The Evolution of Affect Theory: The Humanities, the Sciences, and the Study of Power

Across the humanities, a set of interrelated concepts - excess, becoming, the event - have gained purchase as analytical tools for thinking about power. Some versions of affect theory rely on Gilles Deleuze's concept of 'becoming', proposing that affect is best understood as a field of dynamic novelty. Reconsidering affect theory's relationship with life sciences, Schaefer argues that this procedure fails as a register of the analytics of power. By way of a case study, this work concludes with a return to the work of Saba Mahmood, in particular her 2005 study of the women's mosque movement in Cairo, Politics of Piety.

Designed for scholars thinking about affect and emotion in the humanities and social sciences, this Element also draws on the life sciences to reveal how affect theory can be used to analyse systems of power.