Economies of Affect Working Group
Wednesday, May 25th, 2011Call for Abstracts : ECONOMIES OF AFFECT WORKING GROUP
A long-held assumption in the social sciences has been that economic projects conflict with intimate, affective relationships in ways that render public and private spheres opposite to one another. Viewed as “individual” or “private,” emotions –sometimes used interchangeably with terms like feelings or sentiments– were seen as associated merely with the realm of an inner world, constructed as the opposite of reason, and thus inaccessible to social scientific inquiry. More recently, as the concept of affect has gained increased attention in several of the social sciences and humanities, scholars have used this concept to articulate new ways for thinking about power, inequality, and social relations more broadly.
Open to faculty and advanced graduate students in the NY-NJ Consortium (Columbia, CUNY, New School, NYU, Princeton, and Rutgers), the “Economies of Affect” working group will bring together scholars from a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields. The organizing concept “economies of affect” intends to highlight relations of power and inequality, aspects of state formation and imperial and colonial relations, distinct class, racial, and gender locations, and concerns with sexuality and racialization practices. We are particularly interested in approaches that are empirically grounded and concerned with issues of social justice, inequality, and power.
The working group will run as a combination of workshop, reading group and guest lecture series. Presenters will circulate their work in advance and receive comments from the rest of the group. We envision this working group as a first step in the development of a multi-year collaborative project that may include a conference, public lectures, publications, and research grant proposals.
We welcome abstracts in any of the following areas:
The place of affect in colonial contexts, nation-building projects, markets, and transnational and global movements.
The role of affect in the production of racialized and sexualized subjects
Affect and the production of personhood in cases where personhood becomes uncertain, questionable, or under siege within unevenly distributed fields of power.
Examinations of how affect may shape and/or be shaped by neoliberal economic practices.
Sentiments as criteria for knowledge production, conceptions of civility, production and sustenance of social hierarchies, and access to personal aspiration and citizenship.
Possible legal, social, and political consequences of the manifestation, articulation, and disciplining of emotions.
The working group will meet on selected Fridays from 12-2 pm, five times a semester during the AY 2011-2012. The location of the meetings will alternate between the campuses of CUNY-Baruch College and Rutgers-New Brunswick. A more detailed schedule of meetings will be circulated later in the summer.
Those interested in participating in the Economies of Affect working group should submit an abstract of the project that they will be presenting (500 words) and a current CV by June 15, 2011. The abstract and CV should be emailed to the working group coordinators Prof. Ulla Berg (uberg@rci.rutgers.edu <mailto:uberg@rci.rutgers.edu> ) and Prof. Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas (ayramos@aol.com <mailto:ayramos@aol.com> ).
This working group is co-sponsored by the Center for Cultural Analysis at Rutgers University and the Department of Black and Hispanic Studies at Baruch College.
