Feelings of Structure: Explorations in Affect

by Karen Engle (Editor), Yoke-Sum Wong (Editor)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780773555723
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	11/30/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	23 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Karen Engle is associate professor in visual culture at the School of Creative Arts at the University of Windsor and the author of Seeing Ghosts: 9/11 and the Visual Imagination.
Yoke-Sum Wong is managing editor of the Journal of Historical Sociology and teaches at the Alberta College of Art and Design.

Karen Engle is professor of visual culture at the University of Windsor, author of Seeing Ghosts: 9/11 and the Visual Imagination, and co-editor of Feelings of Structure: Explorations in Affect.

Table of Contents

Figures ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction: Thinking Feeling Karen Engle Yoke-Sum Wong 3

1 The Sofa's Objection: Troublesome Things and Affective Emplacements Kimberly Mair 12

2 Imagining Nighttime Detroit Michael Darroch 29

3 Industrialism and the Time of Catastrophe: A Lesson in the Anthropocene Craig Campbell 48

4 Still Christien Garcia 67

5 The Tremendous Image: Viceland TV's Abandoned Series and the Persistence of Ruin Porn Lee Rodney Adam Lauder 76

6 Frames of Love, or Love's Perspective Adam Kaasa 86

7 Touched by a Whale Lesley Stern 99

8 Time Gets Strange: Texan Hard-Luck Stories Joey Russo 106

9 The Future Is Hybrid: Isamu Noguchi and the Mid-Century Modern Yoke-Sum Wong 117

10 Coloniality and the Carbonscape: Reflections on White Settlement and Sociogeny from inside a Cookie Factory Mark Jackson 139

11 In, around, and under Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Karen Engle 162

12 Overwintering: On Robyn O'Neil's Apocalyptic Landscapes Lindsey A. Freeman 184

Bibliography 199

Contributors 213

Index 217

Editorial 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

From the Publisher