Roundtable: Criminology Through an Affective Lens II

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract/Description

Affect theory first arose in the humanities and social sciences as an analytical framework to conceptualize and understand dynamic emotional relationships between individuals and the social environment. Philosophers and psychoanalytic theorists have conceptualized affect as emotions and energies which are inherently transmissible between individuals and groups, and anthropologists and sociologists have theorized a circuitry of affect which suffuses encounters between individuals and the state as part of the exercise of governmentality. Despite the tremendous potential utility for affect theory to assist criminologists with conceptualizing crime and justice, affect remains surprisingly underutilized in criminological research. This second of two roundtables will further the discussion of how affect theory can provide insights of value to criminologists. Rosemary Gido will engage with the affective and material domains informing topics published in The Prison Journal over the past fifty years, Dawn Beichner-Thomas will provide gendered reflections on the emotion of confinement and detention, Robin Conley Riner will explore how alternative justice models achieve a different kind of justice precisely through encouraging encounters between participants, and Colleen Berryessa and Emily Greberman will examine the double-edged sword of remorse and emotions in research on legal decisionmakers.

Sub Unit

• Area XIV. Roundtables

Chairs

• Susan Dewey, University of Alabama

• Robert Werth, University of Southern California

Discussants

• Rosemary Gido, Indiana University of PA / Editor, The Prison Journal

• Dawn Beichner-Thomas, Illinois State University

• Robin Conley Riner, Marshall University

• Colleen Berryessa, Rutgers University

• Emily Greberman, Rutgers University