ABSTRACT
In each chapter I engage radical democratic thinkers to understand how a catastrophic event thwarts or enhances democratic sensibilities and practices. This chapter sets out my theoretical foundations. Struggling for a fulsome account of the event, my work tries to integrate the insights of radical democratic thinkers and struggles to remedy their shortcomings. Two schools of contemporary thinking on emotion and affect frame my project. Firstly, there are the vital materialists who adopt a post-humanist perspective that presumes human judgment is visceral. Secondly, there are radical democrats, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (populist thinkers), who focus on the volatility of the sign and its ability to persuade. While they help us appreciate how affective experiences lead to affective solidarity and further democratic sensibilities, their formalist approach doesn’t lend itself to explore how lively affects linked to negative emotions can lead to anti-democratic sensibilities. Both are my concerns. The concepts of affective solidarity (adapted from Clare Hemmings) and emotional reorientation (indebted to Sara Ahmed) help understand how harrowing events disrupt one’s being in the world and endorse critical inquiry, potentially getting translated into democratic sensibilities. Simone de Beauvoir’s problematic of the body as a situation links emotion to critical thinking and collective transformation. Not only can affective communication alter human dispositions, but convincing arguments and links to effective democratic movements are vital to foster radical democratic change. In contrast to the vital materialists and populists, she explores the significance of power relations and structures.
