect is now so ubiquitous that it must have some meaning, and consequently becoming embarrassed to inquire what this meaning actually is, we propose to trace some of the routes (rather than roots) of affect by looking at the different, yet highly particular, ways in which it has been approached by different theorists. We will do this in a series of four soirees in the second semester of 2012-2013. A public guest lecture by Heather Love, Associate Professor of English at University of Pennsylvania, and author of Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History (Harvard University Press, 2007), in January 2014 will constitute an epilogue (and perhaps an impetus for further meetings).


Approaching Affect Soirees
NICA/ASCA/AMC Event, Spring 2013
Organized by Eliza Steinbock (UM) and Esther Peeren (UvA)


Time:
17:00 – 20:00
Format:
guest speaker 30min
respondent 10min
presentation discussion 20min
break dinner 45min
text discussion 75min
Locations:
Maastricht University: Grote Gracht 80-82 (Soiron building of Faculty of Art and Social Sciences), Spiegelzaal on 1st Floor
University of Amsterdam: 2.13 BG5 (dinner in Atrium)

The focus of the sessions will be as follows [all texts can be found in our dropbox]:
Thursday 16 May 2013 (Amsterdam):
Tomkins/Sedgwick/Probyn
Speaker: Ernst v. Alphen
Respondent: Lies Wesseling
Texts:
1)     Tomkins, Silvan. “What are Affects?” Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins Reader. Ed. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Adam Frank. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. 33-74.
2)     Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. “Shame, Theatricality, and Queer Performativity: Henry James’s The Art of the Novel.” Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. 35-66.
3)     Probyn, Elsbeth. “Everyday Shame.” Cultural Studies 18.2/3 (2004): 328-49.
 
Thursday 6 June 2013 (Amsterdam):
Ngai/Love/Hemmings/Mazzarella
Speaker: Eliza Steinbock
Respondent: Esther Peeren
Texts:
1)     Ngai, Sianne. “The Cuteness of the Avant-Garde.” Critical Inquiry 31 (2005): 811-47.
2)     Love, Heather. “Spoiled Identity: Stephen Gordon’s Loneliness and the Difficulties of Queer History.” GLQ 7.4 (2001): 487-519.
3)     Hemmings, Clare. “Invoking Affect: Cultural Theory and the Ontological Turn.” Cultural Studies 19.5 (2005): 548-67.

4)     Mazzarella, William. “Affect: What Is It Good For?” Enchantments of Modernity: Empire, Nation, Globalization. Ed. Saurabh Dube. New Delhi and Abingdon: Routledge, 2009. 291-309.