Thinking through the Affective Skin: Affect-Based Literacy and Literary Orientations
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Date
2024-08-07
Authors
Habib, Mushira
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
My dissertation, “Thinking through the Affective Skin: Affective Literacy and Literary Orientations,” proposes affective ways of orientating our thoughts and skins to literacy practices, literary analysis, media consumption, and subjectivity formation. It contributes to the affective paradigmatic shift in critical theory by proposing its incorporation into education and the mechanics of knowledge production to acknowledge and accommodate multiple, alternative modes of producing and sharing knowledge, demonstrating comprehension, and projecting intelligence. I suggest that an affective orientation can shift affect’s analysis as an object of study to affect as study and analysis. The analogy of the skin envelops the mind-body duality to refer to affectivity as an open layer over and beyond corporeality or embodiment. Thinking through the affective skin, as an encompassing model, thus allows multiple affective regimes to be points of entry to thought and all thought to become points of reference for affectivity. It is an inter-disciplinary and multilingual project in its conception through an engagement with various genres of writing, literature, and media. In this project, I attempt an organic integration of critical theory, affect theory, composition theory, gender theory, postcolonial theory, media theory, cultural studies and writing studies. It is a multicultural project that situates my work in Comparative Literature within larger frameworks of literacy, intersectionality and affect. Thinking through the affective skin as an orientation brings to the forefront marginalized histories and forms of knowing and theorizing processes and purposes. It offers a multiplicity of groundbreaking models for pedagogical innovations and affective accommodations. It provides attention to previously ignored or under-researched details, nuances, and analyses of affective engagements. It can rationalize affectivities misunderstood, or not understood, prior to the affective orientation. In three chapters, I experiment with and exemplify different ways of engaging with affective writing. These chapters are thematically divided into three varied modes of literacy and literary engagements, while affectively connected via my affective orientation. It is a demonstration of thinking through my affective skin.
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Keywords
Affect, Affective, Literacy, Literature, Orientation, Pedagogy