ABSTRACT
The scratch changes the tenor of the space, echoes through bodies, and like a slipped needle on vinyl, cuts momentarily into the flow of the present. Drawing upon the Spinozist-inspired philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, Massumi argues that affects are not “mere” personal feelings but, rather, prepersonal and pre-cognitive intensities that augment and/or diminish a body’s capacity to act. While some contemporary affect scholars do use affect as a category that includes feelings and emotions, many tend to primarily characterize affect as an immanent social force. Shenila Khoja-Moolji, for example, has used affect theory to explore how complex intersections of hope, pity, and disgust have marked girls in the Global South as both sites of educational promise and as in particular need of Western pedagogical intervention. Schools offer different affective atmospheres for different groups of children and youth. There always exists the potential for new relationalities, movements, and social worlds to emerge and unfold.
