Methodologies of Affective Experimentation

We live in an era of experimentation – both if we look at the broader social world of politics, media and art and at the narrower context of academic knowledge production. This collection consists of 14 chapters by leading scholars in affect studies. They explore the affective dimensions of experimental practices related to, for example, activism, the COVID-19 pandemic, populism, sustainability, patient communities, music streaming, Jamaican dancehall, gangs, leadership, tourism and minority youth cultures. Experiments are understood as intentionally crafted milieus aimed at (re)presenting unnoticed aspects of the world, as non-linear processes with unpredictable outcomes, and as ways of giving the future a provisional form. The collection responds to a pressing need to understand the intersection between affect, experimentation and sociocultural change by offering empirical strategies to explore how, and with what consequences, experimentation is affective.

“This is a ground-breaking book that brings together some of the most exciting research from both established and new scholars, advancing and inventing creative methodologies to do justice to the field of affect studies. Building on Affective Methodologies (2015), edited by Britta Timm Knusden and Carsten Stage, the book explores a wide range of areas, including populism, creative writing, sound, emotion, interspecies pedagogies, socially engaged art and data analytics. Experimentation is explored as affective and performative events of sensuous entanglement that have the potential to attune to the invisible, hidden, unpredictable and silenced, bringing insights and knowledge into new thresholds of perception. Through a wide range of different experiments in method and knowledge production, the book outlines different affective strategies to explore the world and open up new forms of future-making. This is essential reading for affect scholars and scholars across the arts, humanities and social sciences interested in how to analyse affective processes.” (Lisa Blackman, Professor in Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK) 

“At a time when some wish to discipline affect theory with restrictive methods and closely cropped concepts, the efforts here to use “experiment” in ways that dilate around the unrecognized, the unpredictable, and open-ended futurity is thoroughly invigorating. These chapters are eminently practical and pedagogical – that is, the authors foreground different ways to invent or perform “method” while also guiding the reader through the specificities of their cases. This volume goes a long way toward demonstrating precisely what it is that affect theory can do, and how!” (Dr. Gregory J. Seigworth, Professor of Digital Communication and Cultural Studies, Millersville University, USA)

Britta Timm Knudsen is Professor of Experience Economy at the School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University, Denmark. She has published on difficult heritage, cultural studies, affect theory and methodologies. Recent books and edited collections include Decolonizing Colonial Heritage (2021), Global Media, Biopolitics, and Affect (2015), Affective Methodologies (2015), Enterprising Initiatives (2014) and Re-investing Authenticity (2010).

Mads Krogh is Associate Professor of Popular Music Culture at the School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University, Denmark. His research deals with practice, mediation and genre in popular music culture. Recent books and edited collections include Music Radio (2019), Tunes for all? (2018) and Populær musik kultur – i Danmark siden 2000 (2016).

Carsten Stage is Professor of Culture and Media at the School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University, Denmark. His research explores digital illness narratives, affect and participation. Recent books and edited collections include Quantified Storytelling (2020), Cultures of Participation (2019), The Language of Illness and Death on Social Media (2018) and Networked Cancer (2017).