Feelings of Structure
Explorations in Affect
How places, objects, fantasies, histories, and memories get under our skin and how we understand their affective connections.
Description
Sweatsuits and the apocalypse, the demands of a sofa, a life recalled through window frames, whale watching through cancer, the serendipity of geographical names … in Feelings of Structure, these are just some of the spaces and places, memories, and experiences addressed by the authors in writings that are multilevel explorations of the tangled-up nature of feeling and structure. Inspired by Raymond Williams's classic essay "Structures of Feeling" and influenced by the current discussion of affect studies, this collection inverts Williams's influential concept to explore the ephemerality of feeling as working in concert with the grounding forces of materiality and history. Feelings of Structure is a collection of twelve original texts that explores the weight of diverse encounters with a variety of configurations, be they institutional, spatial, historical, or fantastical. Featuring writers from a range of disciplines, this book aims for textual evocation in subject matter and approach, with essays that encompass multiple methodologies, writing styles, and tones. Experimental in nature, Feelings of Structure balances the need for concrete and specific observation with the ephemerality of experience.
Reviews
"Generously illustrated, beautifully written, and smartly arranged in the spirit of being site-non-specific, the essays invite free reading by configuring various feelings of structure into a resonating whole that reminds us of the poetic – that is, affective – genesis beneath the cognition-based knowledge of the world. Given the current interest in affect across the humanities, social sciences, and beyond, this collection is important reading for anyone who enjoys careful thinking and good writing about culture and feelings at large. Highly recommended." Choice
"This is a major book filled with powerful thinkers and writers. It’s beautiful." Kathleen Stewart, University of Texas at Austin
"From start to finish this is an extraordinarily accomplished, cohesive collection of essays. Each one opens with a particularly vivid form of anecdote or personal reminiscence, and then proceeds to reveal the social depth and connectivity of their cultural scene." Ben Highmore, University of Sussex