Critical Affect

Reviews / Votes

Ashley Barnwell challenges the clear-cut separation of critical and affective approaches, examining how longstanding ideas of critique and criticism are applied by the recent wave of affect theory across the social sciences. As much a methodological reflection as a critique of existing literature, Barnwell offers both a meditation on how to read with 'epistemic charity' and a very timely provocation on what it means to be in academia today. -- Anna Nguyen, Harvard University * LSE Review of Books * In Critical Affect: The Politics of Method, Ashley Barnwell challenges the clear-cut separation of critical and affective approaches, examining how longstanding ideas of critique and criticism are applied by the recent wave of affect theory across the social sciences. As much a methodological reflection as a critique of existing literature, Barnwell offers both a meditation on how to read with 'epistemic charity' and a very timely provocation on what it means to be in academia today. -- Anna Nguyen, Harvard University * LSE Review of Books * This illuminating evaluation of the turn to affect examines particular methods of reading. Barnwell reanimates possibilities for doing sociology by showing that both suspicion and creative generation are necessary in understanding the world. She is generous towards the theorists examined, beautifully modelling how to think critically without destroying. -- Mary Holmes, University of Edinburgh