What is affect?

September 15, 2006 9:34 AM

What is affect?

I am taking a class that claims to look at the "Affective turn in post-structuralist thought/theory..." but naturally no one can give me a really good definition of what is meant by 'Affect' in this context, and ever day someone uses it differently. The wikipedia definition lacks the depth I want to really understand this concept, so i put it to the hive mind: what are all the possible definitions or uses of the term Affect in philosophy, critical theory, and academia more generally, and what constitutes the affective turn in post-structuralist theory?

posted by jrb223 to Religion & Philosophy (16 answers total)

"Affect" as a noun in normal English means roughly emotional state, especially the external behaviors that suggest what emotional state one is in. So, when something unexpectedly good happens, that might cause you to have positive affect (a good mood) for a while. A person with autism might have difficulty understanding how to read the signals about other people's affect.

I don't know what it means for post-structuralists, though. Based on the wiki, it looks like following up on Deleuze would be the way to find out.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:43 AM on September 15, 2006

A relevant concept there is affective fallacy. I don't think you are going to find much on "affect" --- the adjectival "affective" is the common descriptor. Think "affectation" -- something assumed and artificial rather than organic or natural.
posted by mattbucher at 9:44 AM on September 15, 2006

'Affect' as a verb is similar to 'effect change upon'. Perhaps the reference is to the change in impact and meaning that post-structuralism has had on philosophy in general.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:47 AM on September 15, 2006

From a psychology perspective, affect pertains to a person's emotions, and responses to the world around them. May be related to Existentialism
posted by mynameismandab at 9:51 AM on September 15, 2006

Blazecock Pileon, it's not that - 'affect' has a different meaning as a noun, and LobsterMitten has it.
posted by altolinguistic at 9:52 AM on September 15, 2006

'affect' has a different meaning as a noun

It could also carry different meaning as an adjective derived from the verb.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:02 AM on September 15, 2006

Response by poster: Blazecock Pileon, while I think that's an interesting way to go, the Affective Turn as I understand it is something that happened within post-structuralist theory itself, not something to do with the effects of that theory on things external to it... I certainly though think that the way its being used around me lately is tying together both the noun form (looking at emotion) and the verb form (looking at effects) as in the wikipedia link where it is briefly defined as "Empowerment." I don't know where that leaves the term though...
posted by jrb223 at 10:13 AM on September 15, 2006

I've always thought it meant the external manifestations of one's emotional state: i.e., facial expression, body language, tone of voice, clammy palms, whatever. Word choice, even.
posted by amtho at 10:21 AM on September 15, 2006

There is definitely a trend toward discussions of affect, in the sense of emotional/irrational aesthetic response, in certain humanities subfields over the last few years. An MLA Bibliography search for "affect" + "theory" turns up 109 hits, most from the mid-1990s or later. You might try doing a similar search and taking a look at a few articles' bibliographies to get a sense of where the discussion is coming from.

I don't know that much about it, though I've seen a few conference papers and read a few articles, so take my impression with a grain of salt. First, I'd caution that there is a buzzword-of-the-moment component to some of the recent affect-talk, so I wouldn't start from the assumption that there is a well-accepted technical definition -- rather, people use the word to signal that their work is part of an emerging interest in the emotional side of aesthetics. Second, my impression is that much of this discussion has to do with the way that affect resists rational discussion and formalization, and is inherently unpredictable, though it's certainly part of the aesthetic response.

If you find a good general source on the topic, please post it -- I'd be interested in seeing a nice general introduction to recent work on affect, both for myself and to have somewhere to direct interested colleagues or students.
posted by RogerB at 10:30 AM on September 15, 2006

As for the Deleuzian register of the term, A Thousand Plateaus is, I think, the right place to look. I won't even speculate on what it might mean there, though it's still likely to be at least tangentially related to the emotions. My search also turned up an interesting article called "Value and Affect" by Antonio Negri (in boundary 2, 1999) which seems like it's extending the Deleuzian use of the word into a more overtly political register.

