ABSTRACT
This chapter interrogates the contemporary emergence of affect as critical object and perspective through which to understand the social world. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Brain Massumi are well-respected contributors to contemporary cultural theory, and both have published monographs invoking affect as the way forward within that arena. The delights of consumerism, feelings of belonging attending fundamentalism or fascism, to suggest just several contexts, are affective responses that strengthen rather than challenge a dominant social order. As contemporary cultural theorists, both Sedgwick and Massumi know that they cannot simply propose a return to ontological certainty in order to alleviate the epistemological myopia they identify. In the first instance, the need for a new theory of the ontological requires displacing marginal theory and histories from a chronology of cultural theory. Furthermore, the cultural critic has to evidence their desire to move away from that imagined chronology by choosing choice.
