Emotions in Politics and IR Working Group virtual reading group, 'The Affect Theory Reader 2' (Session 5)

We are hosting the fifth session of the Virtual Book Reading Group on 'The Affect Theory Reader 2: Worldings, Tensions, Futures’, edited by Gregory J. Seigworth and Carolyn Pedwell (Duke University Press, 2023). This recently published volume revisits conceptualizations of affect, addresses omissions (e.g., race, indigeneity, decoloniality), and explore the potentialities of affect studies by embracing diverse perspectives, critical debates, and various world-building approaches. Our fifth book reading session will feature a talk by Michael Richardson (Associate Professor of Media and Culture, University of New South Wales, Sydney). 

Drawing on a transdisciplinary background in media studies, cultural studies, literature, and international relations, Richardson researches the intersections of war, surveillance, trauma, witnessing, and emerging technology. He is the author of 'Gestures of Testimony: Torture, Trauma, and Affect in Literature' (Bloomsbury 2016) and 'Nonhuman Witnessing: War, Data, and Ecology after the End of the World' (Duke UP, 2024). His chapter on ‘Algorithmic Trauma (Ch.20)’ explores the modalities of trauma induced by algorithms and the affectability of algorithms. In this last reading group, we will discuss 'how bodies are collectively enlisted, voluntarily and involuntarily, in affective process of social reproduction, often quite traumatically' (Seigworth and Pedwell 2023, 42) by engaging with the Part 5: 'A Living Laboratory: Glitching the Affective Reproduction'.

Please send any enquires to us (epir.group@bisa.ac.uk)

Registrations will close two hours before the event begins.