The subject of affect has gained academic traction in the last decade or so (Massumi 2002, Stewart 2007, Thrift 2008, Manning 2016), with several collections now being devoted to the topic (Gregg and Seigworth 2010; Clough 2007) and an on-line journal (http://capaciousjournal.com/past-issues/vol-1-no-1-2017/). The study of affect is multitudinous, however archaeological responses to the topic have tended to narrowly conceive affect in terms of the emotions or senses (e.g. Brady and Bradley 2016, Hamilakis 2013, Harris and Sørenson 2010). While these discussions are important, we argue that the study of affect has much more to offer archaeology.
The session aims to explore the potentials of discussing affect in the study of the past. Affect has been discussed in relation to encounters with archaeological art (Back Danielsson et. al. 2012, Jones and Cochrane 2018), and has also been discussed as a component of relational assemblages (Jervis 2019). Each of these approaches open up the possibility for a much wider analysis of affect. But can we explore the topic of affect beyond the study of archaeological art; how are other things affective? If we consider affects to be components of complex assemblages of people, things and other entities then affect also offers a powerful tool for exploring power in a post-human or multi-species scenario. To consider the capacities of assemblages of things is to simultaneously consider the power of things to affect.
In the exploratory spirit of affect studies, we are interested not only in applying affect theory to the study of archaeology, but also in exploring the capacity of archaeology to expand the dimensions and capabilities of affect theory.
Back Danielsson, I.-M., Fahlander, F. and Sjöstrand, Y. 2012 Encountering Imagery. Materialities, perceptions, relations. Stockholm: Stockholm university.
Brady, L. and Bradley, J.J. 2016 Who do you want to kill? Affectual and relational understandings at a sorcery rock art site in the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria, northern Australia, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 22 (4), 884-901.
Hamilakis, Y. 2013 Archaeology and the senses: human experience, memory and affect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Harris, O. and Sørenson, T. F. 2010 Rethinking emotion and material culture, Archaeological Dialogues 17 (2), 145-63.
Jervis, B. 2019 Assemblage Thought and Archaeology. London: Routledge.
Jones, A.M. and Cochrane, A. 2018 The Archaeology of Art. Materials, Practices, Affects. London: Routledge.
Manning, E. 2016 The minor gesture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Massumi, B. 2002 Parables of the Virtual. Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Stewart, K. 2007 Ordinary Affects. Durham, NV: Duke University Press.
Thrift, N. 2008 Non-representational theory. Space, politics, affect. London: Routledge.
Organisers: Ing-Marie Back Danielsson; Uppsala University, Sweden • Andrew Meirion Jones; University of Southampton • Ben Jervis; Cardiff University
9:30 | Rachel Crellin, University of Leicester | Affect and power – what difference does a word make?
9:45 | Elizabeth Arwill Nordbladh, Göteborg University, Sweden | Affective understandings, affective practices. A short discussion.
10:00 | Julie Lund, Oslo University, Norway | Kerbing Relations. Affecting By Using Pasts
10:15 | Oliver Harris, University of Leicester | Affect and post-anthropocentric architecture
10:30 | Andrew Meirion Jones, University of Southampton; Louisa Minkin, University of the Arts, London, UK | ‘Concepts have teeth’: capacities and transfers in the digital modelling of Blackfoot material culture
10:45 | Session organisers | Discussion
11:00 | - | BREAK
11:30 | Ing-Marie Back Danielsson, Uppsala University, Sweden | Affect as the last cry of objects and phenomena
11:45 | Yvonne O'Dell, University of Leicester | Affect worlds and Immanence: A Spinozan Archaeology
12:00 | Ben Jervis, Cardiff University | Ground Affect: Honestones and Emergent Capitalism in Medieval England
12:15 | Joakim Kjellberg, Uppsala University, Sweden | Moral and objects of affect in the medieval world
12:30 | Kristján Mímisson, University of Iceland, Iceland | The Affect of Relating. On thingly humans and humanly things
12:45 | Andrew Meirion Jones, University of Southampton; Ing-Marie Back Danielsson, Uppsala University, Sweden; Ben Jervis, Cardiff University | Discussion
13:00 | - | END