This workshop took place on March 18 and 19, 2023. Read more about the the CFP HERE, the schedule here HERE, and the presenters in the dropdown menu.

Keep an eye out for future iterations of this workshop format! Email comparing.affects@gmail.com and max.j.dugan@gmail.com if you have any questions or would like to learn more.

How do Affects Compare?

This workshop explored this and other questions, namely:

What would a rigorous method of comparing affects look like? And how might it differ across disciplines and data types (e.g., sounds, sights, texts)?

How do power asymmetries shape the measurement, detection, and tracing of some affects against others?

What forces make an affect “work” in some cases and “fail” in others? What makes affects emancipatory or oppressive (or a combination of both)?

What affective comparisons are already embedded in theories of affect and power?

What can affective comparisons do for decolonial, postcolonial, and/or antiracist projects?

Thanks!

We (Heather Radwan Jaber and Max Johnson Dugan) couldn't have done this without the support of several people and entities. Principal among them is Donovan O. Schaefer, who has not only been an extraordinarily generous teacher and mentor, but also gave incisive feedback on various elements of the workshop. Emily Ganser was instrumental throughout the design process--most any good aspect of the posters was their doing. Cassandra Hradil was also an brilliant interlocutor for the website design. May we do justice to the support these individuals offered the workshop.

Many thanks to our co-sponsors for spreading the word about this workshop to their networks and for trusting us to further their important work. They are: at the University of Pennsylvania, the Department of Religious Studies, the South Asia Center, the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communications, the Center on Digital Culture and Society, the Middle East Center, and the Center for Africana Studies,and at Northwestern Qatar: the Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South.