Book talk - The politics of feeling: populism, progressivism, liberalism

We are very pleased to welcome Prof Ben Anderson and Prof Anna J. Secor for a discussion of their co-authored book, The Politics of Feeling: Populism, Progressivism, Liberalism. Both are Professors of Human Geography at Durham University whose work has been central to the development of affect theory in political analysis, and this new book represents a major contribution to understanding the emotional and affective dimensions of contemporary political life.

In The Politics of Feeling, Anderson and Secor make a compelling and provocative argument: that politics in the UK and US today is structured less by coherent ideological programmes or rational policy platforms than by distinctive affective formations, that is, by the ways in which uncertainty, loss, hope, and resentment are felt, narrated, and organised collectively. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, they argue, political affiliation has increasingly crystallised not around what people think, but around how people feel and how those feelings are given shape and direction.

The book identifies right-wing populism, progressivism, and contemporary liberalism as three competing modes of political attachment, each of which organises memory differently, orients expectations of the future in distinct ways, and cultivates particular emotional dispositions among its adherents. Crucially, Anderson and Secor show that these affective formations are never neutral: each privileges certain emotional registers while silencing or marginalising others, and in doing so embeds racialised, gendered, and classed hierarchies within its very structure. The result is a sustained and incisive critique of the affective infrastructures that underpin and constrain the current political conjuncture.

This is sure to be a thought-provoking discussion, and we very much hope you will join us.

Registration will close two hours after the event begins.