Again, not my field, but I hope this helps.
posted by RogerB at 10:41 AM on September 15, 2006

In med school, we were taught to evaluate mood and affect as part of the mental state. These both have to do with feelings and emotions. To help us understand the difference between the two, a weather analogy was used: "mood" was described as a person's emotional climate, whereas "affect" was the emotional weather today at the time of the interview.

The idea that someone's current, discrete emotional state could be influenced by art; or that, indeed, this is one of the primary functions or meanings of art; is not particularly new.
posted by ikkyu2 at 11:08 AM on September 15, 2006

Basically, I think LobsterMitten and RogerB have nailed it. I would concur that much (but clearly not all) of this can be traced to the blossoming of an english readership for Deleuze -- although I don't know to what extent you want to tread in that territory yourself. Delightful, but headspinning stuff at times.

On prevew, RogerB... :)
Continuing the on preview: M.Hardt who worked with Negri wrote a good introduction to Deleuze, off the top of my head I can't remember how much he deals with affect in it. I believe that intro may focus more on Deleuze's early "apprenticeship" in philosophy as the title suggests (and thus covering Deleuze's work on Kant, Spinoza, Bergson in a dance with Hegel, so to speak...It's been a while since I read that). I am a bit fuzzy on this also as I'm no longer in this world, but you might find a fair bit of discussion of affect as it relates to his logic of sensation in Deleuze's book on the painter Francis Bacon (of all things).

Affect is a critical component in a lot of Lauren Berlant's recent work (which the link reveals) and, while being more than just this, she certainly bears traces of a sustained reading of Deleuze.

Where I think things get interesting is the effort of thinking embodiment as well as affect, which seems to be another "turn" that theory has taken... (you know: the linguistic turn was a while ago, and I've heard rumblings about the visual / graphic turn, then you've got your affective turn and your turn towards embodiment) this is echoing RogerB's buzzword of the moment comment, but I'm saying, jokingly, at some level how many more turns can you take before you've gone in circles.... :)

disclosure: I did some work with Berlant. She's a hoot.
posted by safetyfork at 11:19 AM on September 15, 2006

The "affect" is one person's sense of another person's emotional state, based on the other person's actions or demeanor. It can also apply to the emotional reaction to a painting, music or idea (e.g., post-structuralist thought/theory).

Insofar as post-structuralists seem willing to be understood, the "Affective turn in post-structuralist thought/theory" means, roughly, "Now that we've eliminated meaning and context from literary criticism, let's do the same for emotion."
posted by KRS at 11:54 AM on September 15, 2006

I took a psych class on emotions last year, and in the beginning we discussed the difference between an affect and an emotion. Pretty much, these things differ on levels such as intensity (emotions are much more intense), specificity/cause (affects tend to be diffuse, ie, positive affect, negative affect, and not directly stemming from an event, whereas emotions are more specific; for instance, happiness and love are both positive affects, but different emotions), and duration (emotions are typically short lasting, affects are not).
posted by hopeless romantique at 1:21 PM on September 15, 2006

For a quick sampling of people using the term "affect" in a po-mo sense, you might try searching the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. I find contextual use more useful (although less concrete) than a straight-up definition, and anyway I'd be hard-pressed to do more than agree with those upthread that you need to read Deleuze, etc. I'm actually baffled that your class hasn't answered this question; my profs used to love it (and now I love it) when a student brought the class back to reality by asking for a basic definition.

Note, if you're not at a subscribing institution you won't have access to the JHU guide, but I thought I'd be an optimist. And there's always the paper version...
posted by obliquicity at 6:14 PM on September 15, 2006

What others have said, just want to add-- I was reading a psych paper today on affect, which they memorably defined as "a whisper of emotion." I thought that was apt.
posted by Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson at 7:42 PM on September 15, 2006