The Politics of Passion ― Reframing Affect and Emotion in Global Modernity

The demise of the modern self-centred subject does not engender a waning but a politicisation of affect: The site of passion is now no longer the individual's interiority but the contact zone of intersubjective encounters. The public and political statusof the emotions thus becomes apparent, making visible how affects are embedded in and shaped by discursive regimes. Neither spontaneous nor overdetermined, passion is therefore not the other of reason but a deeply social energy that fuels political, cultural and everyday practices. The Politics of Passion combines theoretical reframings of affect and emotion in global modernity with analyses of concrete instances of politics of passion from above or from below. By including debates and struggles in Western, Asian and African contexts, the volume attends to the actual plurality of affective rationalities and politics beyond a Eurocentric framework.

Dirk Wiemann is Professor of English Literature at the University of Potsdam. His research areas are early modern republicanism and Indo-British cultural exchanges since the 19th century.
Lars Eckstein is Professor of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures outside Britain and the USA at the University of Potsdam. His research areas are postcolonial and decolonial theories and practices.