Creative paranoia: Affect and social method

Abstract

Over the past decade, various critics have proposed that scholars should turn from critical hermeneutics to engage with new modes of social inquiry. The common charge is that critique has become paranoid and cannot register the dynamic affects that vitalise everyday life. In response to this shift, my paper poses several questions. For instance, are the suspicious sentiments of critique so disconnected from our current civic atmosphere? And do the times and spaces we are living in truly demand methods that are less wary and reactive? To explore these questions, the paper examines an intriguing, internal conflict within Kathleen Stewart's Ordinary Affects (2007), a text that has been widely a..