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sam_bizar_wilcox's review
4.0
While some chapters are more compelling than others, Sara Ahmed represents an interesting intervention in queer theory, post-colonial writing, and, importantly, philosophy. The chapters (which can often be read as stand-alone essays) are incredibly attuned to contemporary social forces - in most cases extremely, and disturbingly prescient (published in 2004!) - as well as an individual's phenomenological experience. Thinking through societal ills and institutional forces from the perspective of an embodied individual, with their own fears and desires, is a stark contrast to the work of social theorists and philosophers that see humans as rarely active participants in their own stories. In its finest moments The Cultural Politics of Emotion offers a way to radically rethink what might be ostensibly clear frameworks, revising them into something new and far more profound. Ahmed offers a way of critique that is a worthy supplement to the theorists she cites throughout her book, and certainly altered my own perspective and understanding of the issues she outlines here.
tanemariacris's review
In addition to many useful concepts such as "affective economies" or the "stickiness" of emotions, here are some parts of the book that particularly affected me:
"the West gives to others only insofar as it is forgotten what the West has already taken in its very capacity to give in the first place." (22)
"Pain is evoked as that which even our most intimate others cannot feel. The impossibility of ‘fellow feeling’ is itself the confirmation of injury. The call of such pain, as a pain that cannot be shared through empathy, is a call not just for an attentive hearing, but for a different kind of inhabitance. It is a call for action, and a demand for collective politics, as a politics based not on the possibility that we might be reconciled, but on learning to live with the impossibility of reconciliation, or learning that we live with and beside each other, and yet we are not as one." (39)
"If we feel shame, we feel shame because we have failed to approximate ‘an ideal’ that has been given to us through the practices of love. What is exposed in shame is the failure of love, as a failure that in turn exposes or shows our love." (106)
"National love places its hope in the next generation; the postponement of the ideal sustains the fantasy that return is possible. If the failure of return extends one’s investment, then national love also requires an ‘explanation’ for this failure; otherwise, hope would convert into despair or ‘giving up’ on the loved object." (131)
"in the resistance to speaking in the name of love, in the recognition that we do not simply act out of love, and in the understanding that love comes with conditions however unconditional it might feel, we can find perhaps a different kind of line or connection between the others we care for, and the world to which we want to give shape. Perhaps love might come to matter as a way of describing the very affect of solidarity with others in the work that is done to create a different world." (141)
"Although the other may not be alive to create new impressions, the impressions move as I move: the new slant provided by a conversation, when I hear something I did not know; the flickering of an image through the passage of time, as an image that is both your image, and my image of you. To grieve for others is to keep their impressions alive in the midst of their death." (160)
"The hope of queer politics is that bringing us closer to others, from whom we have been barred, might also bring us to different ways of living with others. Such possibilities are not about being free from norms, or being outside the circuits of exchange within global capitalism. It is the nontranscendence of queer that allows queer to do its work." (165)
"we need to contest this understanding of emotion as ‘the unthought’, just as we need to contest the assumption that ‘rational thought’ is unemotional, or that it does not involve being moved by others." (170)
"To express hope for another kind of world, one that is unimaginable at present, is a political action, and it remains so even in the face of exhaustion and despair." (186)
This entire last paragraph of the concluding chapter:
"Emotions tell us a lot about time; emotions are the very ‘flesh’ of time. They show us the time it takes to move, or to move on, is a time that exceeds the time of an individual life. Through emotions, the past persists on the surface of bodies. Emotions show us how histories stay alive, even when they are not consciously remembered; how histories of colonialism, slavery, and violence shape lives and worlds in the present. The time of emotion is not always about the past, and how it sticks. Emotions also open up futures, in the ways they involve different orientations to others. It takes time to know what we can do with emotion. Of course, we are not just talking about emotions when we talk about emotions. The objects of emotions slide and stick and they join the intimate histories of bodies, with the public domain of justice and injustice. Justice is not simply a feeling. And feelings are not always just. But justice involves feelings, which move us across the surfaces of the world, creating ripples in the intimate contours of our lives. Where we go, with these feelings, remains an open question." (202)
"the West gives to others only insofar as it is forgotten what the West has already taken in its very capacity to give in the first place." (22)
"Pain is evoked as that which even our most intimate others cannot feel. The impossibility of ‘fellow feeling’ is itself the confirmation of injury. The call of such pain, as a pain that cannot be shared through empathy, is a call not just for an attentive hearing, but for a different kind of inhabitance. It is a call for action, and a demand for collective politics, as a politics based not on the possibility that we might be reconciled, but on learning to live with the impossibility of reconciliation, or learning that we live with and beside each other, and yet we are not as one." (39)
"If we feel shame, we feel shame because we have failed to approximate ‘an ideal’ that has been given to us through the practices of love. What is exposed in shame is the failure of love, as a failure that in turn exposes or shows our love." (106)
"National love places its hope in the next generation; the postponement of the ideal sustains the fantasy that return is possible. If the failure of return extends one’s investment, then national love also requires an ‘explanation’ for this failure; otherwise, hope would convert into despair or ‘giving up’ on the loved object." (131)
"in the resistance to speaking in the name of love, in the recognition that we do not simply act out of love, and in the understanding that love comes with conditions however unconditional it might feel, we can find perhaps a different kind of line or connection between the others we care for, and the world to which we want to give shape. Perhaps love might come to matter as a way of describing the very affect of solidarity with others in the work that is done to create a different world." (141)
"Although the other may not be alive to create new impressions, the impressions move as I move: the new slant provided by a conversation, when I hear something I did not know; the flickering of an image through the passage of time, as an image that is both your image, and my image of you. To grieve for others is to keep their impressions alive in the midst of their death." (160)
"The hope of queer politics is that bringing us closer to others, from whom we have been barred, might also bring us to different ways of living with others. Such possibilities are not about being free from norms, or being outside the circuits of exchange within global capitalism. It is the nontranscendence of queer that allows queer to do its work." (165)
"we need to contest this understanding of emotion as ‘the unthought’, just as we need to contest the assumption that ‘rational thought’ is unemotional, or that it does not involve being moved by others." (170)
"To express hope for another kind of world, one that is unimaginable at present, is a political action, and it remains so even in the face of exhaustion and despair." (186)
This entire last paragraph of the concluding chapter:
"Emotions tell us a lot about time; emotions are the very ‘flesh’ of time. They show us the time it takes to move, or to move on, is a time that exceeds the time of an individual life. Through emotions, the past persists on the surface of bodies. Emotions show us how histories stay alive, even when they are not consciously remembered; how histories of colonialism, slavery, and violence shape lives and worlds in the present. The time of emotion is not always about the past, and how it sticks. Emotions also open up futures, in the ways they involve different orientations to others. It takes time to know what we can do with emotion. Of course, we are not just talking about emotions when we talk about emotions. The objects of emotions slide and stick and they join the intimate histories of bodies, with the public domain of justice and injustice. Justice is not simply a feeling. And feelings are not always just. But justice involves feelings, which move us across the surfaces of the world, creating ripples in the intimate contours of our lives. Where we go, with these feelings, remains an open question." (202)
imangrilla's review
I was determined to finish this book, however need to read this chapter by chapter. To be better digestible to me, and so I can get better understanding. Will return to it soon