Affect as Phenomenon: Why Critics of Feeling Can Never Be Validated

Affect theory is the study of how we become emotionally affected by the objects surrounding us. Though this idea, in broad strokes, seems uncomplicated, it frequently encounters questions on the nature of feeling and the extent to which emotions are “true.” This thesis builds on the theory of affect developed by Sianne Ngai, and presents a new model for the operation of affect. Ngai’s book Ugly Feelings identifies a class of emotion that repeatedly interrogates itself in order to qualify its own existence. In an introduction, I interpret Ugly Feelings as a unification of theories analyzing emotional orientation, such as works by Lauren Berlant and Sarah Ahmed, and theories that connect the physical world and the feeling through affect, such as works by Brian Massumi and Gilles Deleuze. The main body of this thesis is a combination of poetry, which elaborates on both the synesthetic and political nature of affect, and an essay describing the new model of affect with an application to Claudia Rankine’s Citizen. Feeling is not precision, but rather impression. To be affected is to be thrust forward in time ahead of the moment of feeling, and to move in time with forces and phenomena that move the body to feel. I will demonstrate that error in moving forward with phenomena is more than a mistake, it is a failure to qualify emotion that throws feeling into chaos, and asks whether you have ever felt anything at all.