ABSTRACT
Affect theory is not a settled method nor neatly delineated discipline. It is a dynamic field of scholarship that explores bodies, worlds, and forces that move and motivate things into relational existence. The multiplicity of conceptual arrival and departure points enrich its intellectual vibrancy, yet the diversity of approaches can also contribute to confusion (or even conflict) over basic questions such as, “what is affect theory and what can it do?” This chapter explores the rhizomatic terrain of affect theory and offers definitions of some key terms. This introduction discusses two major trajectories—the Spinoza/Deleuze trajectory and the Feminist/Queer/Cultural trajectory. Each approach pays attention to, and takes account of, bodies, their capacities and potentialities, and “thinks-with” affect in order to create encounters, interpret events, attune to this world and embody new ones. Affect theory may refuse the singularity of an origin story but affect and literature have always been entangled and this chapter aims to give literary scholars and those new to affect theory a guide to the major approaches in affect theory, as well as an overview of current and emerging trajectories of thought.
