Insurgent Imaginaries

Session Submission Type: In-Person Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Protests and other forms of popular action capture our attention, and the chants, slogans and demands of those gathered reverberate in the public imagination. Yet the force of collective deeds and the fact of collective life exceed words alone. From visual spectacle to the material presence of bodies, from sensory experiences to affective energies, non-linguistic forms of representation play a central role in generating the public meanings attributed to popular action. Political theory, however, provides limited resources for understanding these non-representational registers as distinct modes of domination and resistance. This panel thus aims to conceptualize the multidimensional channels through which power and ideology operate alongside the material, sensory and affective character of popular resistance. In thematizing the aesthetics and affects of popular politics, we probe the possibilities and limits of conceptualizing political resistance beyond words.

Sub Unit

• Division 2: Foundations of Political Theory

Individual Presentations

• The Postcolonial Body: Injury, Repair, Recomposition - Banu Bargu, University of California, Santa Cruz

• Assembly, Affect and the Disorders of Desire - Stacey Liou, University of Florida

• Stench of Law: How Law Makes Itself "Real" by Transfer of Material Properties (Pre-Recorded) - James R. Martel, San Francisco State University

• The Force of Farce: Emperor Soulouque and the Art of Racial Caricature - Kevin Olson, University of California, Irvine

Chair

• Jason Frank Cornell University

Discussant

• Kevin Duong University of Virginia