Society for the Study of Affect

Fighting for Infection as if it were Wellness: On the Anti-Vax Moment

🌀 New Read: Jason Read's blog post captures the completely effed-up nonsense of life in the US right now: "The paranoid fear of the overreach of government contains a kernel of a fantasy that COVID never happened, or was never something to take seriously"
www.unemployednegativity.com/2025/09/figh...

🌑 "You are Hän, You are all people, Who are related to one another"

Starting the morning with an inspiring talk by local elders invoking core beliefs, thinking about ants, the moon, and relationality.

As of 9 AM in Albuquerque, New Mexico, #SCAR summer school has officially begun!

One more Capacious early view for your eyes: Xiaofei Yang writes about the 'rotten girls' of China. On China’s neoliberal transition, material and immaterial wellbeing, it uncovers how they are "simultaneously advancing and impeding feminism."

Read: capaciousjournal.com/article/rott...

In the new Capacious Early View essay, Sofia Di Gironimo takes you into the affective experience of a techno rave in Tiohtià:ke (Montréal). It "imagines new social arrangements beyond the limitations of discrete selfhood" through Deleuze, Spinoza, and more

Read: capaciousjournal.com/article/cj-6...

Another new piece up on 'early view' at Capacious! Jordan Etherington's essay is so cringe. Completely cringe. All cringey. Joining together the affect theories of Sara Ahmed and Silvan Tomkins, Jordan looks at how cringe is weaponized to punch down.

Read: capaciousjournal.com/article/cj-6...

A new early view essay is available to view on the Capacious website. Emily Martin writes about non-human erotics/desire and fungal whateverbeings and more. It is so smart and such a delight to read.
Find it here: capaciousjournal.com/article/cj-6...

🌀 New Read:
Jennifer Nash & Samantha Pinto’s “On Exhaustion: Toward a Post-Care Feminism” — open-access till Sept 6.

Expect more on the lines of:
“We begin with a feminist theory forged in the bathrobe...the exhaustion that is part of enduring”

Read it here: read.dukeupress.edu/differences/...

Link: computationalculture.net/where-positi...

🌀 New Read:

"Where Positive Flow Can Thrive," in which Tony Sampson tracks how UX merges with positive psychology to shape digital labor. Behind “user-centered” design lies affect and minimizing risk—workers become emotional probes in optimized, surveilled workplaces. Free on Computational Culture.

✨ Capacious Spotlight:

“I’m training for a feeling I don’t have yet.”
What if #LaurenBerlant 's writing is already whispering to our algorithms?

In the 2024 issue, Carolyn Pedwell & Eve Stowe ask how genre, infrastructure, and affect pulse through our digital networks.

doi.org/10.22387/CAP...

Thinking of these ideas from the SCAR summer school Seminar 3 description! If you have some thoughts, apply at affectsociety.com/scar/. Only a few seats left, due July 31

#affecttheory

Thinking of these energetic questions from the SCAR summer school Seminar 2 description! If you have some answers (or not), you can apply to join at affectsociety.com/scar/. Only a few seats left, due July 31

#affecttheory #interpellation

Seminar 2 and 3 are still accepting submissions! Run to affectsociety.com/scar/ and share all your amazing ideas about interpellation, sensing, SCAR, and more.

The text #SCAR

Why SCAR? Across various zones of elaboration, SCAR will be traced as an activating concept and as lived reality. Scars—invisible, interior, jaggedly present as a mangled landscape or relation. Our personal and collective bodies bear the mark of scars from events—even generations—long-past.

SSA #SCAR Summer School Affect and be affected at the second Society for the Study of Affect Summer School (SSASS). Co-hosted by the Society for the Study of Affect and Dr. Michael Lechuga at the University of New Mexico in ...

The Society for the Study of Affect is organizing a Summer School—SCAR from August 6 to 8 in Albuquerque. Seminars by Katie Stewart and @gregseigworth.bsky.social , Dylan Robinson and Oliver Shao, @brettonvarga.bsky.social and Asilia Franklin-Phipps. Find more: affectsociety.com/scar/